It's Been Forever...

I'm sorry my post took waaaaay too long get up this week. And last week. And possibly the week before that. But I'm going to start this post with last Wednesday.
As every Wedensday, we had services in someone's home. This time at the house of Marina, and tomorrow night is going to be at our place! We took a family picture before we left... And another on our walk down the long hill to their house through the rainy jungle...
We had singing and a lesson, as usual. And we had the coffee that they fix over an open fire... It's so good!
This Saturday was amazing. We had a work day at the compound in the morning. Volunteers from the church came with their machetes and stuff. They started cutting the grass with them, which is pretty impressive. Mowing with machetes, you would think that it wouldn't be a very good job, but it was actually very well done. We've had a big problem with these little ants that we call zombie ants, and Sonya traced them back to where they were coming from. She grabbed some ant poison and set to work. Here is my attempt at playing with the macro setting on my camera to show the ants taking some of the poison. There is another good picture of them that Mom took of them stealing food in my "Creepy Crawlies Of La Palma" album on facebook. I also had some fun sweeping and mopping with the twins... Maybe a little too much fun... Speaking of the twins, I'd like for you all to pray for their mom, Deyci. She stepped on a nail Sunday and it got infected, we don't know how bad. And after we had all finished working, we served everyone breakfast. It was a pretty fun day :) We had an English service tonight with Teresa, Jose, Norma, Marlon, Lilian, and Victor. It's really nice to be able to completely understand when you're singing praises. And a few minutes ago we had an... adventure. We were sure that everyone left after the services tonight. But when Teresa was about to go home, someone noticed a door open in the school. Thinking that something might be up, she stayed here for a little longer. They called Jose to see if it was worth being worried about. He called the police so they would just go check it out and make sure everything was okay. When they got here, Nathan and I stayed in the other room, but Mom, Dad, and Teresa said that watching them was like something out of a movie. They peeked around the corners and spun around with their guns text-book perfect... But nothing was actually up. We think the new teacher may have left the door open when she went home tonight. Other than that, it has been an uneventful, good day.

A side-note word of advice: Never ever watch the movie Remember Me. The trailer lies to you. It is not a pleasant chick flick love story, it is a depressing movie that is indescribably awful. It is "the antonym to however you would describe the beauty of the mountains we live in", as we put it.
More to be posted later!
Su amiga,
Ruth Erin

Little Miss Sunshine and Canella

So the torrential downpourage has greatly declined. It doesn't rain as hard, as often, or as loud. Monday night, though, it was raining before church. When I was sitting behind Mom, little Selena came up and sat beside her. Her hair was dripping... she was soaked and shivering, but she still walked to church. She was shaking after a while, and I loaned her my sweatshirt to wrap up in. After church, Mom asked her if she had a jacket at home at all, and she said no. We decided that we were going to change that, so Tuesday morning we went shopping and bought an adorable, warm, black coat for her. And that afternoon, we went to her house to give it to her. Their house was four metal walls and a tin roof, with one lightbulb in the middle that was all the electricity there was. When we gave her the bag, she smiled soooo big, it was adorable! Then it was Jose's turn to talk to her mom for a little while. He asked about whether Selena was liking her school and stuff, and Selena was so excited to tell him all about how great it was. She even showed me all of her school books, and "taught me how to read", which I thought was pretty adorable. And once Jose, Mom, and Selena's mother got onto more boring subjects, Selena wanted to show me their dogs. They live in an area with a couple other families and there were several dogs roaming around. One of them was making a lot of noise out in this little shack, so we went to check on it first. She took my hand and dragged me all around showing me the animals, and telling me how there was one that was all white, and she really wanted to find it to show me, but she didn't know where it was. So she showed me her favorite, or at least it was my favorite. This litlle puppy was not very old at all, and it was so tiny! It's name was Canella, which is Spanish for cinnamon. Pretty cute. :D
Dad went back to Nueva Concepcion today to check up with the doctor for his leg, and he says he's happy with how it's going, as long as Dad keeps up with the medicine and keeping his leg elevated. When he came back, he brought an *amazing* surprise for dinner... legitmate, non goat-cheesy, with real pepporoni and crust, PIZZA. We were thrilled.
On the not so thrilling side, we're without running water tonight, again. They have been working on the tank for a couple days now, and seeing what the inside made me cringe to realize what we have been showering in. But while it has been being fixed, we haven't been able to use any water. It was back for a while this afternoon, just for a little while, and then it stopped again. They said that he should have the filter thing tomorrow so that we can have water again, and hopefully without gobs of dirt in it. I'm hoping all of the power outages are lessening, too. Tuesday night we had Teresa, Jose, and Marlon over for some English praise songs because we had been misisng it. The power flickered a couple times, and then went out. Which was totally ok, during that. It was actually a kind of cool effect. But once the service was over, we wanted the electricity back... But, with nothing else to do, we lit a couple candles and started playing a card game. It was about halfway through the game that we heard the electric water tank thing (don't you love my technical terms?) outside start sputtering and kick on. We almost didn't even notice. Till someone pointed out that it takes electricity for that to work. We reached over and flicked the lights, and they came on. Who knows how long we had had access to power and not used it? But we had a good time with the game anyway, and I'm pretty sure Nathan beat all of us. It's been a long couple days, and we're all pretty exaughsted. Everyone else has already headed back to their rooms right now, actually. I guess it would probably be a good idea for me to do the same. All my friends back home who started school this week, hope it's going alright :)
More to be posted soon!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin

Happy Anniversary!

Happy 18th anniversary, Mom and Dad! :D I love this picture I took of them on their way to their anniversary dinner last night. They took a moto taxi because of Daddy's leg to the restaurant at the hotel and were served a great dinner with candles and flowers and the whole deal. Nathan and I hung out at the house with Teresa till they got back.
Today was their actual anniversary though. We went to church like normal this morning. Towards the end of the sermon, though the preacher had to stop preaching because it was just impossible to hear over the rain. He was yelling and using hand motions, we still had no chance of understanding him. I got a video of it, but for some reason we haven't been able to upload any videos anywhere since we moved here.
Everyone knows that not having Dr. Pepper hasn't been the greatest experience for me. When we first got here, we found four cans in San Salvador and brought them back here for a special occasion. Since today was their 18th anniversary, we considered that the special occasion and got to have Dr. Pepper with lunch! :D Happiness in carbonated form. No joke.
We also had an amazing cake from Lilian's! Almost all cakes here are covered with some kind if not a whole bunch of kinds of fruit. It was delicious, though.
Mom and Teresa did the teen girls class again today, and we did skits of the story of Adam and Eve.
After class we went on to our weekly tradition of Sunday night pupusas at Reina's, which she has informed us we are invited for every Sunday for the whole year we are here. I got this adorable picture at Vanessa and Victoria's house on the way... I love these little girls. Victoria is the one on my lap, and she is Vanessa's aunt. The man in the doorway just adds character to the whole picture :)
Well we just finished our movie with Teresa, and I'm going to go to bed now, it has been a long and great weekend. Dad's leg is looking better, it still hurts, but he's taking his medicine and doing everything the doctors told him. In case I don't post tomorrow, a happy birthday to Tori Andro! :D
More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin

Estoy Contento! :)

Don't get me wrong, I love pupusas. And Kolashanpan. And Reina's tamales? I can't put into words. But after a while, even the most random stuff that we don't realize is amazing is what we start to miss. Dr. Pepper is pretty high up there. And everyday seasonings/cooking supplies, cake that doesn't taste like chocolate scrambled eggs with sugar sprinkles, and cheese burgers. Well, we got to fix one of those this week! Today was, totally unexpectedly and somewhat bittersweetly, amazing. We drove a couple hours away to a big city called Apopa, and there was a BURGER KING. Um... yeah, I was nervously giggling like crazy when I was looking at that cheeseburger on the table. With real fries? And coke that wasn't in a glass bottle or dirty can? (No, there was sadly no Dr. Pepper lol.) But maybe I should explain why were even out of town to begin with... Tuesday morning Dad left with Jose to do a bunch of home visits. We stayed home and did some work, did some shopping later, and not much else during the day. That night, he and Mom had to go to the clinic because there was some problem with his leg. When they came home, all that the clinic in La Palma had said was that he needed to keep it elevated and keep off of it for a while. Wednesday afternoon I got to hang out downstairs with Teresa and watch a "life changing" movie :). And when I came back upstairs, guess who got another taste of Webb City? The school percussion group was out practicing. From our house in Webb, we were close enough to the high school that I could always hear the band practicing out on the field. Granted, this was not even close to the same quality as Webb City was. I was kind of missing marching band right then, actually lol.

During dinner, though, the nurse from the clinic came to check up on Dad's leg. We almost had to leave for Nueve Concepcion or somewhere right then, but we decided that it would be too dark and not safe for us to be out that late. So this morning, we all got up and packed bags just in case we had to go on to the San Salvador overnight. Mom and Dad went down the street to the local clinic one more time, and they said he needed to go on somewhere. So we loaded up and headed to Nueva Concepcion, which is a city about an hour away from La Palma. It has a hospital, but it was kind of sad to see. The guards (yes, guards outside the hospital's tall, iron gate) only let one person even go in with him. But after the rest of us waited under a tree outside, they came out, with some semi good news. No, we would not have to go on to spend the night in San Salvador. It wasn't very bad right now, as long as he does what they tell him to. Basically, the high altitude had somehow made his red blood cells swell and clot in his leg. I don't understand all of it, but it's better explained on his blog if you want to click the link on the side. He had to get a few different medicines, and he has to keep his leg elevated and resting for the next couple weeks. One of the medicines wasn't available in that hospital, though, so we had to drive to Apopa to a better pharmacy. Sound familiar? Apopa has a Burger King!


I was so stoked... Just look at that :D Haha, I was so happy. Estoy muy contento. (I was very content/happy/satisfied, in English lol) But everything turned out alright. Anyway... A shout out to say Happy Birthday, Grandma! :) I'm pretty tired from a long day. We were so tired there wasn't even a movie night tonight! Haha, I'm going to bed, so...
More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin

Meeka!

*Smack* "Meeka!" *giggle and run away* Then repeat. Over and over and over. This has been what Nathan and I do every time there are kids out in the compound. "Erin!" I come over, thinking that they genuinely want to talk to me. "Su hermanito?" My little brother? Oh, I get it. Haha, so Nathan and I go play meeka with them. It's tag in Spanish. :)
So Saturday was fun. We get up and we're going to go out shopping. When we go outside, Reina and Amanda are at the compound to see what time Amanda can come over and play on the playground with me! :) So she ends up going shopping with us, and when we come home she and Nathan and I head out to the playground. She starts of by showing us where to stand and mostly using motions when I can only understand every other word. Basically, it was like playing monkey in the middle with Nate's plastic ball. After a while, that got old. Especially since I'm taller than both of them and was having a much easier time than they were ;). So we went out in the compound area to try futball! But first we needed goals... Nathan gets a couple big rocks for his, and then Amanda and I team up against him and use the area between two trashcans for ours. Once she and I were beating him 4-2, he decided the teams weren't fair. He hollers in throught the window and asks if Dad will come play, and he says yes. Amanda obviously couldn't understand, so she asked me to translate what he asked. When I explained, her eyes got so big... Monte is too big! It's not going to be fair! She thought it was pretty funny. But we had a good time, and I think it was about tied when we had to go in for lunch.
Later that afternoon I got to go to the market with Mom and Teresa. More one dollar calla lilies, anyone? :) And when we got home, I got to go learn some Spanish from the English class. That was the most interesting English class I'm pretty sure I've ever been in... Limes, muchachos or muchachas, and some more meeka... Yeah, that was fun :)
And of course we ended the day with a movie night. Same as how we ended yesterday. Yesterday afternoon was the teen girls class that Mom and Teresa taught, that was pretty fun. Nathan came outside and played meeka with us for, like, half an hour afterwards. And then we all went to Reina's for pupusas. We ended today with a movie night, too. And I think I'm actually going to end tonight and go to bed soon...
More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin

posted under | 0 Comments

Wow, I have so many great, new experiences to post about tonight! I'm going to start with yesterday. La Palma is pretty well known for its art. At every little shop you will see something with the "typico" art style. It was designed by Fernando LLort (pronounced like Yort). Yesterday morning we went to this museum with an original drawing of his, and then a whole bunch of orher things that were done by people he trained. Unfortunately, there were no cameras allowed. After we finished there, we did get to go to the place where he used to work and make all of the stuff. Norma had "connections" with the people who work there now, so we got to tour the whole place and see how everything is made. Cameras were allowed here.

This is a man cutting the wood into the shape, I don't remember what they were working on here. Possibly a bird, I think.
After it's cut and sanded and all of the other stuff that all of my shop friends will know about that I don't, they paint it. This is the part that I enjoy watching, even though I totally love the smell of the room where they do all of the wood working. The man here is painting on some alphabet blocks, and then these ladies are working on several different projects. I love how their children come to work with them, and are "learning" how to help them at so young.





Today was really neat, too. This morning was the children's program, where all of the sponsor children got to get their bags of groceries. It's pretty cool to see them get so much; they aren't used to that. After the children's program was when the "adventure" began, though. Jorge drove us across the border to Honduras. We started off at his house and we got to meet his family. They have three girls, 12, 11, and 5. We played soccer in their hallway together, and it was actually a lot of fun. His wife helped my mom with shopping around town because they have things at the stores there that we need for cooking and can't find in El Salvador. Then, they said we were going to Esquipulas for some more shopping. We didn't realize till on the way- Esquipulas? Is a famous city in Guatemala. There is a huge, beautiful, and very very old catholic church

in the middle of town. It is home to a famous statue called Cristo Negro, or "Black Jesus". The whole city was really pretty, it was an amazing experience. A huge thanks to Jorge and his family :)

More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin

I haven't posted in a while, I've got a lot of pictures to put into this entry! I think my last post was about Wednesday. Thursday was not a good day for me; I was sick and stuck at home all day. We had been planning on going with the school on a field trip Friday. They were going to be driving to Santa Ana, an area near the coast, and visiting a national agriculture institute of some sort, and then going to a big water park. It had a wave pool like White Water, and a natural hot tub type area heated by volcanoes! How awesome does that sound? The park had crazy huge and crazy scary slides, too. Or at least the picture made it look like it, and the stories from Teresa and Jose. We didn't get to go because I was still sick Thursday night. :P
One thing that I'm finding that I really miss? Quiet. It's always noisy here. Every afternoon is rain, and depending on the day that can be really loud. We've been watching movies together every night since we don't go out after dark, and Teresa, the other American as she calls us ;), has been coming up to watch them with us several times. One night it got to the point where it was raining so hard that we had the TV at maximum volume and still had to pull it away from the wall and closer to the seats to even hear it over the rain. That was the same night that San Ignacio, another city next to La Palma, was having its huge party. Until after 2 in the morning, the bass lines and dj's voice was echoing throughout the house. It's kind of difficult to sleep when your bed is vibrating in rhythm to a Spanish song... My headphones have become good friends the past couple nights.
A favorite place of ours to eat lunch lately has been Eric's Pizzeria. They have good pizza, but here is a picture of my "quesadilla". It's more like a burrito, but it was yummy! And Mom and Dad sitting across the table from me :)
I've posted the gorgeous views out of our window before. I've never posted the other things on the window, so here is the lizard on the glass last night :)
We watched it eat two moths right in front of us, and it made me slightly less freaked out by the fact that there were several in our house. Less creepy bugs for 2 lizards? Fine trade by me.
Blanca and her daughter Emily came by yesterday, here's a picture of them together in our kitchen.

We also got to check out our backyard outside the compound area, and it's literally a jungle! I don't have the pictures on this laptop, but it is gorgeous. Reina came to pick banana leaves to wrap her tamales in. She's bringing some for us tomorrow night. It was crazy to watch her. She was wearing a skirt, and she was barefoot, and she just went all around with the machete and hacked down the leaves. Then she would pull the sides off of the middle part, and her daughter Amanda would roll them up. There are pictures on Mom's facebook, and I may put up a link to them on mine. Our view is so amazing- we have a jungle, and past the jungle is a river, and past the river is mountains. And more mountains. And more mountains.
Today, it was raining really hard at one point. I glanced out the window, and it was totally white. We were in a cloud! Living in the mountains is beautiful :) I wish I had the pictures right now to put up here, but I'll try to get them on facebook later. Teresa just left from another one of our movie nights, and we're all pretty tired. So,
More to be posted later!
Su amiga,
Ruth Erin

posted under , | 1 Comments
Newer Posts Older Posts Home
This place? This is my blog! I'm Erin, or you may know me as Ruth. I'm spending this year living in La Palma, El Salvador with my family working with the church, and I'm pretty pumped about seeing some awesome stuff happen through our amazing God. Here, you can read about some of that awesome stuff, catch up with my family news (There's a link to the rest of the fam's blogs above!), or just see what I've been up to lately. Thanks for checking it out! :)



Recent Comments