I am sitting in a wonderful house just outside the city of San Salvador in an area called Corinto, El Salvador. The birds are singing and it’s already 30 C outside at 7:30 in the morning…definitely not complaining about that. My daughter Alana and I are here with a group of people to help with a building project, and anyone that knows me is probably laughing right now because of my serious lack of skill in that area.
There are 11 of us in this group from Canada and we have been billeted out to 3 local families to stay with. What a wonderful experience this is, to eat, sleep and talk with people and absorb their culture. Alana and I are staying with Pastor Damian, Rosita and their daughter Marcella. They know some English and our pidgin Spanish mixed with a comical use of sign language allows us to communicate quite well. Damian loves music and has guitars from all over the world, Rosita is a wonderful woman and fabulous cook. Marcella is a beautiful young lady who is going to university to become a Kindergarten teacher. We are blessed to be here!
Ah the food…both Alana and I were hoping to come back smaller than we left but alas that might not be possible! We are being fed too well! The first night we had paposas which are tortillas with cheese/beans/chicken in the middle, fried and comes with a spicy tomato dipping sauce. WOW! The second night we had tamales. They were beautifully prepared…the tamale is prepared and wrapped up in plantain leaves and baked. When they are served the middle of the plantain leaves are sliced open exposing the tamale inside to scoop out and eat. They were not only tasty but beautiful too! Each night has been a showcase of Rosita’s good cooking, we are happy and unfortunately growing rather than shrinking.
We established a routine pretty quickly; usually the missionary Ron Lapka comes to pick us up from our various locations by 8am. We pile into a couple of pickup trucks, the younger crowd riding in the boxes hanging on for dear life. The road up to the project has recently been improved and is no wider than the vehicle and constructed of flat rock embedded in the ground, uneven and torn out in some spots. As we drive we are as close to being vertical in some areas as I care to be in a vehicle, made a little more hazardous by the rocking and rolling over the rutted road.
Each person on the team brings something different to the mix and it has been interesting getting to know new people and working with them. There is one young man named Cody. We met up with him in Edmonton and travelled out together. We were sitting in the Edmonton airport watching him consume 2 Red Bulls and 3 cans of Coke when all of a sudden his head hit the table with a THUD! We were terrified, well I was terrified, that he’d killed himself with caffeine overload. Just as suddenly as his head went down it came back up again and he was laughing…we weren’t. We started asking him some questions and found out that he was carrying 6 epi-pens. Ah ha, WHY? I’m sure you can picture my eyes wide and a shocked/scared expression complete with highly arched eyebrows. So, our friend Cody is allergic to everything…grass, dust, fruit etc. We asked if he’d told anyone…nope was his answer, he was going to, but forgot. Crap…
My motherly instincts kicked in upon arrival and I started watching out for Cody and so did my friend Tina. The issue with watching out for Cody was that he was a moving target. He never stayed still for long and certainly wasn’t always doing what we thought he should be doing. We were constantly calling is name and finding him up some tree with kids, or playing Frisbee with kids, or trying to communicate with some kids with crazy hand gesturing…you get the picture. Interestingly enough he would pop up in unusual places and work really hard and be incredibly productive only to race off again with a pack of kids surrounding him. Tina was talking to him the other day and out of the mouth of this 18 year old young man came a profound statement.
One day all you will be is a memory, make sure it’s a good one
I appreciate our Cody Lee for the great job he is doing on site, but more than that I am proud of him for being someone who will have left some great memories behind when he leaves this place. Thanks Cody for reminding me that there’s WAY more to life than just ticking items off my to-do list….even here in El Salvador!
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