Stories and Experiences From EL Salvador: Zachary Meyer - The People of El Salvador

My journey to El Salvador has been new and unconventional, and not even at this time a year ago did I believe I would be serving families and communities in a foreign country. From friends close to me at college I learned of adventures they were taking abroad, and it was not long before I was convinced I wanted to go travel. But where, and why?

The option to do a mission trip sprang up, and to do it with the people I consider family at Good Shepherd was the opportunity of a lifetime. Leaving everything I knew back in Champaign and Kenosha, Wisconsin, where I go to college, plus missing a crucial week of schoolwork were sacrifices I had to make, and four days into the trip I have learned that I could not be any happier with the experience.

If there is one thing about El Salvador that strikes me it is the people here, and how they amaze me every day. They have been described as hard workers, and I can back up that claim, and beyond that they are the friendliest group of people I have ever met. They greet us on the streets - though we don't even speak the same language and we rarely know what they are saying, and have accepted us into their homes and even families as if we had always been - what an amazing group of people.

My highlight of this trip, though, has been the Salvadoran kids - what a joy, wonder and blessing they are. No experience can describe this better than the one that happened today, as me and Dean got a chance to slip away from our build site with our guide and translator Francis to explore the local neighborhood, and meet its inhabitants.

Along the way we ran into a large bunch of kids, laughing and screaming with joy as they ran around playing their own little game. As they ran to hug and greet Francis, me and Dean presented ourselves in our typical goofy manner, with sweeping off hats and traditional bows, which earned giggles from the kids. We made funny faces, tested our limited Spanish on them (Very limited in my place), and did goofy horse sounds with our mouths - I think I have never seen so many people laugh and smile at our actions.

What was truly fascinating though was how easily these kids simply accepted us, were willing to high five us, play along as we goofed around, and initiate conversation and action even when we were scared too. When Dean asked for a group picture I was scared to approach the kids - would they even feel comfortable with allowing a stranger to get close to them for a group picture? It was then that I had one of the most shocking and rewarding experiences of the trip - when we moved together to take the picture, one of the girls put her arm on my shoulder and pulled me in close for the picture - I was the reluctant one afraid of what they would think, and they pulled me close, and made me feel a part of their group. What an amazing feeling from such a simple experience. The kids of El Salvador have stolen a piece of my heart, and the way they are able to laugh, play, and have fun in areas and conditions I think so many of us believe couldn't always invite happy feelings, speaks to the energy, joy, and faith these kids have in their hearts - truly they have taught me the most in my short stay here.

The people of El Salvador have had a different upbringing than most of us in the United States. They have lived in what many of us would consider lower housing conditions, suffered through a terrible Civil War I recall learning about in one of my college courses, and have to deal with roads and rain that would drive all of us back in the states crazy. Yet they are happy, proud, and hardworking. They walk distances to get water and deliver food, greet random foreigners in the street, live in houses that would easily fit into an average U.S. garage, and can I just say how impressive it is over here that everyone can drive a stick shift? Seriously that's impressive.

While the scenery here is amazingly stunning, and all the new Spanish words are fun to learn, it is the people (especially the kids) of El Salvador who have made this trip truly stunning - they have been some of the most amazing people I have ever met, and their joy and attitude is something I hope to carry with me all my life. We are almost half way through our trip as I am writing this, and I know my time with these amazing people is limited. Yet I am convinced that when I leave this place my heart will be filled with the hope and love God had shown through them, and I will treasure what He has shown me in this country all the days of my life. What a blessing, what a blessing!

Tuesday, 20 Oct 2015
Dean

The rain stopped yesterday at about 4 p.m. and today, we worked at the job site, and very hard.  More on that a little later.

Yesterday, to pass the rainy day, we walked in our ponchos just a few blocks to visit Francis's mother, Francisca.  She owns a bakery and a dress shop next to it.  She's been divorced 20 years (Francis is 27).  She seems to have a very popular bakery, as customers come and go often, but her specialty is sweets.  She served us sweet empanadas - one cream-filled, the other pineapple.  She had made them just that morning.  She has several open-air gardens built right into her home, and two upstairs patios, one for laundry, and one for lounging.  She is clearly a dynamo and a very successful small business owner.

Around noon-time, some ladies from a local co-op came to serve us lunch.  The co-op was started with the help of Habitat.  The sell arts and crafts, and make microloans to co-op members.  They are very progressive thinkers, and seem to be following the Ten Thousand Villages model whether they know it or not.

Today, we had breakfast at 6:45 a.m., and departed to the work site by 7:30.  No rain!  Temps in the 70's but humid.  The worksite is probably only 20 min from the hotel here on the town square.  However, the road is pretty rocky, and needs to be navigated carefully.  It is lined with the homes of people who are obviously living in a subsistent manner.  They have goats, chickens, corn crops, and cook over wood.  We visited some homes, and they are generally brick with metal roofs, and dirt floors.  Everyone is totally approachable as if we are all in one big happy family.  Amazingly, kids (off from school due to poor roads from the rain) and adults both are neat, clean, and well-dressed.  You can see they bring a deliberate dignity to to their appearance.  Believe me, I see people on the campus of the University of Illinois every single day who do not measure up to the pride of appearance of the average El Salvadoran we saw today - living in severe poverty.

At the work site, we immediately got to work filling in a foundation for one of the bedrooms in the house we are working on.  Each house consists of 2 bedrooms, a living room, and outdoor, but covered kitchen, and a bathroom and shower.  Francis says about 65% of people have electricity, but only for lights.  The problem is plumbing and water.  Even in a Habitat house, you might flush the toilet with a bucket.  We did see a public faucet where people get drinking water.

After moving around a good deal of dirt, we got to putting a soupy concrete down into the cinder block walls.  Every single block gets a piece of rebar down it for earthquake protection.

We also sifted concrete using a screen.  The cement and concrete get mixed on the ground with a shovel.  The only power tool we had today was a block cutter used by one of the 4 masons hired by Habitat.  We took a break in the morning, had lunch, another break, and quit at 4 p.m.

We actually have taken some nice showers here - warm water!

Thanks for reading everyone.  Photos later.

Ana Maria prepares stuffed chicken for us Sunday afternoon at the Santa Ana Habitat office.

Karla uses the new knives given to Ana Maria by Jim Hack and Don Block.

Joe and Jodi Davis on the steps of the Habitat office in Santa Ana, an office that is more productive than all the others in El Salvador combined.

The rainy view out our breakfast room window Monday morning.  A man waits patiently to do some sweeping after last night's street market.

Francis enjoys her new English books from Dean.  Nancy Olson made a very nice book bag for the books (bag pictured on Francis's lap).

Ricardo takes pride in his luggage-packing skills outside the hotel in San Salvador Sunday morning as we get ready to leave for the church service in Santa Ana.

Have dog, will bike.

A mom and her daughter, who may be baptized soon in the nearby Catholic Church.

The front of Cristo Rey Lutheran Church, Santa Ana, El Salvador.

Front doors.

The interior of Christ the King (Cristo Rey).

Pastor Carlos, Maria, and the new church.

Jim, ringing the bell in the tower.

The floor!  It's not much to look at, but what's standing on it is what's really important.

The well-used and tattered service and hymnal books were donated by Good Shepherd members, and dedicated by Gail and Don Block in memory of their daughter, Erin.  She is shown below in the dedication, in Spanish and English.

Luke Smith, Jim Hack, and Dean Olson in front of the altar at Cristo Rey (see below).

Pam Hack Scott, Jim Hack, and their little buddy Luis, who Jim has seen here at least 3 years in a row.

Dean and Emma, who walks half a mile to come to church every Sunday.

Pastor Carlos is in the back greeting people before the service.

There is a house with a family living in it in the churchyard.  They are hard to see, but a pile of sleeping puppies are lumped together in the corner on the far right.

The back of the church.

The old church which members used for about 10 years after earthquakes destroyed the former church.

The exit gate to the churchyard.

The entrance to Christ the King Lutheran Church.

Pastor Carlos gives a warm and heartfelt greeting to the Habitat crew.

Tim Smith reads the psalm in English just after a church member had read it in Spanish.

Zack reads the first lesson from the Old Testament.

Dean congratulating Pastor Carlos for his 41 years in the ordained Ministry as a Lutheran Pastor.  Though the church is not technically in the ELCA, they are a member of the El Salvadoran version of it here in Central America.

Pam and Tim chat with one of the little girls.

Jim Hack presents Pastor Carlos with some altar linens formerly used at Good Shepherd.  They include the entire liturgical season, plus some extras.  Jim brought the linens in some old suitcases he purchased at the Habitat Restore in Champaign.  Both the linens and the suitcases are an excellent example of "What goes around comes around."

Pastor Carlos holds the altar linen for Christ the King Sunday, the namesake of Cristo Rey.

Maria Teresa Martinez holds the altar linen for what appears to be the season of "ordinary time".  (I believe this season is the counted Sundays after Pentecost.)

The woman above is named Amelia Duarte.

This woman is named Ana Maria and she also recognizes the Christ the King theme.

Luke and Luis who remember each other from the 2014 worksite at the church.

Jim and Ana Maria Montoya, who runs the award-winning Santa Ana office of HPH (Habitat Para La Huminadad)

Ana Maria opens her new knife set and block from Don Block and Jim Hack.  It is just what she needs, and she and Karla and Francis immediately start using them in the kitchen.

Here's another view of the hillside cafe on Sunday.  Last year's participants will recognize it as the same place we had lunch last year after the 1-hour trek from the coastal airport location.  Our flight arrived at about 11:45 a.m. local time.  Illinois and El Salvador are in the same time zone, except Illinois is on daylight savings time and El Salvador not.  So, it's an hour earlier here.

Here we are for Sunday lunch at the quirky hilltop restaurant in the capital, San Salvador.  We all had hot sandwiches which consisted mostly of grilled veggies and cheese.  That house salad and fries were both very good.  We are eating well.