Walking With El Salvador

Welcome to April, the month which typically brings Salvadorans a little change in the weather and the beginning of the planting season. In San Salvador, the month of April has an average of 6 days with rain showers compared to 1 day in March, and one can enjoy a slight cooling in the average daytime temperatures from 90˚F to 89˚F.  It is perfect weather for a trip to the beach, which is a common way for Salvadorans to celebrate la semana santa (Holy Week), which often falls in April. Back in the  March edition of Get to Know the Holidays , I included a little story about Palm Sunday, which is the start of Holy Week and as we know, has a variable date in the calendar.  A few years ago, I did a Holy Week series which also included a little more information about  Palm Sunday , so for this holiday series, let's begin the month of April with the holy days following Palm Sunday. Holy Thursday Holy Thursday is an official (paid) holiday in El Salvador, at least for workers...

A Brief Introduction If you have been following the story of the Mission of Healing 2021 with the northern micro-region churches of the Salvadoran Lutheran Church, you know that this year we went virtual!  Each month we are producing video and printed education materials related to a particular theme.  You can dive right into the month of April, or if you would like a little background first, you might like to explore these stories. Mission of Healing 2021: What's the Plan? Mission of Healing 2021:  Personal Hygiene Mission of Healing 2021:  Community Hygiene A few of the leaders shared photos from their first small group learning activities.  We put those into a celebratory video to share with everyone in the northern churches to build enthusiasm for this year's program. Mission of Healing in Action April's Theme is all about VEGGIES! In El Salvador, the rainy season begins in May.  April is the time to get the soil ready and begin the planting process....

Up in the cloud We walked around the block, found Oscar and then drove 'up to that cloud.'  Those were the only directions we had, given to us by the museum guy. The road was not car-worthy, but we made it up the 10 km trek of rock and ravine and slippery gravel. Once we had a scare, when the car died.  The cord that Oscar had removed for overnight security of the car came unplugged going over all those bumps! (though it took a bit to discover that was cause of the aforementioned dead car.) We finally made it. A man with a machete met us and said, $2 each to get in and an extra $5 to go to the river. Of course we paid the extra $5 - because we never say NO to an adventure! I found them.  In the middle of a plain, brown journal, in between stories from the previous year, there are two pages written in small, neat script. The title at the top of the page says "RANDOM PAGES, October 2014." Well, when you run out of pages at the end of a journal, you have no choice but to...

Tomorrow, April 6th, 2021, is Back to School Day in El Salvador! Well, officially.   The Ministry of Education has released a statement that over half of public schools in the country are in compliance with all of the safety protocols for COVID-19 and are ready to re-open.  I visited a few Facebook pages of schools with which I am familiar and was a little surprised to see no details about the reopening of the schools.  The sites did give clear information about sanitation guidelines and masks for students. One common safety concern which I have heard voiced by staff and parents locally and in the media has been the need to vaccinate teachers, for their own safety and the safety of the students.  In swift fashion over Holy Week, over 45,000 public school teachers were vaccinated, and this week, private school teachers are receiving their first doses.  Parents continue to express some worry about their children getting exposed to the virus at school and brin...

Our pandemic virtual tour of El Salvador on this first day of April 2021 continues with another mobile destination.  But first, a brief job description: Co-Pilot Responsibilities: 1)  Beginning the the task of greatest frequency:  Call out "hole" as quickly as possible when a hole simply springs out of nowhere. Sewer holes with no tops or with tops tilted so as to stand vertically in the holes are to be viewed with special treachery.   2)  Also of frequent necessity:  Call out “túmulo túmulo” as many times as needed at increasing volume until the driver slows down enough to avoid launching the vehicle over the speed bump which is, of course, is most often encountered unpainted and hiding in the shadows of nearby trees. 3)  Perfect the peripheral glance and call out “go” with some urgency when the blind spot has cleared. 4)  Provide play by play when turning left onto a busy street, such as “ok, ok, ok for a bit, NOT OK, not ok, not ok, ok aft...