El Salvador Day #9

Day #9 Friday, January 11, 2013

Today was our last day of Spanish tutoring :( After an hour of tutoring, all of us and our tutors took a little field trip downtown. We walked to the library, and to the museum/theatre. While in the museum, we were able to look at a lot of pictures that were taken around El Salvador. Many of the pictures reminded us of places we had been already, the coffee plantation, home visits, clinics, the cross over Ataco. We went inside of the theatre there and looked around. It reminded me a lot of Price Theater, the one at LaGrange College. Very similar in size and an intimate setting. Then, we walked up to the park and to the ice cream shop. I think we definitely got our money's worth at that ice cream shop! (If you ever see a La Nevaria, stop and treat yourself. It will be worth it.) After having ice cream, we all caught some of the little motor taxis and rode back to the school. Rachel and I felt like we were in a little race with Wilber and Bailey's taxi with us driving beside them. So we started cheering our driver on, and we ended up beating them back to the school! Once back at the school, we convinced the tutors to not make us watch a video interview that they had planned, and instead, play us one last time in a game of basketball. We did win the game of basketball, making us the winners of the week: 2 wins in basketball and 1 in hangman, versus 2 wins in soccer. We had all of the tutors over for lunch one last time and had a great lunch with them.

After lunch, Brian took us out to a squatter community. This was a small area of land where 150 families were living, with over 300 children. All of the houses were lined up right next to each other and they were built with bamboo, cardboard, and plastic. There was no running water, meaning that they had to walk over 7 blocks to the nearest church to get water. There were community latrines built for 4 or 5 families to share. There were piles of trash everywhere, where the people had burnt it. Everything about this community was unsettling. As Brian and Pastor Maritza were telling us that there was no water, each of us were standing there with our own personal water bottles in our hand, full of purified water. Many of us had snacks in our backpacks, some had cameras. As I was walking around and listening to Brian tell us about this community, I felt more and more ashamed to be there. I did not feel blessed or thankful for what I had. I felt ashamed. I looked at the children there that had not been able to bath in days. I saw the mothers and grandmothers walking around wondering what got them to this place. I wanted to leave. I had been slapped in the face with the reality of the poverty in this community and I just wanted to get out. I did not want any of them looking at us, wishing they had that water or our clothes or anything else. I felt like by us waltzing through, touring their community, that we were blatantly showing them the things that they didn't have. And I felt awful for doing that. I am very thankful that we got to see this community, I just wish we could have seen it without them seeing us.