Thursday August 29, 2019

San Salvador, El Salvador

Genesis 7:11-8:5

v. 5b  …on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.  As the plane descended over Central America, mountains became visible to me, too, but from my window and thankfully not from floods—pointy volcanic-looking mountains pushing up from lush green earth divided into narrow fields.  Who would have dreamed we’d be spending Labor Day weekend in one of the most dangerous countries in the world?  It was never on my list.  But Machu Picchu was, and El Salvador, where Chris is stationed at the embassy, was on the way.  It looked pleasant enough from the air, and Chris said we would be OK, though he is in Argentina and not here to greet us.  (Who would have guessed he’d be such the world traveler too?)  But he had mixed up the days of his empleada’s visit and there was no dinner in the oven as we expected.  We were tired when we got this news and pickins were slim—but NO, we could not go out walking and get something to eat.  Probably because there’s just nothing nearby.  That and the guy with the big gun at the top of the street.  Don’t want to get on the wrong side of him.  Thank you, Lord, for our safe arrival.  Thank you for the beauty of the earth here and the hint of adventure ahead in the mountains.

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The day before we left, just as has happened in our two previous trips, Maurice got stung by one of his bees.  The last two times he swelled up and was at the ER hours before our flight.  This time he ran upstairs and treated himself with the meds left from the previous visits, then sat still and iced his wound.  It hurt but there was no swelling.  We compare his legs every few hours and they are the same size.

It was four hours on Avianca to San Salvador.  I waited too long to use the WC and decided not to after Maurice came back and gave me a report of its condition—clogged sink, no toilet seat and used toilet paper piled high in the bin next to it.  Ugh.  The TP business is how people in some…out-of-the-way places…deal with delicate plumbing, but on a plane?  I didn’t realize Avianca was a third world airline.  But there was no sign telling you not to put TP in the toilet; is this just what Central Americans expect to do?  As soon as the plane stopped, everyone, including the little old ladies clad all in black with eyelet-trimmed shawls, was out of his or her seat, reaching short arms up to the luggage racks and surging forward in the aisle toward the still-closed cabin door.  There would be no orderly exit by rows; Maurice kept his solid self firmly planted so I could get out too.

As Chris had promised, an embassy driver was at our arrival gate holding a sign with our names on it.  Our first stop, at my request, was the WC.  It is an international airport, so of course there were all of three ladies toilet stalls—and you were supposed to throw your paper in the bin.  Then we continued along the airport’s long narrow single corridor lined with shops, people waiting in wheelchairs and enterprising souls who kept asking us, “Taxi?” even though we were obviously following Ezequiel.  Ezequiel had told us he didn’t speak much English but that didn’t stop Maurice from trying to converse or ask him things, and not just, “Where is the bathroom?”  Maurice pointed out that we not only don’t have Chris’ wifi password at his house, we also don’t even know his address and don’t have any other connection in El Salvador.  Poor Maurice.  He is not used to traveling blind like this, not knowing where we’re going or what’s what; he has a hard time on the Kenya mission trips too (me—I love to travel with Mauricey because I can just count on him to get us where we need to be).  We have the embassy driver, I told Maurice, and Chris gave us the house keys—plus his housekeeper is fixing dinner.  We’ll be fine. It was hot outside but the terminal building, with a roof that looked like a roller coaster track, was in a pleasant setting.  Broad-leaved pothos vines climbed up a thick tree, and water flowing over a big rectangular Meso-American themed fountain sparkled in the sun; Maurice noticed honeybees at one end enjoying water from the splashes.

Traffic was busy but not crazy.  We passed a number of little trucks with people packed in the open bed or practically hanging from poles.  An armed guard stood against the rail of a truck transporting bottles of propane.  Along the road dozens of rickety little stands were piled high with coconuts.  People walk along the streets, like in Africa.  ES looks like a third-world country but maybe a notch up from Africa, more tropical, greener, not quite as dismal looking, though Chris said later this is the rainy season and everything looks grimy and brown the other six months of the year.

Chris didn’t mention there was a gate and an armed guard at the top of his hilly street, but he let our car in.  Chris’ house is quite nice but…indescribable.  It’s not like anything I’ve seen in the US.  The AC was welcomingly set on super-chill.  We wandered around the house like country bumpkins, opening doors and taking it all in.  The laundry room was a special wonder.  You could practically live in its spaciousness, along with a couple of attached small rooms and a full bath (“It’s the maid’s quarters, if you have a live-in maid,” Chris told us later.)  And the laundry sink—also indescribable.  Chris said he can’t explain it but all the houses have them; you could embalm a body in that sink.  In all our domestic exploration there was no sign of the cat, or of the empleada with dinner.  “Maybe she comes later in the day,” I said to Maurice.  We were now on mountain time, and it wasn’t as late as it seemed.

I took a nap.  I tried to read.  I was too tired to write.  The doorbell rang—ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong.  Would it ever stop?  There’s a camera but the person was standing too close to the door.  “This is El Salvador!” I called to Maurice.  “Don’t let anybody in!”  But he was already opening the many doors it takes to get to the actual street entry.  Our visitor was one of the embassy guards doing a patrol of the neighborhood (Chris told us later they do regular checks of embassy housing, reading a bar code near each front door to record when they were there).  We (meaning Maurice) had left the front door ajar.  Whoops.  And this is El Salvador.

We followed the instructions, and though our devices said we were attached to his wifi, nothing worked.  Even the TV didn’t work.  Maurice finally bit the bullet and turned on his data plan, $10 a day from the ATT crooks, yet worth it right now.  We connected with Chris.  Whoops.  Wrong day for the empleada.  She doesn’t come until tomorrow and, because he’s been away for two weeks, he doesn’t have any food in the house for her to fix anyway.  And the wifi probably doesn’t work because he’s been away and didn’t pay the bill.  I was tired and getting crankier by the minute.  We rustled up supper—a shared frozen pizza for one, salad of half-frozen shriveling tomato and withering yellow pepper, and green Salvadoran ice cream with no sabor printed on the carton and of uncertain flavor.  It was all fine.  Then we sat together on the sofa and watched the movie I had downloaded onto my ipad until we both fell asleep.  I woke up to Maurice punching my leg telling me to wake up (I hate that).  We dragged ourselves up toward bed.  The power went out.  We didn’t know where things were.  Maurice had a flashlight in the tech bag and I used that to dig out our headlights—first time I’ve ever really used mine though I carried it on two caminos.  Very handy indeed.  Maurice texted Chris.  Yes, this happens regularly, but the electricity should be on again soon.  It was getting hot already.  No point opening the windows because it was even hotter outside.  All our devices were low.  I can’t drink the water.  Why am I here?  Just put me to bed….