Sunday, February 17

Before we got started building, we had a day to explore some of the heart of San Salvador.

We woke up to a wonderfully delicious breakfast of typical Salvadorian food--fried plantains, beans, eggs with vegetables, melon, and freshly squeezed fruit juice. It was a great way to wake up in the morning.

Since we were headed off to Sonsonate after our time downtown, we had to bid farewell to the people at Casa Concordia as we left. I stayed there for much longer when I was down there in August, and I was sorry not to be able to spend more time with "Mama Trini" and her extended family.

We had an escort for the day--Carlos, the HES Church Coordinator. He turned out to be an excellent person to have along, as he was able to answer many of our questions, both about El Salvador in general and the various buildings we were seeing downtown.

First stop was the National Cathedral. From the outside, it looks fairly plain (especially when you compare it to the cathedrals of Europe), and it has beautiful paintings along the outside of the doors.

There was a mass just finishing up, so we stood in the back and observed a bit as Communion ended. The presiding priest was actually the Archbishop of San Salvador. Technically he's only in charge of the San Salvador area, but because it's the national capitol, he is expected to have a national voice and presence. Traditionally it has been a position of great power and influence (see more below).

The inside of the cathedral is just beautiful. I'll let a few of our pictures do the talking for me:


Below the sanctuary is another very special place--the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero. He was Archbishop of San Salvador from 1977 until he was assassinated in 1980. When he was appointed, governmental and church officials thought that he would be a great friend to the rich and powerful. But once he got into the midst of the abject poverty in the middle of San Salvador, he quickly became an advocate for the people and economic justice.

This earned him both the loyalty and love of the ordinary people and many death threats from elsewhere. At a time when news was highly censored, Archbishop Romero would use his sermons, which were broadcast nationally, as a way to spread the true news about killings and other acts of violence. In 1980 he was celebrating mass when a gunman killed him.

A week later, hundreds of thousands of mourners packed the plaza outside the cathedral for the funeral mass. Carlos, who was 12 at the time, was there. He remembered being in the crowd when sharpshooters with rifles and machine guns opened fire on the crowd. In the end, between the shots and the panic, somewhere around 60 people were dead (exact details are not known because of the civil unrest at the time, and will probably never be complete). Now, Archbishop Romero stands as a powerful figure of liberation theology and almost a patron saint in much of Central America. He has been named a "Servant of God," one of the first steps for canonization in the Catholic Church.

From the cathedral we went to the national artesians' market for a bit of shopping. Right off the bat, we knew the place was special because of the great mural painted on the wall of a covered area off of the parking lot. We were the only ones there, so we were the center of attention for all the vendors.

Typical handicrafts in El Salvador tend to center around wood--carvings, paintings, etc. There are some textiles, but often the textiles are made in Guatemala and brought across the border. However, painted wooden crosses are a very typical art. Some of them have images that are significant, but often the idea is to use bright colors as a symbol of hope and joy.

We ate lunch at a cafe called El Arco, a combination nursery and restaurant. It was up on the side of one of the mountains surrounding San Salvador, and we had beautiful views of the city in the valley below, as well as the San Salvador Volcano. It was great to see so many growing and blooming things in the middle of February. There were flowers and blooming bushes ready to sell, as well as some beautiful orchids hanging from the covered dining area!

We had a little while to wander around the nursery before sitting down to lunch. The restaurant specializes in sandwiches and desserts. We didn't take the chance to sample the desserts, but the sandwiches were excellent. We were also joined by Dagoberto (Dago), the head of the HES Sonsonate office. He ate lunch with us, then rode with us to Sonsonate so that he could give us some specific information about our build in Sonsonate. He is also someone I worked with in August, and he took very good care of us all week.

Our hotel is beautiful! It's called an "eco parque"--just what it sounds like. The rooms are small cabins, up the mountain from the restaurant and main office. Each of the married couples had their own rooms, while the rest of us split up into men and women and had large "familial" rooms--a double bed and two bunk beds. We had two such familial rooms that were in the same cabin, just on different levels, and the women took the lower level while the men took the upper floor. The setting was beautiful--luscious forest all around, a fire circle (where we were able to have campfires every night), two pools, and lots of flowers (the hotel also serves as a nursery). There were also animals: roosters and hens, and three very large geese that had the run of the place and also like to attack any humans that got too close.

As it turns out, there was something wrong with the electrical pump system up on our end of the mountain, so it was very common for the water in the joint cabin (and Ron and Cappie's cabin, since they were right next to the joint cabin) to go out. Once we figured out how to fix it ourselves, however, it dramatically cut down on the amount of time we were without agua.

After dropping our stuff off in the cabins, we went down to meet our mason, the site supervisor, and the family for whom we were building the house. I'll write more about them later, but it was a very pleasant way to get to know a little bit about them and for them to meet us before we were faced with the construction work. Plus, everyone was quite a bit cleaner than they would be for the rest of the week!

Saturday, February 16

This was an early morning. Our flight was just before 9 a.m. out of Dulles, so we aimed to be there by 6 so we would have plenty of time to check in and get through security.

But everything went well. There were no delays at any step in the process, and we all arrived safely in San Salvador.

There we were met by Patty Cordero, the Habitat Host Coordinator in El Salvador. She greeted us, got us to our bus, and then bid us a temporary farewell. El Salvador was hosting 4 different international teams, so the central office staff had to spread themselves around. Unfortunately this meant that we wouldn't be able to have someone with us at all times from the main office, but we were still able to contact them, and they would continue to check in as much as possible. It was very impressive the number of people who were there to meet arrivals. In El Salvador, it's traditional for entire families to meet and drop off travelers. This can make things crowded, but very festive.

Because we arrived just after 12:30 local time (El Salvador is one hour behind EST), we were a bit hungry. We had gotten breakfast on the plane, but we were ready for some food. We stopped by a very popular chain restaurant, Pollo Compero, on the way to where we were staying. The chain is known for its breaded and fried chicken, and many Salvadorians traveling back to the US will carry boxes to share with family and friends. Ordering was rather interesting due to language barriers, but between Ron and Cappie and the help of the Habitat volunteer, Glenda, with us, we managed to work something out for everyone, including the vegetarians. We also had fun with the motorbike delivery vehicles parked out back!

For that night in San Salvador, we were staying at the Casa Concordia, a rooming house that is associated with the El Salvador Lutheran Church. It is run by a wonderful woman named Maria Trinidad and her family. Her daughters help her prepare the meals and run the place, and her grandchildren and foster children are also around--playing, helping, and generally making the place bright.

After we got settled into our rooms, we had a few hours to kill before Pedro, another person from the Habitat El Salvador (HES) office, came to give us our orientation. Many of us took the time to enjoy the warm weather and cool breeze that were available. Kjersten was even brave enough to join the kids for a game of soccer.

Pedro gave us a wonderful introduction to El Salvador, giving us all sorts of great information about the housing crisis in the country, difficulties facing HES, and telling us some important safety warnings about how to take care of ourselves on the worksite in the coming week. Pedro himself would be with a Canadian team elsewhere in the country, since they needed a Spanish translator and we had Ron and Cappie!

After dinner we continued to explore our surroundings. A group went out to check out the neighborhood, and were able to get a great sense of life in that part of San Salvador. I hope that others who went on the trip will soon post and be able to share their experiences.

Don wasn't feeling well, but there was a group of nurses and dentists staying at the Casa Concordia as well, and they shared some of the medicine that they had brought to donate. This turned out to be a wonderful blessing, as Pr. Tom later came down with the same sort of illness. But because we still had medications from our first night, we were able to avoid seeking out additional medical attention and Don and Pr. Tom were able to stay with us as we built the house.

Home Again!

I know that if you're reading this, you don't have much information. That's coming, I promise! We didn't have internet access after the first night, so I apologize to those of you waiting to hear what we were doing.

I will have more detailed posts, and others will share stories and pictures, later this week as my schedule allows. But I wanted to say that we are all OK--there were a few minor illnesses along the way, but we met some nurses and other medical people during our first night, and they helped us immensely by providing the proper medications. I am also currently suffering from some allergic reaction to an unknown substance, but if allergies are the worst thing we come home with, that's great!

The trip was wonderful, and I cannot wait to share with you all what we have done. Again, thank you for your prayers and support--we could not have done this without you!

Arrival

Buenos Dias!

I apologize for the brief post, but our schedule is a bit tight.

We have arrived in El Salvador! The flight was excellent··everyone got to the airport without difficulty, and the flight was smooth and on time!

For lunch we stopped off at a typical fast food fried chicken restaurant that´s very popular here. Ordering was a bit of an adventure, but we all managed to get something to eat!

After we got here yesterday, we got an orientation to the country and Habitat El Salvador before having a chance to sample true homemade Salvadorian food.

Today we´re off to explore San Salvador!

Pastor Tom's view

From Pastor Tom:

I am looking forward to going with our team. I have been on several habitat builda and have lots of experience working on rehabbing my own homes and many homes for the homeless. Last year our church team, the Biloxi 9, went to The Gulf coast to help rehab homes for those who were flooded out by Katrina. We completely dry walled an entire house in one week. I have been to El Salvador back in the mid 80's during the war. The country and people are beautiful. The war was very sad. I hope that this trip will be a positive life changing experience one all of our team.