Where the Light Gets In

Hola hola! Here´s the latest from El Salvador....I´ve still been spending a lot of time at the school, playing with the kids, getting to know them, and helping out the teachers. I´ve been training with the girls soccer team as a portera (goalie). I am horrendous but they still insist I get better every day and I´ll be a wonderful portera my next year. During the afternoons I´ve ventured out to do house visits. This was quite intimidating at first but it has been so rewarding. I love it! It´s nice to meet the parents of the kids I´ve come to know pretty well. A typical house visit for me goes as follows--I walk down the dirt road, trek across a stream, a muddy pasture, up a hill, strattle some barbed wire fences, and finally arrive at someone´s place. I am accompanied by Luis, my 9yr old compadre, and 3 or 4 other young kids from the school. As the day goes on the slew of kids walking with me grows. Each house visit winds up with another kid walking along with us. When you show up at someones house here, they greet you with a big smile and a ¨Buenas!¨and then frantically flutter about until they find a plastic lawn chair to offer you (the quintessential Salvadoran furniture item). The first question I always get is, ¨Do you like it here?¨We chat about how much the rivers have risen with the rain, what it´s like when family leaves for the States, how much I love the fruit here, and which cows are for milking and which are for eatting. Yesterday on a house visit, as I was getting ready to leave, the mother told her kids to catch a chicken that was wandering around the garden. They chased it down, tied its feet together, and brought it to her. She dangled it by its legs and held it out to me....Para comer, Lléveselo en su cesta hija! (To eat, take it with you in your basket, dear!) So I thanked her profusely and gushed over how fat the chicken was and stuffed it awkwardly into my plastic basket where I carry my notebook, water, umbrella, and cell phone. I felt somewhat Salvadoran toting a live chicken home in my cesta. Not suprisingly, by the time I got home later that night...my notebook was covered in chicken poo. When I leave a house, the family asks when I will be back again to visit. I assure them I´ll come by again soon and head down the path. En route to my house I pass by one of the most theatrical, animated women I´ve met in my life--Niña Matía. She is a single mom to 9 children, and seems to be suspended in an elated state, even as she speaks of her daily struggle to put food on the table. She never breaks her smile. It´s incredible. She tells me how she imagines what my mom must feel like...Ï bet she is so worried about you, down here living in these conditions, so I said to myself, how would I feel if I was this gringa´s mom...Well, I´d want someone to take care of her and look out for her, and my love, that is exactly what I´m here to do for you! I don´t always have food, and when I do, it´s nothing fancy, but I´d like you to have some beans and tortilla with us.¨ So last night I had dinner with Matia and the kids...she made amazing coffee and talked and talked as I chowed down on some cena. She told me I should stay over at their house sometime because they have a new hammock. Matia sent her 3 sons to walk me home with a flashlight and I arrived at the puertón, greeted by Estefani, my 3yr old sister. So, life is good here in MC. I feel overwhelmed by the love and generosity I get on a daily basis. Tonight I´ve been invited to a fiesta rosa...Marlene is turning 15! Looking forward to that. Our ADESCO had it´s first meeting on Friday. Everyone seems a little overwhelmed about where to start, being that it´s brand new so I hope to alleviate some of that stress by getting some other ADESCO leaders from surrounding communities to talk to our ADESCO about how to get rolling. Well, it´s about time for me to go...A friend sent me this link, a news clip from our swearing in ceremony at the US Embassy--we made national news!! Of course, the shot of me in this video makes it look like I was bored and tired, but I assure you all that I was actually just pensive and reflective.

Check it out!

Swearing In News Footage