Street soccer boys

I couldn't have been happier when Tigo fell in love with playing soccer in the streets in the afternoons with his primos. Seriously. I'm dying to have one of my kids like soccer. (I'll regret saying that later I'm sure.)

Here are some of the boys and the cousins (and of course Azalea in front). Tigo is the pale chilito in the turquoise shirt. :)  By the way, Azalea was NOT happy about not being allowed to play. She has no concept about gender, size or age stereotypes. She wanted to be in the game, and quite honestly, I think she could have held her own, if allowed. You GO GIRL!

Here's Tigo with his cousins, Dirceo on left and Eduardo on right. The boys had a lot of fun together even though nobody knew what the other was saying. 

Tigo tending the goal, and Azalea trying to sneak on the street.

Way to go, bud!

Making a run for it!

If it looked like one of the players was a little taller than the others, well that's because it was Elmer.  Someone really has to tell him that he's not 8 years old. (Love you, Honey :) )

Six feet under

More from El Salvador.

Ok, so we've all heard the expression "He's digging his own grave." Not so strange right.

Except when you meet the man who really is digging his own grave. Literally. With a shovel. In a cemetary.

We were headed to San Miguel for the day (which turned out to be a long and awful trip....) and Elmer had to ask his Dad's friend for advice about where to find something in San Miguel and he was told to look in the cemetary for him. So we walk over there and found him. Shovel in hand. He said he had sold his previous plot and this was his new one. Wanted to make sure that there was a place for him when the time came.

Ok, I don't really get it. But in my mind if you are physically capable of digging a grave, short of an accident, you probably won't be laying down in it anytime soon.

I took a picture with him in front of the grave. When I asked if it was ok to do so, he smile and posed with a shovel in front of the hole. Unfortunately that was one of the erase pictures.

I told him he had a good spot, right near the entrance. Everyone who entered could stop and say hello to him.

Lola becomes a vegetarian

Warning: This is not a pretty post. Seriously. If you have a weak stomach or a fondness for cows or chickens, don't read this. 


Part 1

Lola has declared herself a vegetarian. She has also asked that I be one with her. Here's why.               

Some things ocurred on our visit that are really only reserved for special occasions. I'll take no credit for being the reason for any of it, nor would Elmer, but he really is the reason. Elmer's dad's birthday was on November 12 (which happens to be my mom's birthday too). But they wanted to have a party for him, even though it was the odd year of 67 years of age, they decided with the grandchildren and the son's return a celebration was to be had.It was a pretty big deal for Elmer's family that he was home visiting. Of course now as a parent I can't comprehend the idea of only seeing my son once every 4 years. Or at least his family as Elmer was in El Salvador 2 years ago. And Heriberto, (a.k.a. Abuelo, or Elmer's dad), had his birthday while we were there. So the only logical thing to do is to kill a cow and celebrate. Right? Makes sense.

So this is a pretty big deal. Even though Heriberto has cows that he buys and sells every week, to kill one, is an occasion only for celebration. 

So I will regress for just a moment. There are many practices that I see in El Salvador that I don't agree with. There are many ways of life there that I would never chose. Thankfully, I am given that choice since I was born in the US. But these things are mostly it is due to the lack of formal education that the people have. There are many dietary customs (some relatively new) that I don't agree with. Mostly being the extreme amounts of high fructose corn syrup that is consumed, and the amount of non-traditional foods that are being shuffled into the diets of the Salvadorans. Thus making them gain weight more like Americans than the way they are traditionaly thought of. But like I said, I regress and I'll return. When it comes to eating meat, at least in and around Dolores it appears that the animals have it pretty good (for ones that will be consumed). There are no meat factories and every cow is pasture raised and grass fed and has lots of room to roam. The chickens are all free range. None are left in small cages and they generally come and go as they please. They are kept close to home and given enough to make them plump and happy and they never really stray far. They lay their eggs, eat their food and they go about their lives.

Early morning friday, the day before the before the party, Elmer left for the farm (which is about a 5 minute walk away) with his dad and two other men to take care of business. So I'm told, they called the animals, chose their bull and the man designated for the job, walked up with his machete and slit the cows neck. It took about two minutes for the cow to bleed out. I asked Elmer if he cried in pain during his death. No, not at all. Then I realized that he couldn't, his vocal cords had been cut. I'm glad that we weren't there for that.

So meanwhile the kids and I are finishing our breakfast and swinging on the hammock when Abuela, (aka the original Lola or Elmer's mom) comes calling for us to get ready to go to the farm. The celebrating was beginning and they wanted us there. I had NO idea what was in store. And now maybe this is part of the reason my pics got erased, so I wouldn't have forever documentation of this event.

We got ourselves together and walked to the farm. Past the cemetary, past the mango trees, through the gate, down the path, across the stream, through the first field and to the spot under the tree where everyone was gathered.

At this point, all the families of the each man was there. Except for the man hired and paid $10 for the most gruesome job we watched him do.

At first the kids and I focused our attention on all the others that had also come. In total there may have been 20-25 people there. Kids and adults. A party in itself. While we knew the body was there, we tried our best not to allow our eyes to lay gaze upon the mass of blood on the ground. The cow had been decapitated with his head upside down on the ground laying next to the base of the tree. It's face was out of sight. The body was completely skinned and layed on the ground like a blanket surrounding the remains of the body.  Even the tail on the animal had been skinned and layed stretched out in the grass. Intestines and stomach parts were removed and set aside. The heart was placed to the side. Each of the four legs had been cut off and were hanging individually from the tree by their hooves.  

One very odd thing I found through this even were that the other cows were hovering around the sight. At first I had this eerie feeling that they were going to fight back and rebel. Ok, that's ridiculous, but sometimes I'm crazy anyhow. So I went to my main source of all things related to cows in El Salvador (and golf, and quite a few other things) and asked Elmer what the deal with them was. Apparently they were waiting for us to finish up so that they could try to get at anything that might be left behind.


Yuck.


Lola leans over to me and says "I am never eating meat again."

We then went to go ride Tequila the horse.

Part 2

A few days later we woke up early in the morning to what sounded like pigs squealing. This wasn't that unusual as there were pigs that lived in the yard across the street. The previous morning they were have a good ole time squealing away. But this particular morning the sound was particularly loud. I was waking up and needed to go to the bathroom so I scooted out of the house we were staying in to head to the "privy". Just outside I saw Abuela at the all purpose sink which is across a small concrete courtyard but really no more than 30 feet away from me. I questioned her what the noise was, asking if she got pigs. But no sooner than the words stuttered out of my mouth I looked to see between she and I were two fat chickens hanging by their feet trying to flap their wings and hollar. I try to be as non-chalant as possible about the situation. Oh right, of course there are two chickens hanging upside down right in front of me making noises that sound more like hogs. But then again, a creature that senses it's demise might make any sort of noise imaginable.

Uh-oh. Here comes Lola asking what that crazy noise is. But first she has to run to the outhouse too. Oh great. So she runs to the outhouse, and Abuela apologizes for all the noise. Elmer's mom is really so polite. Although we are her house guests inconveniencing her for two weeks, she goes way out of her way to make sure we are ok. I can tell she doesn't want to bother us this early in the morning with the sounds. So she does, what any old school rural Salvadoran woman might do. She steps over the chickens and twists their necks one by one and kills them just like that. I can't watch so I turn to walk away. Just then Lola walks out of the outhouse and in plain view she witnesses as she says "the untwisting and the feathers flying" as the neck unwinds. Sweet Jesus.

"Mom, I am soooo not eating chicken ever again."

But Elmer's mom, just looks at me with her sweet eyes, apologizing for the noise that they caused. Not for killing them right there on the spot. But she was worried they woke us up. 


There was plenty of blood and feathers. And well I had to watch her hand pluck all the feathers off the birds. The same way you can't look away from a traffic accident.

Ok, so if you eat meat then I agree that you should be able to do this. That animals are food. And you should be able to accept that this is how they live and die. And their death is your survival. But, yeah, I'm not so in touch with this farm life and the animals. Maybe Lola is on to something.

Part 3

Really, should there be a part 3. Aren't 2 episodes enough...

Tigo: "Dad, why is there an iguana in the kitchen?"

Elmer: "Really, where?"

Tigo: "It's in a bag hanging, can I have it?"

Elmer: "Oh no, that is for Abuelo and his friend. They are going to have it in a soup for their lunch later today."

Tigo: "Can I play with it first?"

Lola: "GROOOOOSSSSSSSS!!!! I am so not ever eating any kind of meat ever again. Gross."

Lola asked me to become a vegetarian with her. I told her once we returned home back to New Mexico I would join her in not eating meat. I figure I don't really eat much to begin with so it shouldn't be too hard. But while living in someone elses home, where they are providing the food and well... preparing it also. I will eat what is given to me. So far we haven't eaten any meat since we've been back. But we've still had talks about it. Whatever she ultimately decides is fine. That is a pretty hard thing to do when you are 9 years old and your favorite food is Orange Chicken.

The Art of Disaster

We had to investigate the damage from Ida. The first spot we visited was where the bridge to the town was wiped out. When Elmer explained to me on the phone about the bridge before we arrived, I didn't really think that much of it, outside of an annoyance and inconvenience for the town. I had seen the bridge before, and it was that huge and I didn't remember the river as being very wide at that point. But upon seeing the spot where the bridge once stood, I was utterly speechless.


In a matter of 4 hours. Four hours only. The rains came in torrential force and made the river swell up over 30 feet higher than it's normal level. Trees along side were up-rooted and swept downstream. These are trees that have a trunk circumference of up to 15 feet around the base. (No I didn't have my tape measure with me.) A house was completely buried by debris from the trees and oddly the entrance was left open so you could still walk up to where it once was a home and a store. The river had been widened from approximately 15 yards to my (likely inaccurate) guess-timate of 100 yards, not including the land that sloped up away from the river that killed all the bushes and plants above it. All in a matter of 4 hours. Then sunny skies and there will be no more rain likely until May. Crazy.

While we were there at the river, people swam and played and laughed (and littered) as if it were the way it had always been. Except for the men with chainsaws. This bridge, while effecting the town as a major inconvenience was a big problem, was low on priority for repair for a third world country who is already worried about helping the actual towns and their people that were wiped out.  But this did not stop the men who wanted this wood. Oh how I wish I still had these pictures. On the spot, the men were cutting up the wood, not to begin rebuilding and removing, but to utilize the resource that was laying right in front of them. Vertical cuts in the huge trunks of these trees were made to remove on site wood planks. It was truly ingenious and amazing.

What was also amazing was how much trash, litter and human debris had already been left at the site of this devastation in the first seven days following the "wipe-out". I was unfortunately saddened on a regular basis when I saw how little the people cared about trash on their beautiful land. It's just not something that is being taught as important. Potable water is sold in bags, as opposed to water bottles as American are accustomed to.  While in some respects it seems like a very good alternative to bottles. As unlike in the US it is almost required to buy drinking water. (Well at least for our family's internal organs that aren't accustomed to the nature of the water there). These bags are a great way to have easy access water at a very low cost (less that $0.10/ 500ml).

But all these bags often don't make it to any trash can. And everything, everything comes in plastic. (Plastic is forever).

One evening we went down to Rio Titiguapa to look at the damage done near another part of the river than we had seen previously the week before. It was getting near sunset and I thought I'd try some new settings on my camera which I'm not so good at working. While the kids played by the river, I managed to erase the previous 500 pictures I had already taken. Me needing a moment over this, is putting it mildly.

But the kids and some of their cousins played by the river and Tia Patty, Elmer's sister, went to ask the driver of the ferry if we could ride along with them for free across the river while he took a car and some other passengers to the other side of the river, about a 20 minute ride in each direction.

Sure, no problem.

OK, perfect case where you should not instill the don't ask don't tell policy. As I'm still in my huff, and we are pulling away from the river's edge, I look over at the truck not 2 feet away from me on the ferry, and then to 15-20 people on the other side of the ferry. There is a coffin in the back of the truck, and everyone else is mourning. OK, good for perspective. I only lost a few pictures these folks lost a life. Unfortunately we realized too late that we should not have been with them on the boat and their privacy should have been respected.

As we pull away from the edge, the sun is setting. The mountains are completely surrounding us. The sky is beautiful, the air is crisp and warm, the water is turning golden and sight is phenomenal. Pure white birds float across the water finding their roosting tree for the night. And in the distance you can see one tree that stands out among the others, and it is pure white from the birds that call it home for the evening. And the cranes that are fishing flying low over the water and hunting for their dinner. Gorgeous, I tell you. An oasis. (Just like it says on the water bag.)

And then 2 minutes later the sun sets and it is pitch dark. (The sun sets amazingly fast the closer to the equator you get.) But the boat pulls up to the dirt road down the river. The truck drives off the boat and down the road and the people get off the boat and wait at the edge of darkness. At this point we (all our family free-loaders) think that we about to turn around and head back. There is darkness around and Tia Alicia has made pupusas for us that will be waiting at home for us.  Here's the catch. The boat driver promised the truck that it would wait for it to pick up and deliver these folks and then eventually come back onto the boat to go to the side it came from. That, in my humble opinion, would have been a nice piece of information to know about before we left at sunset.

Now how many times have I said in this past year "If it were just Elmer and I, it would be no big deal..." As there really were no lights at all. The moon was about a half full, but really glowed in the night to silhouette the mountains and reflect on the water. We looked for constellations, saw shooting stars. Sang some songs, played some games. The frogs were croaking and singing, fireflies lit up the forest edge. And then there were the muffled (and not so muffled) sobs of scared children lost in the dark on some strange river in some foreign country in some place they had never seen with nature they could care less about and words being spoken that they didn't understand.  It was 2 hours before Elmer could convince the boat driver to please take us back to the other side. We didn't know if there would ever be a truck coming down that dirt road again. So we pulled out and made our way back to the "port" we came from. And as the laws of the universe would have it, just as we had safely pulled out from the spot we had been waiting at, we could see the lights of the truck making it's way down the road back to the river. We didn't turn back, and that was that.

I told the kids it was simply the "Art of Adventure" and we had to make the best of it. Tigo replied it was more like the "Art of Disaster."  He may be right.

At least we can look back and laugh. Sort of.

Back to the Future

Well that's kind of how it felt coming back home from El Salvador, as if we just returned from the past, back to the future. Except there was no mad scientist named Doc (except maybe one named Tigo) and no Michael J. Fox in Calvin Klein underwear.  We were returning from the past of this land trapped back in time. Two days before we left El Salvador to return home again the kids were talking about the things that they were looking forward to coming back to. Running water, air conditioning (though we came back to temps in the 40s, so maybe they meant climate controlled housing...) the dogs, regular beds, refrigerators with food they liked to eat, people who spoke English, television, gymnastics... Lots of things -but mostly a regular bathroom in lieu of an extremely old outhouse with cockroaches. Those are the things of the future, aren't they?

But in all honestly the kids did really great through out the trip. And really any complaints and struggles that we had there, were often no different than the ones that we have in our own home. For example, usually no one cooperates at bedtime, so this was no different. The kids rarely like my cooking anyhow, so eating a few new dishes was not so bad. And everyone's Spanish improved, each to their own varying degree, but all improvements none the less.

While the kids missed a week of school and then had the second week off, I'm fairly certain their education, and lives, were enriched to enormous degrees beyond anything that they might have experienced in school during those two weeks had they been there. Missing school isn't always bad.

Once the kids and I arrived in San Salvador, one step into the airport, the differences began immediately with no noticeable A/C in the airport. But Elmer met us there with his cousin waiting outside to sweep us off to the little town of Dolores. The ride there took a big longer than the normal 2 hours, as the remnants from Hurricane Ida were still all around. Half the major highway was covered in mud from the slides the week before. And bridges were knocked out. We arrived at his childhood home just after midnight. But I turned off my phone (which serves as my watch), so my sense of time for the next two weeks was considerably off.  We climbed into bed and closed our eyes, trying to block out the sounds of the animals who must never sleep, then woke in the morning, to what felt like minutes later, to another world.

Elmer's mom is a little old lady, probably just under 5 feet tall. Once she gets up in the morning at 5am, she doesn't stop moving until the afternoon siesta. Abuela greeted us and instantly tried to feed us and then feed us some more and then feed us some more.  Unfortunately in all respects, except for my waistline, we don't have the dietary appreciations. But fried plantains in the morning are delicious and we certainly agree on that. I wanted to do my best to help out as much as I could while we were there, but she rarely allowed me to do anything. The kitchen was her thing, we were her guests and she was in control. She has a sweet smile and permanent sad eyes and would shake her finger at me in loving ways and say "no, no, no".

The pic here, she is in the outdoor "kitchen" where the fire stove sits next to the house.

Azalea, at 4, is a pretty tough little girl. Now while she likes dresses and wants to look pretty, she has no problem getting down in the dirt and is a pretty go with the flow kind of kid. So when ever we did something new, with out skipping a beat she would say "So that's how they do things in this World." And that's what it was to her, another World. And quite honestly that is what it is, another World.  And they joined right in readily to the changes. For example, the kids had no problem at all following country rule by unbuckling that safety seat belt and packing it in to the back of a pick-up truck with 10 or so random people. The same way the rest of the country sat 20 people to pick-up bed.

Elmer's dad was eager to take us all over to the farm. We spent quite a few days there and had some extremely long lasting life lessons there (that will be another post). The farm is basically land for cattle, and they have a corral at the entrance for containing the animals when needed for things like milking every morning. But the cattle pretty much roam free about the land. It's about  3 "blocks" from the house and absolutely gorgeous. There is a stream that runs through the land that enormous Mango trees grow along and from one of the upper fields you amazing views of the San Miguel Volcano.

Please keep in mind that I know essentially nothing about cattle and cows. So Abuelo has the cows trained to come to him. He does this by bringing them salt licks. Not to bore you, but the funny thing is watching a man in his late 60s do cat calls into what appears to be empty fields. All of a sudden there are cows coming up over the ridge to lick and lick and lick.

Here you can see the volcano in the distance from the property, but the photo does no justice. But notice the 2 people in the picture. One a man, the other a adolescent boy, both carrying large tree trunks they cut down from somewhere on the mountain that they are carrying, likely to build on their own home somewhere in town. Really? a tree trunk, one person carrying for over a mile, at least. Crazy.

But people carry everything everywhere. Walking down dirt roads in the middle of what appears to me as no where, women with baskets on their heads carrying tortillas or corn or who knows what. Men carrying large heavy sacks of beans or sugar cane or again corn, the staple of the country. Or little boys walking with their machetes or little girls giggling with their sisters. While driving it's customary to stop if you have a less than full pick up bed and help who ever along to wherever you or they are going. Kind of like your car warranty, which ever comes first -miles or time whichever comes first. Once while driving we slowed to ask a couple women if they needed a lift, apparently nothing around for kilometers. "Oh, no, we've just arrived" Arrived? There was nothing around to my knowledge. Elmer later said that of course there was the gate in the fence that they would slip through. Where they are going or coming from is often a mystery.

The kids also got to ride Tequila, the horse, on a regular basis. Elmer had fun teaching Azalea the saying "Me gusta Tequila." (I like Tequila) or "Te quiero, Tequila" (I love you, Tequila). And she meant it whole heartily when she spoke those words. While Tequila is an old kind horse, he certainly gave Elmer, his dad, and all the ranch folks a fun run for their money one morning as they tried to round him up from the fields. All the lassos in El Salvador couldn't bring him in. And I had a good time watching them try to catch him. They didn't have as much fun, and Tequila was left alone to graze in the fields.

More El Salvador posts to come.

Waiting for us

Elmer left on Tuesday for El Salvador. We sent him a head so that he could go do the things that he can do better when we are not with him.  Go catch Iguana, visit obscure relatives that we don't need to meet, trade cattle, make sure that "everything" is there. Quite honestly it is very nice to have him go ahead, so that I know that all is ok before we get there. Of course I'm always a little nervous when we head to El Salvador.

 (this pic is from our last trip).

When I finally talked to him after he got there he told me a little bit about the happenings in the country. Last weekend some of the remnants of Hurricane Ida hit the country. The "remnants" turned out to be much worse than the Hurricane itself. Massive flooding and mudslides swept through parts of the small country and wiped out a town an many roads and bridges. Luckily Villa Dolores, his home town where the in-laws are and where we are staying, was not directly hit. But the bridge that leads to the town across Rio Titiquapa was completely wiped out. (Pictures to come upon my return.) And many other rock slides occurred making roads impassible.

One thing, Elmer told me, that I find interesting is the town that got wiped out and 130 people where killed and buried had an American Peace Corp worker. This wasn't on the news, but there is another Peace Corp worker in Dolores who told Elmer of this. Apparently the town received a warning from the weather advisory center that they should evacuate. But the only person that left was the Peace Corp worker. He walked for hours in the pouring rain to leave the area. Where he ended up, I have no idea. But all the people of the town remained and many people were buried under a mudslide and rubble so deep they likely won't be evacuated. I find it interesting that no one else left. Was it because the Americans are more used to warning advisories sent out from public officials? Or did the people feel like they had too much invested in their homes and didn't want to leave them?

I am so grateful that we were not in the country during the storm. For certain this will alter our travel plans, but who knows in what respect. Crops were wiped out an major destruction coupled with hunger is going on. No doubt the increase in major Hurricane storms is caused by global warming. Extreme weather systems on the rise.

Well, I'm still waiting for my passport. Did I mention that? Yes it hasn't arrived yet. Yes, the kids and I are supposed to be leaving tomorrow. Oh, only slightly concerned....

Oh yes, and did I mention that El Salvador is now a "safe" country in Central America. What exactly does safe mean anymore? Oh boy the world is a crazy place.

Happy Birthday Mom

Lynne B would have been 60 today. Miss you mama.