Walking With El Salvador

Staying safely at home is what most of us are doing right now.  If you have an outdoor space, if you have a yard, if you live near a park, if you can walk on a sidewalk, you know how lucky you are to have the ability to get outside during this pandemic.  San Salvador is a very crowded city.  Social distancing might seem like a good safety measure to observe, but in tiny spaces and on narrow, ramshackle sidewalks, it simply is not practical.  The proper use of masks is impressive, but there are just a lot of people.  So, we asked ourselves, what can we safely do outside of our home?  One idea:  A walk in Bicentennial Park. Saturday morning was cool and sunny.  Well, at this time of year, every morning is cool and sunny in San Salvador.  We masked up, put on our sunglasses and hiking boots, and took the short drive over to the park. Parque Bicentenario is a 225 acre reserve located on the border between San Salvador and Antiguo Cuscatlán, along...

As I was pondering the second destination of our virtual tour of El Salvador, I noticed that a persistent sound overpowers even the loudest of fans, the dog-barking and the car alarms, and that sound is the singing of birds.  I am not talking about the famous flocks of green pericos that grace us with their loud squawking (check out the story for Stop #1 on the virtual tour ), but the consistent chirps, whistles, squeaks and sing-songy garble which is the soundtrack of every, single day.  It is absolutely lovely. Stop #2 on our virtual tour:  Bird Spots January is a good month for listening to looking for birds in El Salvador.  Many species have escaped the frozen tundra of North America to hang out here in the warm sunshine.  As the dry season takes hold, birds congregate near lakes and rivers, in mountainside forests, and in city parks, home gardens and on university campuses. Often at this time of year, Bob is in El Salvador.  Bob has been a member of ev...

Keep writing and sharing photos—so all of us who can’t be there can still feel the warmth and love from El Salvador. This message just arrived from a friend.  The friend usually travels to El Salvador with a delegation to visit sister churches at least once during the year, but the pandemic has made it unsafe for that type of travel to take place.   It's a little different for me because I live part time in El Salvador.  I am managing my time here in the same way that I have been managing time at my home in the US:  by staying at home.  ¡Quédate en casa!   At least in El Salvador I can hang out with the windows wide open instead of hunkering down inside while there's a wind chill of -30°F outside.  My goal, despite staying home, is to keep writing and sharing photos.  I have already written about the most interesting thing which takes place outside my window, which is the migration of flocks of green parrots at sunrise and sunset each da...