Author: rakeeter

Our Salvadoran friends
by rakeeter
Compassion guides
Carla, David (siblings), Fernando and Susie.

Our guardians, guides and interpreters for the week were the four young people you see in the picture.  I was impressed with their diligence and dedication in seeing that our group worked through our itinerary safely.  El Salvador is a dangerous place and more so for Norte Americanos.  These four whippersnappers were ever vigilant lest we wander off and run amuck.  They were also good company.  Throw in our bus driver Nelson and it would be hard to imagine a more pleasant and capable group to spend the week with.

Ashlea
by rakeeter

imageThere came a downpour during our Wednesday home visit.  We were at another Compassion center and made the short walk to visit.  The rain demonstrated that the occupants of the house, which was pretty much the same as the one we visited the day before, would remain dry, mostly.  The husband and father was present in this family and they only had the two children, though there was another little boy, Santiago, to start with but we were told he was a neighbor boy.  This visit was briefer than the day before and our buss drove up the road to pick us up so we didn’t have to slide down the hill in the mud.  Ashlea (sp?) was a little charmer.  Her brother attends the Compassion center and is a pretty cute kid himself.

Jamie
by rakeeter

imageCompassion strives to help children develop in four areas:   spiritual; economic; social and physical.   There is a focus on helping them learn useful and remunerative skills.  At one of the centers we were introduced to a group of girls around 12 years old learning to sew.  They were just starting out in the class and the emphasis was on learning to measure.  I was singled out as the guinea pig and one of the girls, Jamie (just to my right in the photo), measured me for a pair of pants.  She measured around around my hips, waist, knee and lower leg.  When she measured my leg top to bottom she commented, “Largo (long)!”

Dog’s life
by rakeeter

imageDogs don’t have names in the less prosperous areas of San Salvador, and maybe not generally.  There are usually several nondescript examples of mixed heritage around and are ignored, left free to circulate among the legs in their perpetual quest for something to eat.  The only attention they get is the occasional kick if they get in the way.  These are half-hearted indignities though and inflict no pain.  Dogs enjoy equal status to the flies and chickens.   They seldom bark, perhaps because they have no claim on anything.

Tamales
by rakeeter

imageToday we made tamales from scratch, starting with shucking the corn and slicing it off the cob.  It was only by chance that either Wally or I didn’t lop off a digit in the process.  The women seemed more adept at handling the knife but you would expect Wally’s wife to be since she’s a chef.  After adding a little water to the corn we trooped down the street to grind the corn into something resembling grits.  Back at home we slapped the grits on a corn husk, added some chicken and wrapped our raw tomale in the husk for cooking.  There were so many hands helping me when I rolled mine that I can’t really say I made a tomale but I am now familiar with the process.  Cooking over a wood fire in an area, it couldn’t really be called a kitchen, with  no chimney took over an hour.   Fortunately there were enough gaps in the corrugated metal roof to vent most of the smoke.  Neither the omnipresent flies nor the skinny chickens seemed inconvenienced.