Walking With El Salvador

The plans for the Mission of Healing Family Wellness Fair are well in place for February 2017.  One new teaching discussion that we will have in the coming year is entitled "Menstruation:  Myths and Facts."  As part of the teaching charla , we hope to offer the girls and women washable hygiene kits.  We are using the patterns and instructions from Days for Girls International  and we invited women and women's groups to help create the kits. The response has been tremendous!  We should have close to 500 kits for the North alone! (depending on how the January sewing events go). Because the kits are sure to be wildly popular, we encourage continued and increased involvement!  The Mission of Healing Family Wellness Fair model takes us into different rural communities in the Northern region each year.  The Central South Fair is held in the capital city, and people are bused into a central location.  In both settings, women and girls ...

Whenever I am in El Salvador in November, I marvel at the early abundance and diversity of Christmas decorations which adorn public spaces and homes alike.  Even in the churches, congregations deck their halls and light up the Christmas trees well before the first week of Advent. Stores advertise their "Black Friday" or "Black Evening" sales.  This is hilarious to me since there is no Thanksgiving celebration nor actual "Black Friday" as a day off from work on which to go shopping.  Giant inflatable Santas are put out in parking lots and reindeer made from straw sit out on sidewalks.  The competition among businesses is stiff as they entice customers to spend their aguinaldo  (thirteenth month pay - an early December bonus paid to workers in the formal economy). Despite the clear commercial element to the early decorating, I think there is truly a great deal of joy which the Salvadoran people have in decorating and lighting things up in anticipation of...

Day after day the green grass grows taller, little by little hiding the roadside landscape such that the San Salvador volcano appears to emerge as an island in a sea of green, and the distant hills of Guazapa seem truncated from their base. Day by day we drive the well-worn route along the periferico  - the peripheral highway that carries us from San Salvador north.  When the grass is short and the air is clear we take photos along the way, catching a quick glimpse of the San Vicente volcano in the distance or the cloud formations over Guazapa.  As the years have gone by, large factories, a trucking corral, and tightly packed rows of houses surrounded by concrete walls have invaded the landscape, yet the grass continues to thrive. One day, unexpectedly, the grass produced blooms - big, white, feathery blooms that gleam in the sunlight. Our pastor tells us that this valley has been planted with sugar cane for as long as he can remember, as long as his father can reme...

As we drove down the road to Tonaca, a pick-up truck pulled out in front of us.  "Hey, it's Jesus!" my husband said, as we followed close behind.  The large statue of Jesus stood on a processional platform, with the wooden handles laid across the sides of the bed of the pick-up.  Jesus wore a golden crown and robes of white and crimson red - the traditional colors chosen for Jesus by most Roman Catholic churches for their Christ the King celebrations.  In the back of the truck, a man was practically wrestling with Jesus, as the strong wind tried to lift the statue right out of the truck.  We followed the truck all the way into our sister church community.  They turned off at the Catholic Church, and we climbed up the hill to the Lutheran Church. Christ the King Sunday is a Lutheran tradition too.  The decorations in the Lutheran Church were already blue for the coming season of Advent.  A little Christmas tree stood in the corner with blinki...

Siguanaba, Headless Priest and Cipitio The sun fell low in the sky.  At every turn we were confronted by ghosts and ghouls, devils, screaming women , and headless priests.  She was there...the Siguanaba !  Along with her pitiful little son, Cipitio.  The legends of Tonacatepeque had come to life as they do every year for the November 1st Fiesta de la Calabiuza.  (Calabiuza is a word which is like the Spanish word calabaza  which means "pumpkin" - but in the local vernacular means "skull.")  Characters from imagination and legend wandered the cobbled streets and posed for photos.  Some ran up to us, screaming and acting their roles with great enthusiasm. As the evening light grew dim, the characters gathered around their hand-drawn carts - some with metal bases, some constructed of wood and bamboo, most with big wooden wheels. Adorned with skulls, coffins, large paper-maché characters, and carved calabiuza skulls, the carts were designed an...

"What is the story of the screaming bride who clenches her dead baby?" we asked.  Not too many people could tell us the details about this legend, though some of the most convincingly scary figures in the Celebration of the Calabiuza  in Tonacatepeque this year were dressed as this tale's ghostly brides. This girl was legitimately scary. She ran up behind us screaming at full force! The legend may have originated in Mexico, but it is told throughout El Salvador and other Latin American countries.  Like many Salvadoran tales, this one was probably created, adapted or propagated by missionaries and priests in order to teach the native peoples a moral and societal lesson... There once was a beautiful peasant girl who lived in the countryside near a large hacienda.  When she was old enough, she took a job at the hacienda and attracted the attention of a young man.  He was the son of the owner of the hacienda and was an educated and handsome man. ...

It's your first time in El Salvador.  You are excited and a little nervous.  You have done your best to memorize a little bit of Spanish, and you have mastered three very helpful phrases: Mucho gusto - pleased to meet you Con permiso - may I come in, or excuse me ¿Donde está el baño? - where is the bathroom. You have been well prepared by your trip leader, and you are confident that you can keep these three important rules: Do not use the water to brush your teeth. Never eat lettuce. Never pass up a flush toilet. Well, first time visitor, have I got great news for you!   Parque Cuscatlán now features brand new bathrooms!   I won't tell you exactly where they are, because, of course, you will want to test out the appropriate Spanish phrase which you worked so hard to memorize.  There are plenty of signs in the park pointing you in the right direction if you can't find anyone on whom to test out your "¿ Donde está el baño?" And you guessed it...