Travel – Page 5 – rakeeter.com

Jamie

Compassion 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

Dogs 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

Today 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.

Labor Day in Red River

by rakeeter

9th hole at Valle Escondido, par 5 uphill, maybe 190 yards to clear the water.

Ms Piggy — Comic relief next to the golf course

Cave trail — Maybe half a mile from No Trespassing sign along decent trail to cave.

Cave door — From sunlight through dark cave corridor to well lit cave

Gary and friends — These are the nice young folks that befriended us and helped get to the cave, poor old wrecks that we are.

One of the 15 steps depicting Jesus’s journey, this one represents Veronica wiping his brow.

The little Catholic church on a hill overlooking the San Luis valley.

Great Sand Dunes national park. Note, this isn’t one of the sand dunes. They are much, much larger.

Yearling bighorn sheep along the Red River valley

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Galveston

by rakeeter

Cornet — Galveston, just off the Strand (click to enlarge).

It was warm under a sunny sky when we got back to Garland Saturday. Our return was delayed by a day due to icy conditions in Houston Friday morning when we originally planned to start home from Galveston. The sensible thing to do seemed to be to hunker down and not take our chances on the icy roads, so we booked another day in the hotel and settled down to make the best of it. As planned, we had visited some of the attractions Tuesday and Wednesday, both of which were pleasant days. The only time we ventured out Friday when it was cold and windy was for dinner Friday evening. Continue reading “Galveston” →