Home School Lesson!
***For those of you who may not know from previous blogs, I have a small group of home school children in South Carolina that are following my blog for lessons in geography, culture, and missionary work. So feel free to read ahead, but the focus, length, and content of this blog is for them!***
Hola from El Salvador! To see pictures that accompany this blog, visit my facebook page….it takes 20 minutes to upload each photo on this browser.
As my month here in El Salvador comes to and end, I want to share with you a little bit about what I have learned about this beautiful country!
El Salvador is a tiny country in Central America, bordering the Pacific ocean on the West and neighboring both Guatemala and Honduras. You can drive anywhere in El Salvador in about 3 hours or less…quite different than in the United States, where it can take days to drive places within the nation’s borders! The weather here is mostly warm or hot year-round, similar to how Charlotte feels in the summer, but it can be cool up in the mountains and at night.
The countryside is beautiful, with many different type of landscapes. I have had the privilege to swim in the Pacific ocean for the first time, and to try surfing! The sand at the beach was darker than at the beaches in North Carolina because it contains a great deal of volcanic material, making the sand a sparkling grey and gold. The water was clear like a swimming pool, but this was something that was hard to notice until you swam out deep and could still see fish on the bottom! I also saw what may have been a swamp while there, and the trees roots WERE In the water! 🙂
We also had a chance to hike up into two different types of mountains; one of them was dusty and rocky, another lush and green. After hiking the one that was lush and green, we got to swim in a beautiful waterfall. We also were able to see volcanoes from afar, and although I personally did not get to climb them, some members of my group did and said that they too were thick with green and colorful plants!
The food is El Salvador has varied. At times, it was very similar to home: we ate spaghetti, pizza, and hamburgers on several occasions. While it was nice to have a taste of home sometimes, I personally enjoyed the local cuisine more. One of the most common foods in El Salvador is the pupusa, which is a corn tortilla stuffed with beans and queso and then grilled! Yum! We also ate lots and lots of homemade refried black beans, hand-made corn tortillas, rice, and fried potatoes. There is a decent bit of agriculture, with main crops being coffee and corn. While parts of the diet are very healthy, there is also a LOT of cooking with tons of sugar, oil, salt, and various meats that are not beneficial to the body in such excess; obesity is not uncommon in families that do not struggle to buy food.
At the pastors house, where we were staying, the home was surrounded by various fruit trees: a lime tree, a papaya tree, a coconut tree, and a banana tree! One day, on a hike through some of the local country side, I got to try corn pulled straight from the stalk, grilled over an open fire, and then served with salt and lime juice. I was then given a fresh banana grabbed right out of the backyard, and it was shorter and thicker than our bananas at home. I also got to eat fresh coffee beans, which actually tasted like a berry, and learned that the pit is then dried out to be turned into coffee. I also was given a huge coconut, chopped right off of the tree with a machete in the back yard of a plant church, and drank its salty-sweet water and nibbled on it’s nutty meat. The most common and convenient way to buy food is at numerous roadside stands that sell fresh produce and various baked goods. There are also regular grocery stores, but they are much less common than in the US, and most food seems to be bought at the little open-air markets and tiny corner marts.
Transportation in El Salvador has been lots of fun! My team got to ride almost everywhere in the back of a pick-up truck, which is a new favorite of mine! In the US, there are strict laws about piling people into the bed of a truck; here, there will be numerous men, women, and children holding on for dear life as the anything-but-cautious drivers swerve through the roads. Many people also ride bikes and take the bus…which, here in El Salvador, are usually brightly painted and creatively decorated school buses that look like they belong in a cartoon!
My favorite thing about El Salvador has definitely been the warm and friendly people. Latin American culture is very affectionate, and I was given countless hugs and kisses by the people I worked with each day. The families are very affectionate with one another, often hugging and touching, and their warmth is contagious. While many families have pets, they are not always treated the same as they are in the US. There are lots of street dogs that are not friendly, and even in people’s homes, the pet dogs are normally kept chained up during the day, and let into the yard for protection at night. My host family had a dog named Joseph, a parakeet named Pedro, and two crabs that ran around the laundry room and ate tortillas!
The children here go to school from January-October, and they have summer here from October-January. The children receive free public education beginning around age 6 and go through grade 9, and then, if their families can afford it, they are sent to private school. While the opportunity for free education is a blessing and is appreciated, it is understood that the education a private school can offer is much more desirable. The children must wear uniforms to school, and have similar homework and assignments to those of American children, using textbooks and pencils just like you! There is one main University in El Salvador, and everyone strives to go there to receive post-secondary education. The tuition is very affordable, at around $50 per month. My team was able to help out in a local public school with painting and yard work to help the teachers prepare for the kids to come!
Just like in the United States, children here love to play with their friends. Children love to play hand-clapping games, and various types of tag and other group games. Soccer, or “futbol”, is the most commonly played sport. While many of the children we met were too impoverished to have many toys, they love the little that they do have, cherishing each ragged doll or book. The children spend much more time interacting with their friends than they do sitting inside, and they run and play and laugh just like you guys do at home!
Healthcare in El Salvador is much more affordable than in the US; a person can receive treatment at a public hospital for much, much cheaper than in the US. People do have private insurance occasionally, but it is much more common to visit a small, basic clinic and pay out of pocket for most needs.
The homes in El Salvador varied greatly. Some of the nicer areas are similar to the US, with homes that have full electricity and furniture just like us; some have microwaves, but there is much more cooking done on the stove. However, the tap water is not safe to drink anywhere for anyone, and there is no hot water or air conditioning. We also worked with some very poor families that live in homes with dirt floors and walls made of pieces of wood and metal pieced together. These families did not have any electricity or running water, and struggled to have food, clean water, healthcare, and other basic needs met.
Church in El Salvador has been great! We have been able to visit many little plant churches, often in tin-roof, dirt-floor homes, where the music is made by clapping or playing simple instruments. The people have an obvious heart for worship and they sing their hearts out! The people in the church we worked with were very committed to their church family, often going to church several nights a week, and fasting the first Sunday of every month. They love to pray often and with passion, and everyone’s Bible was very well-worn from frequent use. The church we worked with is always focused on continued growth and outreach to unbelievers, and their love for Jesus is tangible!
Overall, El Salvador has been a friendly, enjoyable country! Although there is still a lot of violence related to the gangs that dominate certain areas, there is also a lot of love and a growing population of people who follow Jesus! Please pray for El Salvador that the needs of the poorest people will be met, and that the people involved in alcoholism and gang violence will turn to know Jesus!
See you all next month to talk about Honduras!
