Dear Family and Friends,
It´s been 26 days since our team´s arrived in El Salvador and 13 days till we´ll be back in the United States. Your constant prayers have encouraged and strengthened us when we´ve been discouraged and doubtful. We are truly grateful for each of your prayers. They are powerful as we´ve seen God´s love so clearly every day we´ve been here.
One of my prayers during this trip was that God would open my eyes to the community of La Herradura. That I would see the children with threadbare shirts as my brothers and sisters. That differences in culture and language wouldn´t hinder or stunt my ministry. That I wouldn´t shy away from loving those who have a different language from mine. And that I wouldn´t give in to complacency but always strive to seek and see opportunities to really get to know this community. This past week God answered this pray in ways I never would have expected.
This past week many of us were ¨frazzled¨ (using Jolie´s colloquialism). We had hit the halfway mark of three weeks, and we had two options: 1) Press on or 2) Flake out. The weekend was packed and difficult, especially for us who had a hard time adjusting from the slow, bucket-shower culture of La Herradura to the modernized lifestyle of shopping malls, McDonalds, and free and fast internet access in San Salvador. Sparks were beginning to fly due to team conflicts that had remained unsolved over the weekend. And after a party on Sunday night with the family and all their relatives to celebrate the first-year anniversary of Mami´s grandmother´s death, we were all emotionally and physically exhausted.
I woke up on Monday feeling unmotivated to begin another week at CIDECO. I was thoroughly frustrated with how slow our project was moving along (imagine a group paper over five week with group meeting five days a week . . . with one laptop and no internet). Our team had completed two weeks of interviewing a total of forty-five households and CIDECO´s construction manager, school director, and other staff members. And we spent this last week editing our report, gathering more information, and interpreting our data from our interviews. I spent the afternoon with Jolie, Jill, Anna and Jordan at the Castillos, helping Dina, Oscar, and Marisol with their homework, helping Senora Castillo with the piles and piles of dirty dishes, and sweeping the floor. After spending that hour and a half at their home which always smelled pungently of urine and is frequented by swarms of flies, I felt queasy and my heart felt that silent sick feeling to be leaving the three orphans alone in the sad, dirty house.
Riding our bikes back to the house, a two mile distance, was a good breather. At the house I met up with Mariah, who was also feeling frustrated with the team. We decided to go to the bay and journal, so the two of headed out. On our ten-minute walk, a young Salvi boy and his little sister walked along side us, asking us all short of questions. He held a metal bucket full of small squashes and his sister held a smaller bucket of green peppers. His shirt was dirty and pants a few inches too short. Her two front teeth were missing and her hair was clipped up into a twisted bun. Mariah and I were in no mood to entertain kids peddling vegetables that afternoon, we just wanted to mope. But God had other plans.
At the bay we sat as far away from the street as possible on the chairs nearest to the water. The children had disappeared, and we talked a little more until we saw the same two peddling kids come up to us. The young boy placed his silver bucket on the table and began chatting with us again. His name was Jose Alfredo, and his sister was Deysi Liset. While Mariah talked Alfredo, I sat down on the wall with Deysi. We dangled our feet over the edge close to the water. We sat there for a while saying nothing as we´re both kind of shy. Her skinny legs reminded me of the name I used to be called when I was girl. ¨Toothpick Legs.¨ I learned that she didn´t have a mom, she didn´t know her age, she had younger sister, and lived in Los Angeles, a poor town an hour´s walking distance from La Herradura. When I ran out of questions to ask her (not like I had many to ask with my limited Spanish speaking ability), I dug in my pocket and gave her the four dimes that was the change of the bottle of water I bought earlier that day. She smiled a small smile, and I wondered how many peppers she had sold that day. I asked Mariah if we wanted to treat them to ice cream and after asking them, I took Deysi´s hand in mine and walked back down the street to La Neveria. Once at the ice cream store, we told them they could choose whatever they wanted. Alfredo picked the Tornado Shake, Deysi choose a huge milkshake, and Mariah and I bought ice cream cones for ourselves. We sat down with them and had them write down their full names and let them draw in our journals. Alfredo wrote us both nice notes and drew us hearts with wings, and Deysi struggled to print her name.
After a beautiful afternoon, the sun was soon to set, and Alfredo said they would have to start walking home. We walked with them through the street, which was still busy with vendors peddling pupusas, donuts, and vegetables. Mariah was racking her brain with ways we could help them get home without the hour walk when she realized the red mototaxis zooming back and forth in the street. We called down one of the drivers and had the kids hop in to the little, three-wheeled mobile that we were warned never to take. It would cost $1.50 to get to Los Angeles. We dug in our pockets and scraped together a dollar, which was all we had in change. The driver waved off the fifty cents, we said goodbye to the children, squeezing their hands, and they rode off in the mototaxi. Mariah and I walked home amazed. While we thought a gloomy afternoon would be spent writing in our journals, but God wanted us to make two delightful friends.
The following day, Alfredo found us on the soccer field where a few of us were watching Andrew, Jolie, Jill, Jordan, and Luisiny play futbol. Amanda fetched our Curious George coloring book for him, and we spend the afternoon on the field coloring monkeys and watching four really white kids play with gnarly soccer players.
The following day, Alfredo came to visit us at our house and gave me a picture he drew and Mariah a small plastic rose. With plans to go and visit him at his house, we hopped onto our bikes with Ale and Angi (and with Alfredo riding on the bar of Angi´s bike), we headed to Los Angeles. Riding through the dirt roads, we entered a poor community with shack-like houses. He introduced us to his aunt and a few other women who were making tortillas outdoors and his cousin and little sister. His cousin Lise was the dirtiest little girl I had every seen. Her clothes were filthy, her hands were peeling, her teeth were yellow and brown, and her hair matted. She dug her nose pulling out large boogers and had a terrible cough. Alfredo took his younger sister in his arms and led the little band of ¨gringas¨ and children to a grassy area behind the school near his home. There were children already there, and soon after we sat down on the grass and pulled out the coloring book and children´s books, we were surrounded by more than twenty children. They flocked around us like the strange spectacle we were. Unlike the children at CIDECO, their clothes were full of holes and were dirty and ragged. They asked us our names and pointed out their homes, one of which looked like a white box, maybe three times the size of a port-a-potty. They laughed at me, calling me ¨China,¨which in Spanish with a taunting tone sounds more like Cheeee-nnnnaaahh. We read to them the books and passed around crayons. After the wild boys started doing acrobatics, Mariah joined them on the field. Swinging the little kids around by their arms. I remember looking up from coloring with another girl, Sara, and seeing Mariah and twelve other children spinning around and around with their hands outstretched like little pinwheels. The rest of the kids and I joined them later on for a tickle war, during which the children would alternate in tackling and tickling Mariah and me. Being unfortunately nearly as short as most of bigger kid and not wanting to get suffocated or smuggled by them, it turned into a game of tag. And even though I can run faster than they can, I still somehow ended up getting their sweat all over me when we played Gato y Raton. We played in the field until Ale and Angi called us over to go home. We said goodbye to the children, they kissed us goodbye, and we walked Deysi and Alfredo home. We raced on our bikes on our way home, hoping this wouldn´t be our last visit.
I admit, I never really liked children. They can smell and need a lot of attention. The children I have met within the past few days, however, are so overwhelming in their love that it´s difficult to not love them, no matter how dirty they may be. And perhaps, it´s because they are so dirty that at the end of the day, I kiss them on their heads to show them how beautiful each of them are to me.
Grace and peace,
Trin
