better late than never

Here are a few pictures in random order, ones I would have posted while on the road if had been possible.You'll note that my technical abilities are on the sorry side, so it's not laid out as well as I'd have liked. The one above is probably my favorite shot from the whole trip. The purple off to the side melts me every time I look at it.
Everyone carries things on their heads. Food, wood, clothing. All of it. It's an art, and it's amazing.

This is the cafe of a guesthouse we stayed at for a few days. All of the cafes are open air, but this one was on an orchid farm, and much consideration went into it's ambience. It was quite lovely there. I think I liked staying here best of anyplace we visited. It was a really beautiful spot high atop a mountain.

J took the picture while I was out swimming with the Canadians and the children. We came in just as the sun was setting while the men sat on the beach and watched the sun dip behind the jungle.














This was the entrance to a guesthouse we stayed in for a night. Each of the rooms are named after an El Salvadorian poet or author. The rooms were incredibly tiny - ours held a double bed and barely enough room to walk around one side of it. We sat in those chairs drank beer and played chess one afternoon.














Below is the Parque Central in Suchitoto, but most towns are organized the same way with the church being the center of town and everything fashioned around it. This was a particularly lovely spot, and for an extra bonus we got to hear Sunday mass (from outside, while drinking coffee).

Thank you for asking to see pictures. El Salvador is many things, and has had a long and difficult road, and it was terrific to spend some time inside it's borders.

And as a reminder, it's time for our third Just Post Roundtable. If you have a post of yours or one you've appreciated that was written by someone else, please send them my way (to girlplustwo (at) yahoo(dot) com) by March 8th.

We'll link all posts and anyone who refers one (or more) in our Just Post Roundtable on the 10th. If this is new to you, please feel free to check it out here.

el canadianos

Our last stop in El Cuco and our last night in El Salvador was met with intense amusement. We stumbled upon a run down little hotel and found a family of Canadians who'd been living there for the past few weeks on holiday.

The family, desperate for english communication I believe, immediately scooped us up and rendered us kin. Grandma C was a gardener by trade, in fact, she possesses a legal license to harvest 8 pounds of marijuana (Canada rocks more and more every single day) and Grandpa C was recently retired and absolutely in love with El Salvador.

At sunset the women grabbed me for their nightly ritual. They would go down to the ocean as the sun was setting and round up a bunch of El Salvadorian children and go for a swim in the crashing waves.

How could I resist? So we all rushed into the surf, children, grandparents, adults, three countries together under one vast ocean, laughing, screaming, splashing....it was glorious. In fact, at one point after being pummeled by some waves I stood up and yelled This Is Glorious! To which Grandma C grasped me in a warm wet hug and said yes, child. yes.

And it was. Children riding on our shoulders, waves crashing, forgetting for a while that home is on the horizon, responsibilities, things that weigh on my heart. For a few moments, all was truly free.

It should more often be this way.

mas o menos

We headed up to northern El Salvador to Perquin, one of the last FMLN strongholds during the civil war. The town was tiny, bulletholes still in the walls, murals depicting struggles, glory, and hope. We arrived as the children were getting out of school and watched all of them wander past shouting Buenas! Then giggling Gringos! We've only seen a handful of white folks our entire trip, we've already grown accustomed to the lack of blending in.

We meandered up to the guerrilla memorial and museum, a three room tin shack memorializing the struggle of the peasants against the government. We were shamed as we walked the halls, seeing the US weapons, the tales of bombs and artillery given to their government by ours to stop the uprising, a righteous uprising aimed at bringing equality to the people, the poor, the coffee farmers and cattle herders.

I found myself with tears in my eyes, seeing the photos of the children, of the slogans for peace and an end to poverty, and the signs begging the US to stay out of their country. A man our age walked up, limping on a bad leg, and in broken english and a bit more spanish explained how he was 15 when it happened, a bomb dropped on his village, and he was hurt, and his brothers and sisters were killed. We were both teenagers then, in 1983, and I spent those years lip synching to Prince while he learned to use a gun to kill, to protect, to fight. To bury his siblings. We were both teenagers then.

Reagan, he says. Reagan didn't help. I don't know how to convey the deep shame and sadness I feel in my limited spanish, so all I say is Lo siento, amigo. Mucho, mucho lo siento. And then Reagan is an asshole. J starts to interrupt, but the man nods his head, says Si, yo se, es bien. We watched then as some children came running by, his daughter, tres anos, throws her arms around him.

And there weren't many words after that.

PS. Am trying to visit. I can't figure out how to make the freaking spanish keyboard make the (at) sign I need to to leave a comment at some of your spots (MamaTulip, Flutter, Kiki, HI!). I'll be back home soon and things will be back to normal.

But before I do, you'll get one more story about El Salvador. The hammock beckons.

Buenas Noches, Amigos

suchitoto

We headed east yesterday and found ourselves in this magical little colonial town nestled in the mountains. Cobblestone streets, a gothic and enormous church anchoring the center of town. Children chase pigeons, mamas chase their children, and papusas are being cooked in the streets.

I think of all I've seen so far, I am most enchanted with this tiny spot.

We'll stay for another night before heading farther east to a few towns J wants to explore. We also decided to cut the trip short by two days.....I've overestimated the amount of time I want to be away from M, a comforting and surprising experience all at once.

My heart beats slower here without her. I see her face in the faces of the children and I am wistful and joyful all at once. One in particular caught my heart last night, and I ended up giving her the bracelet I had got for M, knowing I can easily pick up another and the squeal of joy from the little guapita was richer and more beautiful than I'd thought possible.

I have entered more fully into motherhood on this trip - as strange as it sounds, the evolution continues even across the continent and in broken spanish, it beats strong and fierce, pulling me north.

Buenos Tardes, amigos.

the mellower side of an AK-47

Everyone here seems to have a gun. A big gun. On the side of the road, driving in the back of a car, when you stop and ask for directions....there is a gun. I´ve watched men twirl them around like batons, gesture wildly in laughter, arms raised...welcome and open and greeting Los Gringos with one arm holding a gun.

It´s an accessory that takes a bit of getting used to.

We´ve managed to cover a lot of the country - had an incredible night at a coffee plantation/orchid nursery where the coffee was sweet and dark. Nights on empty beaches with no one in site but small children barefoot and gathering dried fish from the tops of corregated roof tops.

It does and does not remind me of Guatemala, of Belize. It does and does not feel like Mexico, with the cowboy hats and the horses. We´ve seen very few foreigners here, it´s not yet a spot perhaps on the top of vacation lists. And the country is just waking up to the revenue of tourism, guesthouses are being built, commercialism expanding.

It´s been 15 years since the end of the civil war. And the guerrilla movement in El Salvador, the FMLA, has become one of the few to be recognized as a legitimate political party. It´s hard to understand what all of that means in a week, but it´s fascinating and scary all at the same time.

Tomorrow our friends leave and J and I will be on our own for the rest of our trip. It´s been sweet so far - long nights of cards and beer, laughing and storytelling. I feel like it´s been forever and also that we´ve just arrived.

No destination past tonight, so we need to decide how to spend the last week of our trip. I miss M, but from the emails home I´ve learned she´s been to both Disneyland and the wild animal park, so I am guessing Her Highness is near impossible right about now and I´ll be happy to let her unwind for a few more days before her own reality settles back in.

Again, connection is spotty - I´ve tried to visit but can´t get to where I want to go. I´ll try again next time we are in a spot that has a connection. It´s good and also strange how much some of you are in my thoughts. I am also still waiting for another bit of news from home, news that still hasn´t come so is ever present on my mind, and once it´s decided, I´ll know if I am swinging to the north or the south, but for now, we´ll play it loose under a lovely thatched roof for one more night, and try to stay in just this moment.

el salvador es muy bueno

Yes, we are still alive....

It seems like it´s been forever since I´ve written, or read any of your lovely writing. Truth be told, this is the first moment I´ve had access to a computer. And given the spottiness of the connection I am not sure I´ll be able to do much visiting quite yet.

El Salvador....wow. What a wonderful little country. We´ve been staying in villages and in off the beaten path guesthouses and have seen ruins and churches and cities and beaches and volcanos. In fact, I fell down on a volcano hike today and am quite whiney about it, but we´ve remedied that by finding some cabanas on the eastern coast and will make merry tonight and tomorrow.

This has been a terrific trip so far. Every person we´ve encountered has been so lovely, the places and towns and architecture all sad and inspiring and broken and perfect all at the same time.

Lucia, I´ve had (a few) pupusas in your honor, and I´ve toasted you all under El Salvadorian skies. I haven´t had much chance to find access so far, so we´ll see where we end up next week and how much better a job I can do of keeping in touch.

If you´ve ever considered this a vacation spot, think harder. It´s a little secret. More Canadians here...in fact I met a woman from Toronto and it was all I could do not to say DO YOU KNOW MAD? CRAZY MUM? But thankfully, I restrained.

Missing you even though I can´t do much visiting just yet.

But even here, you are with me. I love this great big world of ours.