Totally forgot to put my memory stick back in my camera last night, so I didn’t take any pictures of work today. But for your visual stimulation, here are some I took during prior days that give a little sense of how life is different down here.
#1 – Fruit disinfectant – I did usually just eat the fruit without it, but some folks recommend using this disinfectant on your fruit to avoid getting sick from the water you use to get the dirt off. So I did it once. Then decided I’d risk it (so far, so good!)
#2 – Mountains and Volcanoes – San Salvador is surrounded by mountains, so every time you turn a corner, you’re looking at a set. There’s also a huge volcano of which I haven’t gotten a great picture yet, but when I do, I’ll post it!
#3 – Architecture and Security – Most of the homes, stores, schools, and organizations around us are behind walls. It’s much like Mexico and Guatemala (and possibly other Central American countries I haven’t yet visited). In El Salvador, some of it’s just tradition, some of it is fear of crime, but some of it that we can’t relate to in the U.S. is leftover insecurity from their most recent civil war. It ended in 1992, and those who remember the violence feel better living within the walls of their compound. And it’s what you do here; houses have outdoor courtyards and “room” spaces, gardens, out-buildings and then the main house, and you just stay pretty much inside your big gated area.
Here’s what I thought of as a “Salvadoran Expo Design Center.” The pictures on the front show very nice doors, cabinetry and other home design items; and the sign in the second says they sell “Doors, Pantries and Closets.”
Here’s the house where we’re staying. High walls with razor wire at the top. The stairs to the right lead up to a park, so there’s extra razor wire along that side (2nd pic).
#4 – Landscaping – The first thing I noticed was the lack of grass, but most major cities have that issue, too much concrete. But all over San Salvador I keep seeing this “tree art.” This is the park near our house, so they did birds. But I’ve seen armadillos, giraffes, lizards, and all manner of other things, too.
Daily Summary:
And if you can stand to read along without any photographic accompaniment, I’ll try to paint you some mental pictures. I went back to CIPI today, and it was a fantastic day. For starters, Kurt had the great idea to send me with some stuff. So I hit the special needs area with a couple balls, paper, markers, little whistles and those fabric adjustable bracelets you can get at Chuck E Cheese for 10 tickets. 
The kids loved all of it and were totally surprised, so that was very cute. I had brought some latex gloves for the Tias, so I blew a few of those up and made them into birds (made sure I gave one to that little guy who loves them so much, first!). Also a huge hit.
MY great surprise was that there was another volunteer there. He saw me playing with the kids and asked me a couple questions in Spanish, and I answered in Spanish, but then he asked in English if I spoke English. I believe my response was “oh my heavens, yes!” Turns out he’s a retired special ed P.E. teacher from just south of Annapolis, and he “snow bird”s down to E.S. every year from January to March to volunteer in the orphanages. And he makes all sorts of cool interactive things for the kids to play with out of hardware store stuff and leftover junk – cheap and duplicateable (his hope is that he’ll leave the things behind and the folks at the orphanage will realize they can make more of them).
It was just nice to get to speak English for a little while, and also very cool to randomly bump into a person from my home state who has an interest in the Salvadoran people and particularly the special needs kids and who donates his time like that. I was inspired, for sure.
But I had also promised the kids from yesterday that I’d come hang out with them for a while, so after lunch I held and changed a few babies and then chased the little ones around, pretending to be a monster who “needed to eat a delicious ______ [fill in the name].” Also quite popular as it turns out, since the Tia doesn’t do that. I don’t blame her; I was a sweaty, funky mess by the time Kurt got back to pick me up.
But he had brought shoes for the “Medium Boys,” so despite the funk, I went with him to hand them out. HE took a picture of me with them on his camera, so hopefully I’ll get to post that someday, too.
But more on who the “Medium Boys” are: they’re boys from 8-12 years of age who have been moved to CIPI from one of other gov’t orphanages called CISNA. CISNA was meant to be a more permanent all-boys orphanage. But the little ones were sometimes getting molested by the older ones, so they moved them to CIPI for protection. But CIPI has girls and little ones and special needs kids, so they separated the boys to a group of buildings down hill and a little bit away from all the others.
And what a friendly, cute bunch of boys. They were so excited about their new shoes, and strutted around like little “homies” once they had them on. Kurt said he loves his job because he gets to be like Santa Claus with his bags of goodies, and they do love to see him coming. Some of them have known him for much of the 6 years he and his families have lived here as missionaries. Half their lives, for them.
So even though I was a little apprehensive this morning at spending yet another day as the odd white woman who doesn’t always understand what’s being said, it ended up being just one great thing after another. I totally see why the full-time folks down here can keep doing it because even in this one week I started to form relationships with the kids and the Tias. And that makes all the smells and whatever just fade away.
My biggest “success” of the day requires a gross-out warning. So skip this last paragraph if you’re light-of-stomach. There’s a little guy named José -Luís (yes, another José… I’m good at finding ‘em) who has a nasty habit of stuffing his hands in his mouth to gag himself, choking up slime, playing with it in his hands, and then slurping it back up. I think it’s partly out of boredom and mostly for some kind of sensory stimulation. But yes, ewww. So because he does this, when they can’t take it any longer, the Tias strap braces on his arms to keep them straight and away from his mouth, put tall socks over those, and then tie him into a chair with his hands away from each other, so he can’t pull the braces off and keep doing it. The other day when I was feeding him, he kept putting his feet on me, so I’d tickle them, and he’d laugh, and even though he can’t talk I realized he understood me when I did. So today when his clothes were all nasty from drool and lunch, one of the Tias asked me to go ahead and change his shirt. Which meant taking off the braces. I took that as permission to leave him that way for a little while, and just stayed on him to keep his hands away from his mouth. But as we walked around and looked at leaves, toys, those glove-balloons, the other kids and their chairs, he stopped the compulsive sticking his hands to his mouth thing. He made it a whole hour without doing the gross gagging routine, when it had been pretty continuous the other day till they put him in his strappy contraption. And the Tias were joking that he was saying “Freedom!” as he walked around and explored. Unfortunately there isn’t one person who can dedicate full-time to working with this guy, so his life will be a lot of sitting in that chair with his arms bound, even though he’s perfectly able to move around and walk. Because when no one’s paying attention to him, he slips into his self-soothing habit which just so happens to be totally disgusting to everyone around him. But for one hour today, he was closer to “normal,” and it was sweet to see him looking around the place and then looking over at me to see if I was still paying attention. Awww.
And with that, I’m going to bed! Good night!
photo credit: 
