Mi mamá

This week I had the privilege of having my mom visit me in El Salvador!! She was in the highlands of Guatemala this past week working in a clinic. It was amazing to hear about her experience and learn about all the differences between Guatemala and El Salvador. I am just so proud that she decided to undertake such a difficult experience alone. And I learned more about my mom when she was young and realized how much we have in common.

She bravely took a Greyhound type bus from Guatemala city to San Salvador alone. I was so nervous for her to arrive just because so many things could have gone wrong. But on Wednesday, when she arrived, I had some communication issues (Spanish on the phone is rather difficult) with the taxi driver and so we left my house really late. Then we hit some bad traffic and I just kept hoping she was not waiting outside in the dark for me. We pulled up to the bus station and I just out, opened the door to find the room completely empty. I felt my heart speed up and sweat forming on my fingers. I ran around asking people in the area if they had seen a gringa that looked like me and no one had.

So the taxi driver, Salvador, said there was another station in the downtown area that she was most likely at. We drove across town in horrible traffic and at this point I was freaking out. I didn't know if the area was safe or if she was freaking out. And I was thinking the worse, that if she was not there that I would have no way of knowing where she was. So I was freaking out but trying to keep my cool with Salvador. As we got closer the area kept getting worse and Salvador kept saying how dangerous the area was so of course I was just getting more worried. As I walked into the station I saw my mom talking with someone so I just yelled her name, gave her a huge hug and just cried tears of relief and joy to see her.

It was a pretty surreal experience at first to have her experiencing my life in El Salvador. At the same time it solidified that this is my life and really happening. Luckily we were able to visit Las Delicias on Thursday morning. Most of the women I am with everyday were there. Denora's daughter had a baby on Monday and she was going on Thursday to pick her up but she heard my mom was coming so delayed picking her up for two hours so she could meet her. It was so special to share that with my mom and also to have the women to meet my mom.

We had a little time to just chat and share stories. It was a short visit but definitely worth the time! It was just amazing to share this with her. Luckily she made it safely back to Guatemala and will be relaxing for a few days in Antigua.

Tomorrow morning we leave for the campo (or the countryside) for a week. We will be staying with a partner at a family's home and I will be staying in a pueblo called Las Flores. I am excited but pretty nervous, so wish me luck!

Here are some photos from the visit:

"When you [in the United States] lose your luxuries, we lose our food"

Last Monday we were at Las Delicias and found out some hard information. Like I said before they have been running a comedor (lunch program) for 36 kids and giving them lunch 5 days a week. Well we found out on Monday that the program will no longer be running because they lost the funding.

A woman, by the name of Cristina, manages all the funding for the comedor and other programs related to the library. She informed us that a community from Spain had been funding the comedor but they have been on vacation for the last 3 or 4 months so they have not been sending money. So the comedor is out of money and will be closed at least until the end of the year.

We learned that it only costs $200 a month to feed 36 kids 5 days a week. That is incredible and such a small fee for so many people. I immediately thought of all the people I know who could donate to fix the situation but then I realized that it would not be sustainable because they could easily stop giving just as the community in Spain has done. There is such a disconnect between the people who donate money and the people who benefit from their donations so it makes it easy to stop giving. But if the donors were in the community and loved the kids as I have come to love them, they would never stop giving because they would understand how important it is for the children. Now some kids will not eat lunch and others will have one that is lacking in nutrition to sustain them.

Throughout Monday I felt my emotions building up and it was difficult to get through the day. I was feeling so many different things but I realized I was mostly angry. But this was an anger that I have never felt before. I could feel it raging throughout my entire body and had to keep my teeth clenched all day to get through my classes. I did not know how to deal with such an intense and foreign emotion so the only thing I could do was cry. I was able to sit down with the community coordinator of my house and try and figure out what to do. During our conversation I realized that a lot of the realities of El Salvador that I have been learning and experiencing this past month were finally sinking in and it manifested itself in the closing of the comedor.

On Wednesday I was able to talk with Cristina to better understand the situation. She explained that there is no funding available in El Salvador itself because the only options are with big organization. But these organizations have huge administration fees so you end up with very little amounts of funding. Since this is the only source, the people have to turn to the United States and to Europe to try and find funding. But, as with the example of the comedor, this funding is not sustainable so organizations are left depending on foreign aid that can be taken away at any moment.

This is a huge problem for organizations here but one way Las Delicias is trying to have more sustainability is with their food. They have been using the greenhouse to distribute crops to the community so the people will always have a source of food. They also want to use the crops to sustain the comedor so when money is short they still have a source. But this takes time and they are just beginning.

This past week I have just been trying to process this information and find a way to deal with it. My love has grown so strong for the community that it is painful to see the kids suffer because someone else has not kept their promise to support them. So all I can do is give more love to each person and show that someone cares for them.

Las cascadas

This was one of our first free weekends of the semester, which meant it was open for traveling. So I joined a group of five students from the program and we traveled out to Juayua. This is a town in the western part of the country 2 hours away from San Salvador by bus and only 1 ½ hours from Guatemala.

On Saturday we got up early to begin our journey. We took three different public buses to arrive at our destination. Thinking of public buses in the states, having to transfer three times can be a bit difficult but there are so many online resources and the buses are so safe that it is not that big of deal. Well the bus system here is quite different. First of all the buses are privately owned and there is no organization of the buses within their routes. Since there is no public system what ends up happening is people go to the United States, buy an old school bus and drive it back to El Salvador. Once back they trick out their bus, choose a route and begin working. The only way to know how to get places on the bus is to ask Salvadorans and hope they know the routes. Once on the bus, people pack on as tightly as possible and get closer than most Americans would be comfortable with. Luckily we made it out and back without any major problems.

After two hours of bus riding we made it to Juayua. We stayed in a hotel/hostal for $7 a night and the place was amazing. It is run by Salvadoran hippies who are really great. They welcomed us so warmly and went out of their way to make us comfortable. The place itself was so peaceful and a great place to just relax after an intense month. The main reason we went to Juayua was to see the cascadas (waterfalls). The hotel has a guide on staff so we were able to go with him to see The Seven Waterfalls.

His name was Douglas and was a short but well built young man. He led us through the mountains and coffee farms on the mountainsides to the waterfalls. We assumed that we would be in waterfalls so we all decided to wear sandals, which turned out to be a bad decision. This was no leisurely hike but an intense climb. The ground was slippery and muddy from all the rain with steep inclines and declines. Douglas also brought a machete to clear paths for us to walk. I couldn’t believe he had any idea where we were going because it felt like we were just wandering through the thick forest until we reached the first set of falls.

After the first falls we continued on until we reached a spot that seemed impossible to climb down but then Douglas pulled out a rope from his bag and attached it to a tree. I couldn’t believe what was happening but we used the rope to repel the first part of the mountain. Once we got to the bottom I realized that the only way down from there was down a waterfall. So he reattached the rope and we repelled down a waterfall with only our hands on the rope to save us. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

We stopped for lunch at the base of a waterfall and relaxed for a while thinking we had seen them all. Douglas then tells us there are 3 or 4 more set of falls to see so we continue on even though we are all feeling rather tired. The next set of waterfalls that we saw were my favorite. We were right at the base and looked almost straight up at the water misting off the rock wall with the sun right over the top of the mountain. It was absolutely breathtaking.

The final falls we saw were being used in part for a hydroelectric plant so there were tunnels connecting two sets of them. Douglas proceeded to get ready to jump in and I realized that we were going to go through the tunnel. I was scared out of my mind because the tunnel had about a foot and a half clearance from the water to the top and it got dark quickly. I felt myself beginning to panic and didn’t think I was going to be able to do it. But my friends were so great and really helped me through it. It was absolutely terrifying. With such a small space that I felt get shallower as we went and the water pushing us to go faster. But as we came out I realized I was still alive and how crazy of an opportunity it was.

Douglas was a great guide and really made our day wonderful. It was fun getting to talk with him and learn a bit more about the area. Once we got back to the hostel we learned that there was hot water in the showers. After not having a hot shower in a month, the water felt so amazing and I had forgotten what it felt like to feel clean and warm after showering.

That night we went to a bar/restaurant that the hostel owners own (we found that out later). It was a fun place but it felt more European than Salvadoran and there were many different types of people there. For instance I met a woman from Wisconsin who was born in Minneapolis and is working in San Salvador with her boyfriend. It was so crazy to talk with her about her time here and yet talk about home too. Later on there was live music and I never fully understood who was who and what exactly was going on between the restaurant and hostel but it was such a great environment that it did not matter. It was great to get away for the weekend and just recharge. It was also liberating to be on my own and dictate the day without being told what to do.

I almost forgot but I had my first experience of being ripped off. We were walking around Juayua and stopped at a booth selling movies. He had Harry Potter 7 Part 2 for $1 and I asked him twice to ensure that it was in English and he reassured me that it was. Well when I got back home we were so excited to be able to watch it. I stuck it into my computer and we realize that there is Russian (or another Eastern Eurpoean language) subtitled on the bottom, the voices are dubbed in Spanish and it is clearly someone recording it in the theater. It was pretty funny to realize what I had actually bought and now I realize the importance of testing the movies before buying them.

Overall it was such a great time and a good change of pace from the typical routine.
I tried uploading pictures but it was not working so I will have to try later.

Address

Also here is my address just in case anyone wanted to send some letters my way :)

Claire Wild Crea
Casa de la solidaridad
A-179
Antiguo Custcatlan
La Libertad
El Salvador, Central America

If you do send anything, keep in mind it will take 2-3 weeks!

El fin de semana (The Weekend)

It has been quite a while since I have updated but I have mostly been getting into more of a routine. I finally had a few weeks to figure out a rhythm and get my feet on the ground. Last week was a bit rougher just with trying to find my place and learn how I fit into my various communities. But this week has really been great. I feel myself getting closer to people in my house, to other Casa students and my praxis community. I feel comfortable enough to let loose and truly show my real self.

Last weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to stay at Las Delicias (my praxis site). Going into the weekend I was nervous and not sure what to expect but it turned out to be an amazing experience.

We arrived around dinnertime on Friday and were at the library playing games with some children from the community (mika=tag, uno, hielo y sol=freeze tag). I had a great time laughing and making a fool out of myself. The night turned into a giant slumber party as I realized that a woman from the library (Niña* Ruth), her entire family, Denora (the woman we are mostly with), her husband and a sweet girl from the community were going to be spending the night with us. We were crammed with 5 people on 3 tiny mattresses but it changed my relationship with the community, especially with Denora and Niña Ruth, in a way I cannot quite describe.
*Niña is a word used to show respect for a woman

Saturday we ate breakfast with a delightful woman named Isabel. She welcomed us into her home as old friends and gave us everything she had to offer. Fortunately we had a lot of time to spend with her and her family during the weekend.

We visited the school after breakfast. We spent our time in the kindergarten classroom playing and somewhat supervising. As an outsider looking in, I could not understand how the children were learning. They worked for a short amount of time and then would have a break but come back and just continue playing. The teacher would sit at one table and the kids would pass through so she could write the words they have to copy for homework. It did not seem efficient to me but at the same time it could work a lot better than our system of education.

The other aspect of Salvadoran education that has been striking is the lack of creativity. Creativity is not encouraged in the school in fact to a certain extent it is discouraged. The students copy whatever the teacher does and every picture has the correct colors. It is not something that is bad necessarily but it is just such a different way of thinking.

We returned to Isabel’s home for lunch where we continued learning the art of making tortillas. She served us chicken from their small chicken coop (without knowing that I am a vegetarian) which I graciously ate but it was a bit of a struggle. All I could think about was how generous she had been to share that with us and how could I possibly turn down a gift like that. After lunch she showed us all of her pictures of her family. It was then that I learned that her two sons are in New York. I could see and hear how much pain this caused her since she was not able to see them. She told me that she didn’t think it was worth having them in the United States and how she just wanted them back in El Salvador. It was hard to hear her pain and only be able to hold it in my heart without being able to ease her sadness.

Another person who lives with Isabel is her niece Marcella. Marcella is 14 years old and has a vida muy dura (hard life). When she was only 1½ years old her mom left for the United States and she was left with her father. Unfortunately her father did not treat her well and said “ugly” things to her. So she left to live with her aunt when she was quite young. Marcella does not attend school at this point and rarely leaves her home because people say horrible things to her in the street. So she does not have any friends. Can you imagine yourself, your daughter or your relative at 14 years of age dealing with such difficult issues? I wanted to so badly give her all my love and just be her friend. We invited her to join us in the library and hopefully we will get to spend more time with her.

The other person in their home who had a big impact on me was a man named Carlos. He clearly had some mental disabilities but was quite functional. Carlos’ mother died about 15 years ago and whatever family was left abandoned him. Isabel somewhat took him into her home. In El Salvador there seems to be a different culture surrounding people with disabilities. They are much more isolated from the general community and people make comments that they don’t realize are harmful and degrading. For example everyone just calls Carlos crazy and do not understand that he is just different. So Isabel has him do yard work in exchange for food but he never eats with them and he has to sleep outside at night. I just could never imagine treating Maddie or any other person with disabilities in the same way. I know a lot of those feelings come from how I was raised and what I have experienced but it doesn’t make it any less difficult to deal with.

Saturday night we learned how to make pupusas from Isabel and did a fairly good job for the first time. We ended up staying at Isabel’s home the second night. She gave us their two beds to sleep on while her and her husband slept on their couches. It was incredible to see how much she wanted us to feel at home that she did everything she could to make that happen.

On Sunday we visited homes in the community and met a lot of Denora’s friends. One of the homes that we visited was especially fun. The family was so excited to see us and talk with us. One of the girls was named Clarita (como yo/like me) and when she found out that we shared the same name she gave me the greatest hug and gave me all the love she could. That love she gave me right away just filled my heart and made me want to give my love to every person I met.

I went home after the weekend completely exhausted but so full of life.

From Left to Right: Me, Denora, Beth (my praxis partner)

L to R: Denora, Me, Laura (my other praxis partner), Isabel, Marcella

Beth and me in Isabel's house

Me, Beth and Isabel with the pupusas that we made!

Denora with a woman from the community with a bug they call esperanza (hope)

Me with a one month old puppy

All of us at Isabel's house