At the beginning of May we traveled back to Guatemala for the first time since coming to El Salvador in order to visit Shirley, Tom’s sister-in-law, who is back visiting the orphanage in Santa Apolonia. For Tom it was his first trip back to the orphanage in nearly 11 years and many things have changed. Obviously the kids are no longer the same as most of them have grown and left the orphanage, but we did get the chance to meet some familiar faces that knew him from when he visited the orphanage. The kids at the orphanage were great, full of energy and excitement, although REALLY draining. We’d like to send out some major PROPS for Tim and Shirley who must have had their patience strained constantly during their time spent there but we also know why you come back. It’s a great place with tremendous love and support for anyone who walks through their doors. While it was great to go back to Guatemala and especially nice to see Shirley again, we both noticed that something had changed about the feeling of Guatemala for us. We noticed that we are being to feel more at home in El Salvador and when the time came to return we were both happy to be back.
Last weekend we went with Gloria to visit her son (Julio), his wife and two kids, who live in the Department of La Libertad. If we had a car it probably would have taken us 2 hours to get there, but by bus and doing lots of waiting it took us 6. We also met Gloria’s mother, who is 75 years old and a spitfire. Although she has few teeth (that I could see) she talked more than anyone we’ve met thus far and really views life differently than her daughter (isn’t that usually the case). She is a very religious (Catholic) woman and with Gloria’s non-catholic more universal views of life, they had some interesting conversations. Gloria listened very well to her mother and does a great job of mediating as well as validating. Her mother also surprised Gloria a bit with saying that she was thinking of traveling to Nicaragua in August with a friend because she has never been there and she’s not getting any younger. Look out Nicaragua!
While we stayed with the family in their 3 room house, Julio and his wife gave us their bed to sleep in, while they slept on the floor (we thought in hammocks with their kids but found out later it was the floor). The hospitality of Salvadorans is amazing and really feels overwhelming at times. Gloria woke up in the morning with something crawling over her and we awoke some moments later to find the dogs in the room and having killed one of the mice. Another mouse (although these could have been classified as rats due to there size, about 6 or more inches each) we saw the run up along a basket near our bed before Gloria grabbed it in a shirt and took it outside (perhaps for the dogs). This all happened at about 4:30am yet Tom and I were so exhausted (and perhaps a little used to events like these) that we went back to sleep. Even though we were able to sleep in a bed, it was hard to sleep in a place that was strange to us. After we woke up, the morning consisted of hanging out with the family and getting to know them. Tom helped/watched Julio build a couple benches, with very minimal tools (a saw, hammer, few nails, and a type of hatchet). After getting everyone packed up we left their house by 11am in order to arrive back home at a descent time.
Finally we are in awe of how fast time has gone here. We have begun to be comfortable with our routines, life in the campo and have grown accustomed to the culture here. Soon we will be on a plane (in 9 weeks) to visit family and friends in Minnesota. The tickets were just purchased yesterday!! It feels like we are still experiencing a lot of culture shock here yet soon we will be experiencing culture shock in the states. Things that once seemed important in the US (such as my routine visits, at least two times a week, to Caribou coffee) now seems insignificant to the life we are living. We still have a lot to learn about the culture and the people here that make it so fantastic…..how do you live off of 1 or 2 dollars a day?? Many of you probably wonder what it is like to live in the country of a third world country and will have lots of questions for us when we return (which we will answer as best we can). Still, it is something that is hard to be explained and easier to experience through living. As one of the Salvadoran workers of CRISPAZ stated ¨It’s a whole different world¨.
-posted by Melissa
