PilgrimDance

Sunday September 1, 2019

San Salvador

Exodus 24 

v. 1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance….”  

I knew as soon as I read the first verse of my Scripture passage that there wouldn’t be a church service for us today.  “You are to worship at a distance.”  Chris didn’t know of any English language services around here, not even at the embassy.  I turned up one possibility online but Chris said we weren’t driving to some unknown neighborhood.  He had a lead on a service at the Holiday Inn but when he called it turned out to be a Catholic service in Spanish.  So we worshiped in our hearts and enjoyed the fruit-filled pancakes Maurice made for breakfast, then consulted with Mr. Tech Guy on a wide variety of issues (and he only ocasionally had to smother snorts of laughter at our ignorance—but, hey, he’s taught us so well that some of my friends consider me a tech expert).  Chris also laid out the options for the day:  an embassy visit, swimming in the embassy pool, the beach club, lunch at the approved pupuseria, the botanical garden, lunch at one of several places in town….

Maurice and I wanted to see the embassy, and everyone thought the beach club sounded good, so we packed up our things for the day, but Maurice was not happy.  He thought I should see a doctor about my increasing number of itchy red spots, before they turned into something really bad in the Andes frontière sans médecins and I would have to be evacuated.  I could see Maurice’s point.  But we are already in a foreign country, the embassy clinic is closed for the weekend, I couldn’t go there anyway because I don’t work there, our plane leaves tomorrow, I’ll be fine, and I want to do something fun with Chris.  Chris talked to a nurse friend, who said her family has had more skin issues here than ever before but offered to call ahead for us to the Hospital Diagnostico.  “A Salvadoran hospital?” I exclaimed with chagrin.  I was thinking somehow I could see American medical personnel.  No?  Well, I would be just fine.  Maurice loves me but I know from experience he is not good at evaluating my medical condition.  But Maurice got That Look, and I knew what I had to do.  The Hospital Diagnostico it would be.  Chris thought we should go to the hospital before any beach clubbing. He had never been there so it would be a new adventure for him too.  Whoop-de-do.

We got to the hospital about eleven.  It wasn’t far, past the Pupuseria Filipensis 4:13 and other colorful businesses which I didn’t get pictures of.  Parking at the hospital garage was only $1 an hour (El Salvador conveniently uses American currency).  Chris translated at the admission desk and I handed over my passport.  We didn’t have to wait long before a nurse called me back.  “You can both come,” I said.  “Wouldn’t the whole family come along in this culture?”  But only Chris came back to translate.  Eventually a doctor came to see me.  I showed her my spots and answered questions via Chris.  (Such a fine son!—though he told me to remember who took me to a Salvadoran hospital when it comes time to write the will.)  It’s an allergic reaction, said the doctora, perhaps to two different kinds of bug bites; it’s very hard to determine the exact cause.  She would give me a cream, and an oral medicine, and get treatment started quickly with an IV antihistamine.  “IV?” I exclaimed.  The doctor looked surprised.  I didn’t want an IV?  No!  Does anyone ever want to be jabbed?  Do doctors ever think how the patient feels?  But Maurice, who had made his way to the back, and Chris thought it would be a good idea to prime the pump, or whatever, so I agreed.

After a while a little nurse, smiling behind her mask, arrived with a tray of unpleasant supplies.  “Ask her if she’s good at this,” I said to Chris.  He alleged he didn’t know how.  I’ve learned to tell medical personnel that I don’t do this well, it hurts and I don’t like it, that it’s hard to get the IV in, and that I need somebody who’s really good at it.  (Unfortunately they all say they’re good at it, but only some of them are.)  I couldn’t begin to express this to the Salvadoran nurse so I had to go with the program and just look the other way.  But I could feel it.  Maurice laughed (lovingly, of course).  He says I yelled, but I only exclaimed forcefully for a few seconds.  I’m a highly sensitive person and I don’t do pain well.  The nurse dug around in my arm.  She pushed and prodded.  After a bit she said something to Chris (who couldn’t look either).  “You have to relax, Mom,” he told me.  “Take some deep breaths.  It won’t go in because you’re too tense.”  Well, duh, I didn’t say.  I tried to take some deep breaths and relax—relax while someone’s jabbing me!—but I don’t think anything changed.  There was more movement and more talk.  “She’s going to try a baby IV,” said Chris.  Good news.  It’s what she should have done in the first place.  It went right in.  Must remember to add “baby IV” to my next pre-IV spiel, should I ever need another one (please, Lord, no).  Things got settled.  I was getting cold.  “It’s the IV,” said Chris.  “They make you cold.”  Chris found me a blanket.  I think I dozed a bit.  When all the solution had been pumped into me, a specialist appeared.  He asked more questions and didn’t add much new info but seemed to think we were on the right track.  It all took several hours.  The nurse finally unhooked me.  We went back to the front door, paid by credit card (less than $200), then found the pharmacy, where statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary guarded the medications, and a Bible was for sale on a rack of miscellaneous.

It was close to 2:30.  So much for the beach club.  We headed to the embassy and Chris took us to the gate.  You can’t just go in the embassy even if you’re an American; you have to have a proper pass, and Chris had set it up three weeks ago.  But the guard could not find our names.  Chris scrolled through his email.  Nothing.  He said his administrator had done it for him and it was probably on the other email, which was not on his phone.  Could he go to his office and look it up?  Not really, he said; it’s on someone else’s computer.  He’d see who he could contact this evening…on this holiday weekend.  So much for the embassy.  The acceptable pupuseria was a distance away out toward the beach club.  “Just take us to one of the Mexican food places,” I said.  We went to Donkeys.  The food was all right, and it was nice hanging out.  Maurice kept asking if I was OK.  I was OK before I went to the hospital and I was OK enough now, except for when I twisted my hand around and the gouge hurt.  It’s under a nice solid white bandage so I don’t have to look at it, and I’m not sure what the tiny round bandaid is right where my hand meets my wrist.  One of the puncture attempts, I guess.

“I know,” said Chris.  “We could redeem the day by going to the botanical garden.  It’s right nearby.”  Excellent idea.  The garden is in a caldera whose lake mysteriously drained 100+ years ago, allowing farmers and then industry to move in, but not before a family set up a large estate there and collected plants from all over the tropical world, eventually donating the property to the public.  It only costs $1.25 to go in, plus 50 cents for optional turtle food, all of which Chris generously sprang for.  Curving paths wind through 3 1/4 hectares of 32 garden zones, past ponds and fountains and little seating areas, with much shade from tall trees, gigantic stands of bamboo and the jungly hill of the surrounding caldera. 

The turtles were happy to see us, swimming right up to the side of their pond, accompanied by pushy fish with enormous mouths; we had plenty of food for all. 

Then we meandered slowly through the gardens, their beauty and coolness calming my tight veins.  There were birds of paradise, anthuriums and other exotic blooms, plus of course all the kinds of plants we’ve ever had in pots but here growing wild and colossal and free. 

We came upon a stand of monster plants, the kind we keep in pots and lug inside and cut back each year; the plethora of pendulous yellow flowers were faded but Chris said they had been stunning a few weeks before when he was there with Krystle and Calvin.  Ahead on one path Chris spotted a little animal, weaselly but with longer legs.  The family ahead of us spotted it too, and soon it disappeared into the jungle growth ahead of the squeals of children.  Chris said Krystle saw one on their street and excitedly chased it down with her camera.  He couldn’t remember its name.  Kookaburra?  No, we said, that’s the bird that sits in the old gum tree.  Bear-something, said Chris.  Yes, on the tip of my tongue too, but it never materialized.  A delightful hour.

I sat at the dining room table working on tech things while Chris was on the back patio talking to Krystle on the phone.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement along the floor.  It was big.  I looked over in trepidation.  Was it a mouse?  No, it was a bug—a bug the size of a mouse!  It headed toward the kitchen and I jumped around like a maniac and pounded on the glass to get Chris’ attention.  He ambled in to see what was up.  Hmm.  He’d never seen one that big either.  He got the heavy-duty bug whacker and shooed the critter out the door where Peach the cat batted it around for maybe ten seconds, the most stimulating activity she’s had in years.

Saturday August 31, 2019

El Salvador

Exodus 19:1-20:21 

20:21  The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.  Chris took us over toward the volcanos again today.  Unlike the terrifying display at Mount Sinai (19:16-19), the top of the mountain we climbed yesterday was only covered with light clouds and the rest of the peaks were clear.  As Chris drove us around we talked about life in El Salvador, where seemingly no one who runs the show “fears and trembles” at the presence of the Lord but stands as far off from him as he can (20:18).  Forty-six of the country’s fifty provinces are controlled by gangs.  No wonder Geraldo told us yesterday the Salvadoran dream.  There are eight million Salvadorans on the planet and more than two million of them (already) live in the US.  El Salvador is hopeful with a new president, a young man of the next (presumably less corrupt) generation.  He is working toward national improvement and better relations with the US.  But problems are entrenched and enormous, and money is scant.  Chris says his concern as a gringo is being in the wrong place at the wrong time; a Salvadoran is worried about his kids being pressed into a gang.  Everyone—left, right and center—hates the gangs.  Ask the average Salvadoran what should be done with them and he’ll say, “Line’em up and shoot’em.”  But the US wouldn’t look kindly on such action.  It’s apparent to me what the whole country needs is “the fear of God…that [they] might not sin” (20:20).  There’s no other answer.  Dear Father God, please break through the thick darkness that shrouds El Salvador, the country named for your Son.  Show yourself to everyone from politicians and gang leaders to those trapped by gang pressures, extortion, poverty and hopelessness.  Draw many hearts to yourself in repentance and faith.  Pour out your Spirit on your people in this nation that they may work with wisdom and favor toward righteous government and stable lives for all.  May this country that bears your name find hope and live in holiness.

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We had a slow morning while Chris went to Walmart (uh huh) for supplies.  At breakfast we discussed what was safe to eat.  “You ate the tomato and pepper?” Chris asked with some dismay when I told him what we had scrounged for supper.  Well, they were in our son’s refrigerator, and we didn’t think he’d be trying to kill us.  “I would have washed them with soap first,” Chris informed us.  He said he doesn’t eat lettuce at all here—and he hasn’t been sick once.  Noted.  At ten we hopped into his new used car.  He’s quite pleased that while he was in Argentina last week his driver got the windows tinted for him—a safety measure, dark all around.  It wasn’t long before I was gasping and cringing at Chris’ driving.  “I don’t think you guys are ready for riding in Central America,” Chris informed us.  “And this is a Saturday!”  Fortunately I was in the back seat; I just tried to look at the interesting sights out the window.  Fields were thick with dry brown cornstalks and lush green sugar cane.  In some places corn grew right next to the road in a narrow strip between traffic and jungle; Chris said the land was already cleared as part of the roadway so why not plant it?

Our morning activity was the Mayan ruins at the San Andrés Archeological Park.  A simple museum displayed interesting finds and explained local geography, architecture at the site, a tad bit of Mayan culture and a little about Spanish settlement.  There was no limestone availabe here so the buildings were made of more erosible adobe and tufa; most of the visible ecavations are cemented over with some sort of protective coating.  The information mentioned the Mayan civilization’s “collapse” several times.  Basically the population outgrew its resources and pushed the slash-and-burn agriculture past its limits until the land couldn’t produce any more food.  People were hungry, different groups fought over resources and not everyone survived.  

Outside we approached the ruins through a grove of tall trees.  A small “introductory” pyramidal structure greeted us.  Past that, a high partially-excavated stepped platform sits at one end of a plaza.  Along one side are three smaller mounds, though only one is excavated (the others are green lumps).  At the far corner a small section of pavement remains.

Beyond that in the jungle is Mound #5, currently under excavation with a worksite roof barely visible, though there was no apparent way to get there; Chris mused he will have to make friends and visit it before he leaves the country.  The small complex was in a serene setting with huge trees and distant mountains and we ambled around slowly. 

Chris chatted with the guard and tipped him a dollar before we left; at wages of $3/hour or less, he’ll appreciate it, Chris said.  Chris pointed out to us these ruins are nothing compared with what we’ll see in Peru; if we hadn’t seen this now we wouldn’t want to bother later.  Maybe not, but they’re good Latin American starter ruins.  And it was fun hanging out with Chris.

Next stop was a restaurant on nearby Lake Coatepeque, the lake we saw from the top of the volcano.  The long rutted road we drove to get there, the strings of ramshackle buildings and the generally decrepit-looking restaurant on the water’s edge—it all reminded me of the fish restaurant on Lake Victoria, though this was a step up.  “They’ve paved the parking lot since the last time I was here,” said Chris.  “They’re not washing cars in the lake,” said Maurice, remembering Lake Victoria.  An impressive iguana in a half-hearted enclosure greeted us on the way in. 

Chris walked us through the restaurant to a little deck overlooking the lake.  Right across from us was the volcano we climbed yesterday, hazy, with clouds snagged on its top.  There was no hurry with the service, so we put on our shades under the bright white of the awning and sipped cold drinks until our meal arrived.  Chris said it was OK to have the ice which the menu informed us was made of “crystalline” water by a factory that delivers.  

On the way home we stopped at a scenic overlook of the lake.  Heading into town Chris marveled at the light traffic.  I sat in the back again and tried not to watch.  At home we had a quiet late afternoon.  Chris went for a run—in a neighborhood as safe as any in a big city, he informed us, and in broad daylight.  I researched what my itchy bumps could possibly be.  After looking at disgusting pictures of skin issues online, I could not come up with a likely diagnosis and decided that slapping on some anti-itch cream and ignoring them would be the best solution.

Friday August 30, 2019

El Salvador

Genesis 22:1-19  

v. 5   [Abraham] said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”  Millennia ago Abraham’s servants stayed with the donkey.  Today Jaime stayed with the car while we climbed about 1800 feet up the mountain with young Geraldo.  We weren’t going specifically to worship but oh! what an awe-inspiring sight the volcanic crater of Ilamapetec was when we got ourselves to the top—a feat whose end was not entirely certain in the doing.  Thank you, Lord, for the energy, stamina and grace you allowed us for the climb.  Thank you for the wonder of the amazing sight as we looked over the rim.  Thank you that we got safely up the rocky slope to 7800 feet and back down again.

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We were up early, since it’s two hours later here.  To my dismay, the itchy red bumps that appeared on my legs before I left home are increasing.  What is wrong with me?  We scrounged breakfast.  At 9:00 the tour guide Chris had arranged picked us up—Geraldo, young and English-speaking, with Jaime our driver, who didn’t say much.  Geraldo, a 19-year-old college student studying economics, was a fount of knowledge on many subjects.  He’s traveled all over Central America in robotics competitions but only started studying English recently.  He hopes to be accepted to the University of Virginia later this year, then when he finishes college he’d like to stay.  “It’s every Salvadoran’s dream to work in the US and bring his family over,” he told us; I was surprised he said that so freely.

El Salvador has 26 volcanoes.  The best coffee is grown in the rich soil on their slopes and 100% exported.  The roadway got rougher when we turned uphill toward the Santa Ana volcano, also called Ilamaptepec, El Salvador’s highest at 7812 feet (2381 meters) and Geraldo’s favorite.  Today’s walk to the top with us would be his 47th ascent since November.  Jaime turned into “secure parking” in a clearing where a little man seated on a box was smiling at us.  “This is our practice climb,” Geraldo told us as we started up a cool forest path that soon steepened into awkward steps made of dirt and tree roots.  We came to a grassy spot with a ranger station and picnic tables where Geraldo told us we had to wait for a ranger to walk with us.  We were assigned Saul.  The group of about eight behind us got their own ranger, but along the route many hikers passed us without rangers.  “Why doesn’t everybody have a ranger?” we asked Gerraldo.  The answer was one of a number of lost-in-translation statements.  The groups of a dozen or more can look out for each other, he told us.  But the ranger-free groups weren’t all big groups.  Was it because we’re foreigners?  No, he said.  We’re not convinced, but we’ll never know.

Up through the woods we hiked.  It wasn’t so bad.  Out of the trees into high bushes—well, we knew we would be in the sun.  We stopped for a view through a clearing to two other volcanoes.  The pointy one on the right with a glimpse into the rim, Izalco, had erupted for almost 200 years.  It was known as the lighthouse of the Pacific.  “Let’s build a hotel overlooking the eruption,” someone decided, and so they did, on the adjacent volcano with a perfect view of El Salco’s fire and fury.  Shortly before the hotel’s completion in 1966, the volcano stopped.  There has been not a peep since.  The hotel lasted a year.  There is still a cafe and now the government is rebuilding the hotel, though it will be very expensive, said Geraldo.

Too soon we were above the treeline.  The sun was hot.  The air was thin.  The path was treacherous with rocks, ruts, big boulders pretending to be steps and little stones that slid underfoot.  We had brought our hiking poles and I don’t think we could have done the climb without them, though no one else had any—nor was anyone else our age.  We had to stop for little rests.  We asked Geraldo—several times—how long the hike was but that was another lost-in-translation response.  All we could do was look up and see how far we still had to go, which looked farther than we thought we could hike.  Maurice was breathing hard.  I was feeling lightheaded.  We had water but, not realizing the strenuousness of our activity, the snacks we brought were minimal.  Chris hadn’t done this hike yet, but he’d told us “lots of embassy people do it”—which we now knew translated as something like, “All the kids do it but you old people might have trouble.”  The valley view was magnificent from the path.  Was it really worth it going all the steep and difficult way to the top?

But we did.  The mountain slope flattened and the open ground broadened.  We could see a line of people standing around what might be the rim, and there was a guy with a white box…selling popsicles?  At one side of the top was an arc-shaped plot of land where the visitors stood before the ground plummetted downward into a deep cone.  The air smelled of sulphur.  Far below, opaque greenish water was tinged with yellow at one corner.  Steam rose from the water and part of the ground and drifted languidly.  We were just two of many visitors transfixed by the surprising and astonishingly beautiful sight.  In another direction we saw half of Lake Coatepeque and its little island where the richest people have their homes, Geraldo told us.  “The lake changes color once a year,” he added.  What did that mean, I wondered.  Does it look especially blue in the autumn sun, or is this another lost-in-translation statement?  Later he showed us a picture on his phone.  The currently standard-gray-blue lake was glowing aqua.  It was not a trick of the light.  Scientists don’t know why it happens, Geraldo told us, or when it will occur, or how long it will last.  (Chris said that’s true—something about minerals, maybe, or algae.)

We started down at a slightly faster rate than we had ascended, though we asked to sit on a rock for fifteen minutes and finish our snack of grapes, crackers and hummus.  “You did really good,” Geraldo told us.  “You hiked up in an hour and 25 minutes.  The average is two hours.”  “You mean we could have taken more breaks?” exclaimed Maurice.  We were afraid we were holding Geraldo back.  We’d thought this was a half-day trip and didn’t realize we had him for the whole day.  Indeed, he offered to accompany us somewhere for lunch, so when we got back down he had Jaime take us to the former-hotel-turned-cafe where we looked out the glass windows at the dormant volcano while we ate.  By the time we got home it was 6 pm.  It had been a great day.  “Well, you’ve had your practice hike for Machu Picchu,” said Geraldo.  We told him to let Chris know if he got accepted to UVA and he could come to our house for holidays

Chris got home about a half hour after we did.  He had expected to arrive earlier but there was some sort of emergency on San Salvador’s runway and his plane was briefly diverted to Costa Rica.  “Welcome, international traveler!” I called out to Chris as I unlocked the many fastenings on his doors.  Oh, wait—we’re the international travelers he was supposed to be here to greet before he signed up for his Argentine boondoggle.  Chris ordered a pizza, then he and Maurice watched one of the football games that Chris manages to patch through various devices and services and make appear on his big screen.  Still itchy, I called it a day.

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….