Back from El Salvador

Well, I am now back in Santa Maria after a fabulous week soaking up the sun and suffering from mosquito bites at the beaches of El Salvador.

We had originally left with the intention of renewing our visas and having a student conference in preparation for the community conferences…but found out that starting last August, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua started a new law for looser borders and so crossing into El Sal didn’t help us at all and I’m going to have to go to Mexico or pay a fee and wait for the paperwork in the capital…

We got to San Salvador and then down to La Libertad and took a bus to a smaller town called El Tunco (named after a big rock that looked like a pig) where we stayed in a great little hotel with a patio stretching out over the river that fed into the ocean. The Conference was held in the mornings for 3 days and then we played on the beach in the afternoons. I made a turtle, swam in the ocean for the first time in my life (I’d been to the beach but never went further than my feet could touch or tried to ride the waves) and went boogy-boarding though I didn’t have the guts to try surfing. Dustin was stoked for surfing and got up on his first wave and became a veritable professional in his week on the beach. It was a fabulously beautiful black sand beach with a long sloping beach under the waves that was perfect for playing in and learning to body surf. Miracle of miracles, I didn’t get burned and didn’t even get any tanner…I was slightly paranoid and so I actually put on some 15 sunblock but then the latter days I didn’t even put that on because it was obvious that I wasn’t going to get any browner. Ironically enough, our native Guatemalan David burned his nose to a crisp and was complaining about how much his chest hurt from the sunburn. Go figure.

We met a bunch of international surfers including a pair of guys from Switzerland, a guy from England, another from Boston, a German, a couple from San Francisco, and some Israelis. Most of them hadn’t learned a word of Spanish and were just excited to hit the waves. It was weird to be around tourists again though it wasn’t that full since the rainy season detracts a lot from the tourist trade. I had a hard time being a tourist though and I really wanted to get away from the group and get to know some of the locals without the reduction or our relationship to economic transactions.

On Wednesday, I decided that I was done with the touristy beach and wanted to go up north to another beach with a coral reef and so even though the rest of the group decided to stay, I left. I had to take a round-about trail because the direct route didn’t have any real good direct buses so I went back through San Salvador to Sonsonate and down to the beach of Los Cóbanos. Once there after 5 hours in the buses, I saw that not only were there no tourists but there were no workers or residents either. Well, not NOBODY but definitely not well-visited. Thus, more of my kind of place. I was excited to spend the next 3 days doing NOTHING and chilling on the beach while I worked on catching up on fieldnotes and outlining the rest of my time in Guatemala…but Heavenly Father had a different plan for me.

I went and found a place to stay the night (though he wanted to charge me $10 for the day and $10 for the night explaining that people usually rented the room for one or the other but not for 24 hours like a normal hotel and that the only other hotel would charge $30 a night of 24 hours which turned out to be true…), changed my clothes and went down to the beach. It was a much different kind of beach and it kinda surprised me. The sand was more of the sandy color I would think of and was thicker with lots of little seashells unlike the silty black sand of the other beach. There were lots of large rocks buried in the sand so it was more precarious to jump in, but the waves didn’t crest at all near the shore since the shore just dropped off after a short while and you couldn’t touch down after the first 2 feet of water. So, it was great to swim in and feel the pushing and pulling of the waves without them crashing on your head.

When I got tired of treading water, I headed to the beach and just played in the waves hitting me. I had seen a group of people swimming next to me and as I was on the shore, I saw they had 2 little boys with them that were playing soccer in the sand and every once in a while the ball would escape into the waves and float with the curves as the waves lapped against the shore. Once the ball escaped toward me and I told him in Spanish to be careful and he grabbed the ball and ran away. Pretty soon, the whole group came out of the water and started playing in the sand. Little by little, the game came my way until the ball was swirling around my head with each play. I wondered what was going on but I liked watching them play and I was really entertained. I was really grateful to be at a normal locals’ beach and kept thinking how simply beautiful that was to see a family playing soccer on the beach rather than chain-smoking Germans and language-illiterate surfers. After a few minutes, the family sat down a little ways away from me and I decided to talk to them and I asked if they were from here. The ringleader young woman got really excited and her eyes lit up as she asked if I really spoke Spanish. I laughed and said yes and we started talking. They asked where I was coming from and if I was afraid to be traveling on my own. I talked about the other students and how I wanted to see another part of the country and get away from the tourists and they said that they had seen some white people occasionally but they don’t ever know any Spanish so they can’t talk to each other. I asked them if they knew places I should go to or beaches that I should visit and prompted them to take me around the next day if they had time. They looked at each other and said that would be great and they would come to pick me up and I said I would go write down my cell phone so that we could call each other if we got mixed up on how to meet up. When I came back with the paper, they said they had been talking and thought it would be better if I just came to their house and stayed with them and that I would save money that way because they wouldn’t charge me for the house or food. I hesitated for a second and said a quick, silent prayer about whether that would be good or not and I felt really good about and said that I would love to go. So, I ended up spending 3 of the most fantastic days of my life hanging out with the family and going on short roads trips around Sonsonate to small El Salvadorian towns and to the beach of Barra de Santiago.

We had pupusas every night—beans and cheese wrapped up in corn dough and served hot with sweet salsa and cabbage topping—and ate rabbit meat (which was way stronger than I had expected and I wouldn’t personally recommend as a meat of choice), had real cold milk, lots of beans, and fresh French bread from the family’s bread shop.
At the beach, I almost died by almost stepping on this dead blowfish that had washed up on shore, I played soccer for hours and beat the natives while we got covered in sand and then jumped in the water, took pictures of fishermen with huge shrimp and small trout—and after taking the pictures of one of the workers, he gave me 2 fish as a present and I gave them to the family to take home—and had the most relaxing and work-free time of my time here.

I also made some incredibly touching relationships with the family and was shocked with how much trust they gave me and how comfortable I felt with them over the span of 2 and a half days. They told me that it was their responsibility as Christians and on Thursday they had a culto (religious meeting) at their house and invited me to participate with them and even lent me a skirt so I could go. The 23-year-old son is looking to become an evangelical preacher and despite his initial timidity, he eventually started some very intense religious conversations with me about his beliefs and attempts to prove that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost were all the same God with 3 manifestations. At first I was tempted to be logical and use my debate mode, but as I kept saying silent prayers to be able to say the right things and touch his heart through the Spirit or otherwise do the Father’s will, I found myself just being quiet and letting him explain whatever he felt necessary. I told him that I wasn’t looking to argue with him and there was really only one thing I wanted to tell him. I said that I wasn’t going to fight his doctrinal knowledge of the Bible, instead I just wanted to say that I, personally, knew that God was real and that He was at the head of the Mormon Church and that He had answered my prayers and given me a personal answer to my search for knowledge. I said I wouldn’t try to convince him but instead just tell him what I knew for myself and shared my testimony in that way. He sat back and thought for a minute and then went back to some of his previous citations. We do have a lot of doctrine in common, but it was interesting to me to see how even with those similar doctrines, the different emphases and applications changed the significance. For example I talked about the existence of prophets as in times of old and he said that he believed in prophets too and that a guy named William Brannon was born in the States and was called to be a prophet and now that he has died, his son is the current prophet. I had never heard of other churches that believed in modern-day prophets in the organizational and administrative way that he cited so that was interesting.

I talked to him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and when we were back at the house, I showed him my scriptures and when he drove me to catch the bus, I left my triple with him and told him that I would lend it to him but I would make another trip down to visit his family before I left for the States. Who knows what will or will not happen with that, but it was a touching experience.

The family really received me as one of their own and it was hard to say goodbye even after such a short time. They said they had never actually conversed with a white person before and even with a lot of their family living as immigrants in the States, they didn’t know a lot about Americans or America and were excited to maintain contact with me. I am sad that they are so far from my little niche in Santa Maria, but I am decided to make another trip down there before leaving Guatemala and I hope to keep in touch in the future. It’s frustrating though because Guatemalan telephone companies for whatever reason don’t believe in making it possible to call their neighboring country and I have yet to figure out a way to even call them…but we’ll see how it works out.

In the end, it was a great week off and I was given yet another confirmation that God knows where we are and what we need. He knows me and knows that I am not happy being a normal tourist and being treated as a white girl rather than a complex person, and He blessed me with the chance to get to know a truly Christian family that are now dear friends of mine. As Suzanne reminded me when recounting the story, the best thing I could take away is a testimony that we are all God’s children and regardless of how insignificant we feel in our small little places in life, he knows where we are and what we need. They refused any attempt to pay them for their food and house (which was complete with a 2:30 AM cockroach visit that freaked me permanently out of my mind of living on the coast) but I know that if they are willing to take it, the best compensation I could ever give would be the restored gospel of Christ that they have a lot of but don’t have in it’s entirety.

This coming week I’ll be working on setting up the community Thank You Conferences and probably making a trip to Mexico to renew my visa. I hope all are enjoying the summer and those of you in Utah are living up the Statehood celebrations. I am now 4 weeks from going back to the USA, so I really need to crank for the next while to get things done and I can’t believe how fast the time is going. I hope to hear from you all soon!!

This first picture is me alongside my masterpiece sea turtle I carved on the beach. Didn't last long...but it was beautiful let me tell you!

This next one is a beautiful sunset on the beach of the Barra de Santiago. I loved this beach and spent a good deal of time playing soccer and soaking up the waves on my last day in El Salvador

The wonderful familia Arias Polanco (and Carolina's familia that I don't know their last name) in Sonsonate, El Salvador. Carolina is the one in the middle in pink...the one that first talked to me and invited me to her house.

I had to take a model walk (actually I was playing soccer and it just turned out a good picture lol...) and here's a star in training, little Johan playing soccer in the sand.

We next have a tub full of HUGE shrimp and the town drunk that wanted to show them off to me.

Next we have a fisherman holding up his catch. Soon after I obliged when he asked me to take his picture, he gave me two fish to remember him by. Unfortunately, I had to leave them behind and we didn't have time to cook them up since I left early the next morning, but it was cool all the same.

Finally, Gervis of the host family working in his bread shop. The family was so cool and I really wish I could have stayed longer with them...

This is Ignacio from the Buena Vista Social Club



















Next, me working in the bakery at La Salle

The last two are from a visit to the little preschool where two of the girls in my house go to school and where my host mom gives the daily refaccion or treat.

More pictures later when the internet signal is better....I promise!

Well sorry that I haven’t been consistent in writing on this blog. Taking fieldnotes every day is a lot more draining than I remember and so having to maintain two big records is hard for me…

This last week was the feria of Santa Maria. It’s a yearly event and a huge deal for the locals. I had gone down to the feria in San Pedro on the edge of the lake both with some friends from La Salle and then with my family and it was awesome to get a more native experience of the fair than just the tourists. I had bought a corte from my host mom and tried to participate in the local tradition of premiering a new outfit for the fair. I wore a corte and embroidered blouse to San Pedro and while there I bought a purple blouse and purple flower belt and shiny metallic purple high heels to premier for Santa Maria’s fair. I didn’t have the purple corte so technically I wasn’t totally traditional because they say that to premier your clothes you have to be all one color, but I was still wonderfully coordinated. I wore the outfit for the parade Sunday morning and all day through the fair on Sunday and bought three more half cortes so that I can wear just corte once we get back from El Salvador in two weeks and so on Monday I was able to be all in purple. It was interesting to see how people reacted here as compared to when I wore corte for a couple weeks in Nahuala. I got a million compliments and my friends wanting to take pictures with me and saying that I looked gorgeous and the people that I didn’t know just getting quirky smiles and all the drunks and teenagers whistling. All of the girls had gotten dressed in corte to go to the parade and it was fun to see them dressed up too though I think it’s just not the same borrowing clothes and searching out your own style. I was really tall too with the heels at a towering 5 foot 7. It was great. I really feel I bonded with my host mom and her best friend that lives in San Pedro. She had come up for the fair and I let her share my bed 2 nights in a row and between the three of us we had constant girls night outs and I felt really comfortable with them and they defended me from the creepy guys trying to get me to dance with them.

At the same time, I didn’t like the fair because it was an open invitation for the drunks to roam the streets and we even had a good amount of guest drunks from other communities that would come up for the music blaring on the streets. I had wanted to dance but only the drunks danced by themselves and the guys that asked me to dance were too sketchy for my taste until the one normal guy on Tuesday night pushed by his fellow university friends to ask me to dance.

We also celebrated the 4^th of July and our half-way point in the program. I was sad to not be at my own family’s get-together but we planned a dinner of hot dogs, watermelon, potato salad, and a homemade red, white, and blue cake. We invited all of our host families to come too and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I was really worried at first that people wouldn’t come because Amy’s mom refused to go up to Santa Clara and I didn’t know if the Santa Clara people would come down to Santa Maria but I asked the people at La Salle if we could have it there and they said that it would be fine so we had it at a neutral place (though in Santa Maria) and almost all the families showed up. Some didn’t eat the watermelon because it’s taboo to eat cold foods at night but the rest of us scarfed it down and there were no leftovers whatsoever.

In other news, Kristine managed to lose her flash drive voice recorder. I had thought maybe I’d taken it to the internet and left it in one of the computers but as I asked at each place they didn’t have it. Finally, late night after the 4^th of July party, I got a phone call and found out it had fallen out of my bag when we went down to San Pedro in my friend’s car. Unfortunately, due to a virus that I had already had on there, I lost all the voice files including 3 interviews and last Monday Meeting but the good thing is that I have the flash back and supposedly virus free now. That same night, I had a really interesting conversation about religion. My friend asked what the basic doctrines of Mormonism were and I talked about the nature of God, our potential to become like him, living revelation and prophets, and the restoration of Christ’s Church with His authority on the earth again. From my friend’s point of view, he said that we basically believed the same things and the only difference was that we had more scripture than the Bible. It was a good comfortable conversation on one hand, but on the other it was hard to talk about things I saw as different and he saw as the same. I mean, I do believe that our doctrines have a lot in common but when I tried to talk about authority and permission it didn’t mean anything to him and he concluded that we are evangelical. He talked about how he wanted to play in an evangelical band and make a living playing in concert (which is an amazingly lucrative job here in Guate) and I told him about music in our church and I happened to have my hymn book in my bag and lent it to him to play around with (at least until Sunday when I go to church). It was an interesting conversation too because there are no missionaries here in Santa Maria nor Santa Clara. When the fighting broke out a few years ago they took the missionaries away and they were having to travel a ways anyway since the nearest chapels are in Nahuala and Solola. As students in a Field Study we are not to be proselyting either but I am grateful for the opportunities to talk about the gospel when the other people here bring it up and the fact that we don’t drink coffee usually sparks at least a small discussion about being Mormon and people are incredibly tolerant and kind so it’s been good.

I’ve had to make some adjustments to my plans with the arrival of Dr. Williams. I have some pending publications to put together with him and he realizes that once I finish here in Guatemala I’ll be on double time to get ready for Paraguay and I won’t be of any use to him and his research anymore. So, as much as I love getting primary information and talking with people and researching La Salle, I really have to spend more time alone with my computer and get some papers written…not my favorite part of the research process but an important one so that I don’t disappear without putting anything out for academic consideration. So, I’m planning to work this next week indoors and tighten things us when we go to El Salvador and hopefully get a few articles submitted before I leave Guate. I’m still freaked out by the 10 month commitment I’ve made for the Fulbright in Paraguay but if things go the way they have here in Guate I’ll be happy. It’s going to be harder because I don’t know any Guaraní yet and I came here already knowing a good deal of K’iche’ but the Lord knows what he is doing and I just hope that I’m good enough to get things done in the amount of time I’ve been given.

I hope all are doing well and enjoying the summer sun. I heard a heat wave and drought has struck Utah while I’ve been suffering through daily torrential rains. Ironic. We plan everything around the rain and usually it strikes in early afternoon which is lunch time so it works out pretty well but not all the time. I’m pretty used to it now though and kinda like the atmosphere of sitting inside and pondering the cultural universes while the rain pounds against my tin roof. If I could send some up your way I would, but alas… Have a great week and keep me in touch. Lots of love!!