Love 'em and leave 'em

After 2 1/2 beautiful weeks in El Salvador, Alisa and I are once again packing up and moving on. El Salvador concluded our time in Latin America, roughly the first third of our journey. Latin America treated us really well. We will dearly miss chocobananos, pupusas, hojaldre, acai bowls, tutu faijao, juicy mangoes, freshly slaughtered chicken meat, freshly squeezed orange juice, and churros. The people were alright, too . . .

All of Tessa's stuff:
Before.


After.


See you on the next continent!

San Salvador People

Friday night in San Salvador's bohemian district. The place was packed and there was not a soul in the bar who was not standing on their chair pumping their fist vigorously to the beat of the nonstop rock music. Every single person also seemed to know every single word to every single song.


Handmade ice cream in the city with Alisa's Casa housemates, Tedde and Rochelle.


We have been so lucky to spend the last couple weeks with the students of the Casa program. They are incredibly full of life and energy. To every one of you crazy souls: you are all hilarious, we will miss you, and we hope to find you in some other part of the world sometime soon.


We decided to have a romantic last supper with our hosts at Casa Clara. We had to improvise - Alisa mixed and baked brownies in a sauce pan.


Our candle lit dinner for six.


Alisa reunited with her Casa mates at the anniversary of Monsenor Oscar Romero's death.

We can always count on Celine

Last week we had the wonderful opportunity to visit a family Alisa lived with for a week when she studied abroad in El Salvador nearly 4 years ago. Getting to their home required two buses of about two hours each and then a two hour hike into the mountains. By the time we reached their house, we were technically in Honduras. 30 years ago the community consisted of 72 families. During the war, the region was perceived to be a hotspot for guerrilla organizing. The military-controlled Salvadoran government responded with a myriad of abuses including the fire bombing of all the homes in the community. One grandmother recalls the road into their community, the same one we walked up, being lined with fetuses and decapitated heads on stakes. For this reason the great majority of the community fled to Honduras and tried to gain refugee status. Today, only 13 families have returned and rebuilt their homes. These 13 families are in fact one large extended family (the occasional soccer tournaments with neighboring villages are the places in which many young people meet their future spouses).

The father, Roque, is not pictured because he is currently living in Virginia working to support his immediate and extended family. Immigration to the United States is endemic throughout El Salvador and we learned that 20% of the national GDP comes from remittances. A coyote to get you across the border costs between $3,000 and $7,000 and their is no guarantee that you will get across. The "death train" the immigrants ride results in injury and death, and Salvadorans plan on being robbed six times during their ride.


On our first bus we sat with this kind gentleman. He was a talker. We probably only understood 20% of what he said but he did manage to communicate that he had a heart condition. Later on he pulled out his "medicine" (a small bottle of alcohol in his pants) and downed a few doses.


On Tuesday morning Deysi told us she was going to kill a chicken for our lunch.


She tied the feet together, hung it upside down, and then spent about two minutes sawing through his neck with a dull knife. The drama of the rooster's slow and bloody death was perfectly captured by Celine Dion's thunderous voice singing "My Heart Will Go On" in the background. After five minutes of watching the chicken bleed, Merlin, the youngest son, began sling-shotting it with rocks.


Ready to become chicken soup!


The soup was delicious. We hope that his chicken had a good life and knows how much we appreciated him in his afterlife.


The community has its own little mill to mill their homegrown corn. The families are farmers but they don't have enough yield to sell their produce for profit. The lack of ways to make an income is part of the reason members of the community are forced to move away in search of work.




The milled corn is used to make tortillas, an important component to every Salvadoran meal. We worked hard to improve our tortillaring skills and decided to have a contest for the fastest and best tortilla maker. The competitors were Alisa, Tessa, the twin daughters, the mother, and the grandmother. As soon as the grandmother said she was competing, the twins said "oh nooo," with serious looks of discouragement. Their was no contest that the grandmother, Olimpia, was the clear winner. Her tortilla was on the grill almost before Alisa and Tessa had even picked up their corn flour.


In the afternoon Tessa taught the kids how to make paper cranes.


Later that evening we made more cranes and other paper crafts.


Olimpia asked that we make large cranes to decorate their church for the upcoming anniversary of Monsenor Oscar Romero's death.


One day we went to school with the kids hoping to learn a little since it had been a few months since our last class. We taught a little english and, of course, participated in all the recess games. One of the games was a series of one-on-one jigsaw puzzle competitions. Each person got one of two 24 piece puzzles and raced to finish it first. Tessa accidentally beat every one of the eight children . . .


This village was full of really beautiful people.

Awkward with Animals and The Search for Don Chilo

We left for Canton Las Delicias, a small community outside of San Salvador, hoping to reconnect with many of the community members, have some time out in the countryside, and, most of all, learn how to cook (Mima, our host mother, promised to give us detailed instruction in the course of our stay there). Chickens in hand, we boarded the bus and set off.
As you can tell by the photos, they really trusted us with the bulk of the work.
With time, however, they allowed us to partake in tortillaring (the art of making tortillas). While we were quite proud of our work they, apparently, were not. All of our tortillas were placed on a "special" plate that we were told to eat. Oh well...
The fruits of our labor. DELICIOSA!

After lunch we decided to take a moments rest...some might even be tempted to call it a dog day afternoon. Eventually, however, we rallied and decided to visit our friends in the community: Isabel, Sister Alisia, and Don Chilo. We heard that a loved one in Don Chilo's family had passed away, so we put that visit as a priority and began our pursuit for Don Chilo (an animated storyteller who, years before when I lived in El Salvador, would always pick up Patricio and I and haul us around town). Mima, our trusted guide and cooking teacher, promised us that we would find him.

On our way to find Don Chilo, we stopped by Isabel's house. Tessa, with her bird fascination, kept us fairly entertained at this home. (Tessa had no clue that I was taking this photo).
I wouldn't say that I am a bird fan, by any means, but I did feel like I needed to reach out and engage...
Our next stop was at Hermana Alisia's house. Hermana Alisia is one fire ball of great grandmother. We shared our special magic trick with her (the stick straight hair one) and she tried to replicate it on her own hair (which is a total of four inches long). She then proceeded to force all of her grandchildren into embracing the hairstyle-only one complied.
We then walked to Don Chilo's house, and waited for his arrival. Apparently someone in the family had just passed away, so there was a small church service in the home. We sat down in their living room and participated in the ceremony. All of our friends from the journey waited with us, anticipating the arrival of our close friend Don Chilo. We all talked about what a great man he is and how excited I was to see him again. An hour and a half later, he arrived. As his truck drove up, Mima beckoned me forward, "there he is!" Much to my surprise, this was a different Don Chilo. The proceeding conversation was a bit awkward, because I had to pretend like I knew him well (I didn't want to disappoint all of our friends who had accompanied us on the journey by telling them that this Don Chilo was not, indeed, the Don Chilo that I knew and in turn make them look for another Don Chilo). We returned back to the house and were surprised to find our next door neighbor, Lilian, laughing hysterically...our hair do caught on!

Adventures with Ashlee and Anne. This one's for Janet.

Meet Ashlee and Anne. They came all the way from San Diego to spend their spring break exploring El Salvador with us. The week also happened to be Semana Santa, a very holy week (and week of vacation!) for Salvadorans leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The week was full of pupusas, sisterly love, and ridiculous bus rides.

An exhausting night. Also known as the origin of the Barter Babezzzzz.

We visited a family Alisa lived with three years ago. The mother, Mima, served us up a delicious lunch and brought out special plates that they save just for the "gringos" or foreigners (the plates are pictured above!).

Pinaterias (stores dedicated to pinatas and other important treasures in life), we decided, should be universal. Not only can you find a varied assortment of every pinata imaginable, they also sell dyed, hollowed out eggs filled with little confetti pieces-perfect for smashing on one another's heads.

We asked the locals how to get to the waterfalls....they told us to pay a dollar and take a taxi. We, however, decided that it would be wiser (and more cost efficient) to walk the path...and so we did.

A few falls later, and we were covered head to toe.

Tessa had the brilliant idea of asking children to join us for a photo shoot. As you can tell, it was their idea to turn the photo shoot into a dance party. You could not keep these kids from dancing, even if you tried.

Chicharras. An excellent source of protein.

Our fascination with chicharras held strong. Mostly we would play with the dead ones (and by play I mean that the kids would throw them directly at Alisa and Tessa). Every once in a while, though, one of the kids would find a live one, hold it by the tail and then throw it as high as he or she possibly could. Moments later, during the chicharra's plummet back down to the earth, the chicharra would frantically flap its' wings, hoping to fly back up and away.  We felt like we were in a Harry Potter movie.

Anne, Ashlee, and Alisa aimlessly roaming the streets of Antiguo, Cuscatlan.

Another fashion show.  This time Clara Villatoro, journalist and animated storyteller, decided to participate.  Eventually we ended up engaging Flor, as well. 

The peaceful ride back to our home in the capital.  Ashlee and Anne, come visit us again soon.

Una sorpreza para mi, una sorpreza para ti

Alisa and I endured all the horrendous bus rides for one reason, and one reason only. We had to be in El Salvador by March 14 or bust. March 14 became D-Day because it was the day Alisa's sister Ashlee and friend, Anne would arrive from San Diego and it was also the day before Stephanie Edwards returned to the United States. We knew that all the cosmos would align this night or not at all. Thankfully a 5am, 12+ hour bus ride from Managua brought us to our destination by 6pm.

Anxious to reach San Salvador, and forced to sit through terrible movies like the Airbud spin-off, SnowBuddies, and that football movie with The Rock (for the second time! Seriously?), Alisa and I did all we could to stem boredom. For a long time we re-rolled toilet paper into smaller rolls, debated which puppy imprint on the toilet paper was our favorite and why, and tried to use the squares to make paper cranes. Eventually, however, our boredom culminated in an exquisite floss-strung, scrap paper "Surprise/Welcome" sign.

We happened to have told Steph that we wouldn't make to San Salvador by the time she left and so we stealthily awaited her arrival at the Casa . . . this was also our reunion at long last with Emory and Megan . . .

SURPRISE!!!

In the ensuing mayhem there were screams, laughter, and even tears. We decided we ought to surprise people more often.We then picked up Ashlee and Anne from airport (who amazingly made it here despite losing Anne's passport in the San Diego airport 15 minutes before their flight's departure . . . luckily they found it on the ground next to a trash can . . .). The glorious evening culminated in a crazy dance party with the Casa students.

Long lost loves.  It feels like home.

Santa Clara in El Salvador.  Annie Rovzar, we like your moves.

Saying goodbye to Stephanie at Jugolandia. We are sad to lose her, but Boston University could not be luckier.

We're explosive

We are staying in a house now that is temporarily without water. There are many problems that come along with this (no showers, washing dishes, etc.), but the biggest problem by far is not being able to flush the toilet. We have learned the hard way that lack of a flushing toilet and lack of control over explosive bowel movements is not a pleasant combination. I think this brings the number of times Alisa has clogged a toilet with her diarrhea up to 3 . . . we'll keep you updated as these stats change.

P.S. We are in El Salvador now (!!!) and will be posting photos and such soon.

We do what we can.

After our difficult bus ride to Waslala, we decided to pay a few extra bucks for the "Express" on the way back. The so-called "Express" failed to live up to it's name. Just like the other bus, it was overflowing with people and broke down over and over again. Alisa and Tessa took advantage of these break downs in the best way possible. We bought candy. We're good backpackers like that.


In Managua, we had the less than desirable disappearance of Alisa's camera. Unfortunately, this event also left us with but a few cordobas to our name. We used every last cent to buy two cans of beer and one dinner to share. It was worth every penny.

Master Bloggers

We know that there are some people who have tried to comment and have not been able to...we just changed our settings and you should be able to comment freely and frequently from now on. Sorry for not fixing that earlier. You mean a lot to us.

Beautiful Mountains, Smiling Children, and Skinned Cats. That's Waslala.

Last week we spent three glorious days in Waslala, Nicaragua, a beautiful town in the mountains of northern Nicaragua. Unfortunately, shortly after this trip, Alisa's camera, and the vast majority of our photos from these days and our time in San Jose, Costa Rica, were disappeared. A huge disappointment but also an inevitable event . . . sometimes life happens and things get disappeared . . . we move on. So these are the few photos we have to show.

In Waslala, we stayed with an incredible family and met loads of entertaining and generous people, none of whom we have photos of. So, just close your eyes and imagine. Take a few deep breaths. Let the stresses of life fall away. You deserve this moment. We live overstimulated lives, anyway. We're sure that your incredible, individual creativity can do much better than our photos.

Nonetheless, here are some vignettes:

Vomit.
The bus ride to Waslala was absolutely brutal. 5 1/2 hours on incredibly twisty, bumpy roads with no bathroom or food stops. The bus was packed full of women, men, children, chickens, and all of their belongings. The smell of vomit filled the air and the sight of it covered the floor.

Searching.
We finally arrived in Waslala with no clue as to what we should do next. We knew that our friend Meaghan had a friend Virginia who we should find. We walked up and down the main street asking people if they knew "Virginia." Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on your perspective), no one knew her. Luckily, a very old man who we could barely understand took us under his wing and led us to the radio station. Just as he was about to get on the radio and send a call to action to the entire town, a young man announced that he knew Virginia. Apparently she worked just 20 feet away, across the street. Long story short, Virginia housed us for the next two nights (even though the electricity was out!), took us to work with her (she is a public health worker who worked for Red Cross during the war), and shared her huge extended family with us.

Ancianos.
As shown above, a lot of our experience of Waslala was defined by following people. In fact, that is indicative of our trip in general. We typically have no idea what is going on and simply follow the person who looks like they might know more than us.
One afternoon we visited the local parish run by two Brazilian priests. One of the priests, Father Danilo, said, "Vamos," and we followed him outside. He motioned to a big blue pick-up. Not sure what to do, we crammed out two bodies into the seat that was clearly meant for one. We drove off with no idea where we were going. Eventually we slowed and stopped in front of a small, light blue building. Above the door was painted, "Hogar de Los Ancianos" (literally, "Home of the Ancients"). We walked in and were led to a square room.
The only light came from the door at the far end, through which you could see a couple cows plodding down a hill. In the dim light you could see that every wall was painted bright green. In the room were 6 cots, each containing a very elderly person and all of their belongings. We began sitting and chatting with each one. Although, chatting is probably a misnomer since it was a definite struggle for us to understand them and for them to understand us. But we all enjoyed talking whether or not anyone could understand what the other was saying. Alisa and I rambled on about whatever we could think of . . . where we were from, what we did that day, food we liked, etc. We discovered that many of the people were there because they had no other family left.
Eventually, Alisa and I began running out of conversation topics. At one point Alisa said to the blind woman she was sitting with, "This room is really beautiful. It's so . . . green." The woman smiled and nodded in agreement. There was one woman who, throughout, had been rocking and moaning in the corner. Inspired by her music, and having no other idea of what to do, we decided to sing for them. So, in our awful voices, we attempted to sing "This Little Light of Mine." Amazingly, the men and women began joining in. They knew none of the words, let alone the language we were singing in, but they joined in gusto, singing their own language, rocking, and ringing their hands. The woman in the corner shrieked with delight. We sang a few more songs before we had to leave. It was a beautiful moment and we were very sad to go.


Beautiful mountains and village roads


Smiling children who climbed trees and picked us fresh fruit


Colorful trucks overflowing with people


Skinned cats. Wearing hats. In the Catholic parish. Enough said.