Day 1 (March 4, 2006)
Leaving home
We’re on the plane, flying from Seattle to Houston, the first leg of our trip to El Salvador. Last night 4 of us from Portland drove to Seattle, arriving at our hotel at 10 pm. Leaving the house and saying goodbye to Eldon (my husband) and Isaac (my 2 year-old son) was so hard. Despite all the preparations and all the time spent with Isaac leading up to this, I was still incredibly sad to say goodbye to him. He was playful and happy as I left and seemed glad to have some 1-on-1 time with his Dad. I know he understands I’m going away, but he does not have a concept of 10 days- that’s how long I’ll be gone.
I’ve met about half of the group so far. We met in the hotel lobby this morning at 5:30 am to finish packing the large plastic tubs with supplies and medicines that we are taking with us. We had time at the airport for a nice breakfast and I sat with 2 other moms with young kids. They have both traveled overseas on medical missions before and left their kids at home. So I look forward to getting to know them and learning from them too.
Day 1: Our 1st night in El Salvador
It’s hot here! Its hard to describe the temperature change between Seattle in March and the tropics in summer, except to say that it is extreme. We have all sweat buckets since arriving 4 hours ago at the airport in San Salvador. The plane ride from Houston to San Salvador was easy (only 2 ½ hours)- even got to watch “Walk the Line,” the movie about Johnny Cash. It was a weird distraction from the fact that we were traveling to a poor Central American country…
After going through customs and packing our 45 plastic bins and 23 suitcases into a truck we all loaded a bus and drove the 45 minutes to Tierra Blanca, the town where we will be staying and working for the next week. After about 20 minutes of searching for a key to open the gates, we entered the Monsignor Romero Cultural Center, our home in Tierra Blanca. It is a large 2-story building with several dorm-style rooms, a large open space (large enough to park our bus, our supply truck and another SUV), a kitchen and bathrooms with indoor plumbing. Its pretty cushy for a small town like this. Still, it is quite basic and sparse compared to our comforts of home. Its more like a rustic camp than a conference center. There’s lots of cement painted turquoise, brown and red, wrought iron gates on the windows and doors, but no screens or glass of any kind on the windows.
We did introductions tonight, at my suggestion, and we finally had a chance to meet everyone on the trip. It’s a lovely group of folks and I’m sure we will become much better acquainted by the end of the trip.
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