Guacal is pronounced like "wa-call." It's a little bowl/bucket/dishpan sort of thing.But we'll come back to that later.

So while the group has been here, they've been going on medical campaigns up in the little mountain towns around La Palma. Las Cruces, El Gramal, El Guayavito, Mira Mundo, and Aguacatalito, for those of you who know the area. I didn't get to to go to El Gramal, but I went the rest of the places and helped with translating. We gave everyone vitamins and parasite treatments. They could also get medications if they needed it, and Melvin was making reading glasses for those who needed them; even if they couldn't read and needed them for something like sewing or cooking. A few pictures:

That was just a part of our adventures. And here is where "guacals" come in. While we were riding together in the back of our huge truck, we began talking about all the things we wanted to do during our time in El Salvador before we all moved back. Someone said the phrase "bucket list," and was promptly corrected that it was a "guacal list," because guacals are what are used for everything by everyone in El Salvador. And so, born were our guacal lists. During the course of the day, we were able to cross off many things. We visited the highest point in El Salvador; over 8,000 ft above sea level. (The air was too thin up there...) We mastered the art of making PB&J in the back of an EXTREMELY bouncy truck. With a knife! A couple of us shared a bathroom with a beehive. We sledded on dry ground with cardboard, on a mountain in El Salvador. We pulled a tree out of the ground with a truck. By accident. We tossed candy and toys and clothes out of the truck bed to kids like a parade float. And trust me, I could go on. But sometimes... What happens in the camion, stays in the camion. ;)

Blessings always,

Erin

PS: A few pictures following from the day :)

My Aunt Lana and Uncle Mark came down last Saturday, and stayed here with us for a week! Well, technically they stayed in Teresa's apartment, since, as Jocelyn so sadly puts it, "Teresa se fue. :(" But we had a good time with them!
On Tuesday, we got a chance to go up in the mountains again and run a mini medical clinic in Cumbre de Gramal. The drive up was... It was something else!
We started driving up in the back of a pickup with all the supplies. And then kept going up. And up. And up. And up. And up. Get the idea? No? Okay, here's a picture.

If only a picture could literally capture how steep it was. Speaking of pictures capturing things... Just look at how well this picture captures the fear in my face as we crossed over moving water. Still uphill-ish.



When we got up there (finally!)we were greeted by these adorable little faces:



And several more. We were supposed to have the clinic and stuff at the school, but there were some miscommunications, and that ended up falling through. Thankfully, the sweet, beautiful old lady who lived next door opened her house to us.


So, we ran a clinic next to a huge pile of corn. There's a first time for everything, right?


There was a basic system of sorts. The people all waited in chairs, and when it was their turn they would go to the table and give their information to Mom. Then they were given medicine if needed, vitamins for everyone, and parasite treatments for almost all of them. We had everyone from 2-month-olds to 85-year-olds. The lady whose house we were at didn't even know how old she was, and gave Mom her I.D. to figure it out for her.


Daddy and Uncle Mark handed out bed rolls to each family that came through, too. I can testify that they will be put to good use. Look at this "bed". It is where 3 people sleep.


Every kid who came through was able to pick one stuffed animal, and a lot of the people received clothes.




If only it was possible to put everything from that day into one blog post. Goodness. There was baby cuddling, dirty feet, and hair we desperately wanted to brush all the little tangles out of.







On our way back down the mountain, we stopped by another little town. Don't ask me how, but somehow it seemed higher than Cumbre de Gramal, even though we thought we were going down the mountain. Everyone just gathered around the pick up, and we passed out a lot of the remaining stuff to them. I'd never seen anything like the way they all clustered around us for some vitamins and "peluches."



And after we left that town, Cumbre de San Jose, I saw the most beautiful view I've ever seen. The sun was setting and the view from up so high was breathtaking.
W. L. H.
Have I mentioned that lately?
We. Live. Here.
(If you're a facebook friend of mine you ought to look at the 2 recent edited pictures I posted!)

Everyone should be able to experience something like this sometime in their life.
More to be posted later.
Su amiga,
Erin <3

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

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