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.