TNESA, Episode VII: "Bacon" at the Beach

Friday, July 20, 2012

Today was our last full day in El Salvador.  We started our morning early by checking out of Hotel Campo Real and going out to breakfast.  Sadly, several of us weren't feeling quite up to snuff, including myself.  After some Powerade and crackers from the gas station down the street, I was feeling more like myself.  After eating our breakfast, we loaded up in the vans to head to La Libertad.  Only one event of interest transpired on the way there though.  Apparently, Walter (or someone else) didn't tie a good knot and he ended up losing a bag out of the back of his pickup while we were heading down the road.  Poor Mike Stoker's bag got ripped up pretty bad by the fall onto the road at the 70 mph+ speeds that Walter tends to like to drive.  After stopping to pick up the bag, the knots were retied much better and tighter and we headed on our way to La Libertad.

We knew that we were heading to a beach resort for our last night in El Salvador but first we were going to stop and see the sister orphanage to the one we work at in San Miguel.  After walking in the gates, we could see that the difference between the two orphanages was like night and day.  The La Libertad orphanage has grown very well and is kept up very nicely.  They even have a school that both the orphans who live there and students from the outside attend!  I was amazed by the fact that they have the capacity and land space to grow their own crops and food.  They also have a chicken farm on sight, as well as the biggest pigs that I've ever seen.  Pigzilla was so nice and plump that I'm pretty sure he would have gotten like 8 blue ribbons at the State Fair.  In addition to that, they have a hair salon and a "thrift store" where they sell the abundance of clothes that are donated to the orphanage.  I would be remiss if I didn't mention the kids.  We surprisingly saw several of the kids that we have seen at the San Miguel orphanage, as well as making new friends.  My new friend was a 7 year old girl named Catalina who ended up falling asleep in my arms after about 2 minutes.  So sweet.  (Say it with me, AWWWWWWW!!!)  As cool as this orphanage was, it made me glad that we have our partnership with the San Miguel one.  There is certainly less time, effort, and money going to San Miguel so therefore they are so appreciative of what we do for them.  Yay for the nice, warm happy feeling.

After leaving the orphanage, we then headed to the Amani resort.  Upon our arrival, there was a fierce battle between people for the the six air conditioned rooms.  As myself and several others had already decided that we were going to take the opportunity to sleep outside on hammocks, we sat back and just watched the mildly angry discussion occur.  Once everything was finally settled out through Joe picking a number and the six closest got AC (I'm glad we're 5 1/2 here.), we then went inside and through our bags in the room, changed clothes and went to order our lunch.  While our lunch was being prepped, we had the opportunity to go spend some time in the ocean.  While the beach wasn't all that great, the water definitely was.  :)  After working up an appetite, I came back to my fantastic lunch of shrimp (heads and all), rice, and fresh veggies.  Yum!

After lunch, some of us took the opportunity to head to the market to check things out.  While part of it was more of what we've seen before (soccer jerseys and machetes), we got the opportunity to see the fish market where they sell fresh fish right off the boats.  They're practically still flopping around!  After this, we headed to get some ice cream.  While I considered the El Salvadorian specialty of a Dona Waffle (ice cream and a doughnut on a waffle cone), I chose to keep it simple and just went with a normal scoop on a waffle.  

After returning to Amani, we all headed down to the ocean again to play until the waves were raging so furiously that it was time to stop.  Sadly, I said goodbye to my favorite pair of sunglasses as they were lost in the surf, never to be seen again (Actually, they've probably floated over to Australia or something).  After some relaxing pool time, everyone cleaned up and got ready for dinner.  I had a fantastic steak dinner which filled me up.  Following our meal, I had a short time to call Bethany and chat for about 20 minutes (Thanks to Brian Fox and his international phone).  It was great to hear her and it made me even more excited to see her in a little under 20 hours (ed. note: or so I thought).  

After that it was time for our meeting and worship time as a team.  It was a very close meeting because it actually started to rain for the first time all week which prompted us all to huddle together under a roof for some shelter.  For tonight's meeting, we would all take turns saying what we wanted to change after this trip.  My revelation was that I didn't want to stop living a missional life just because I had stepped off the mission field.  I want to be able to transition what I've been doing in El Salvador back to my home base in Missouri.  After the meeting was over, some of us remained behind to just sing and worship while Randy and Luke took turns playing the guitar.  It was a really fun evening that would be topped off while sleeping on our hammocks.  The brave souls for the evening consisted of myself, Randy, Luke, Rachel, and Katie.  I was comfortable and slept soundly until about 2:00 am, when I woke up with my back spasming.  Sadly, it finally got so bad that I had to go inside to the extra room where we were keeping our belongings and crawl in a bed to do about an hour of exercises before finally falling asleep and then waking up to the sound of my alarm around 4:30.  Early, early morning is here.

(Ed. note:  This journal entry was obviously written the next day since it entailed the events of the previous night.)