Adventures of Dottie and Bill #2

5 February 2008
The continuing adventures of Dottie and Bill
Our love to all from the San Salvador International Airport,
One of the really wonderful things about traveling to little countries in out of the way places is the joy one experiences when going through airport security. Imagine, if you can, arriving at the security station to find three lines open and not a soul, not a single soul, standing inline waiting to go through the security system. Not only did we not have to wait, the man who examines those unfortunate enough to “ring the bell” as Bill always does because of his knee replacement, took only a cursory pass with his wand before waving him on. Life doesn’t get much better.
After our day at the Lake with our Santa Ana Rotary friends, our group had our first free moment without a planned itinerary to follow. We hastily wrote our own plan for the evening which included cocktails on the hotel patio followed by cocktails on the hotel patio followed by a marvelous dinner from the hotel kitchen. It’s a shame that there aren’t more tourist attractions in El Salvador because the tourist rates surely are unbelievably low. Most entre items on the menu were in the $7.00 to $10.00 range including all the trimmings. Cocktails at $2.00 a pop is a trend that I would encourage but never expect to see achieve fruition except at little out of the way places around the globe…like El Salvador.
Monday morning we visited the local state operated hospital to see the fruits of the local Rotary club’s labor. The hospital gave rise to the notion that one wouldn’t want to spend much time there if a sickness spoiled one’s day. We followed our guide through a labyrinth of passage ways, through waiting areas filled with people who seemed resigned to spending their days waiting for something that may or may not happen, through offices and examination rooms filled with people being officed or examined and into a cramped room where patients were having their eyes examined. The local club was proud of its contribution of a machine used for eye exams and a supply of lens inserts and tooling machines used with cataract patients. After ooing and awing appropriately at the machines that we all pretended to understand fully, we retraced our steps to a small conference room where we were shown some awesome pictures of before and after cleft pallets. Although the forty minute long presentation was held at the announced time of our second wheelchair presentation, the local guys knew that we really wanted to learn about their project so that we would be encouraged to donate the sizeable sum of money to set up a cleft pallet clinic in El Salvador where none exists at present. The presentatiln apparently took because our group will return to Pleasanton to strongly recommend that our club contribute the necessary money.
When we finally got to the town plaza for our presentation of wheelchairs, we found the fifty or so recipients sitting patiently in their new chairs awaiting the final speeches and the official awarding of their new found sources of mobility. It took less than an hour and the new chairs and their owners were on their way home. Members of our group felt alittle let down in that we didn’t have anything to do except pose for a few pictures and except the thanks of new wheelchair owners. The day was nothing like our Saturday presentation when we all worked ourselves into a sweaty froth unpacking and assembling chairs for the eagerly waiting recipients.
We noticed something unusual, at least we thought it to be unusual. Most of the recipients were smiling. Given the circumstances, the recipients and their families were all poor, easily defined as the poorest of the poor. Add the challenge of a life with a family member with an infliction that disallowed normal mobility and the commensurate burden on the family. Yet most of these people were smiling the broadest of smiles an act that couldn’t be pretended or painted on for the moment. These people knew how to smile. They knew how to find enjoyment in life. And they knew how to love one another enough to share the joy of the moment with one another. Our observation left us with the knowledge that life doesn’t need to be diminished by the tragedies that sometime come our way. If these people can find happiness, there should be happiness available to all of us. We need only to learn how to find it.
A walk around town took us past and then into an ice cream shop. More appropriately, we decided it should be called a sorbet shop. The hugely popular shop featured sorbets in a dozen fruit flavors including some that only El Savadorians would recognize. We each were treated to our chosen flavor and it was truly a treat. We returned to the Argentinian Restaurant that we had enjoyed a few evenings ago and had what amounted to a full dinner; hardly the light lunch that most of us would have preferred. It seems the owner is a Rotarian and he wanted his contribution to our visit to be two meals……….two full meals.
Following lunch we visited to handicraft shops operated by Rotarian wives or friends of Rotarians. The first featured local scenes painted on clay roof tiles and other such unusual materials. After one of our group selected the only reasonable looking tile paintings, all of the other nice works were defined as “in process” and not yet for sale. We then bussed to a shop appropriately named “Indigo” where artisans died cloth a beautiful dark blue and then made articles of clothing, cloth bags, tea sets and such. A few of the men’s shirts were very attractive but only in small and medium sizes. The stop was judged a good one since everyone in our group bought something. The rest of the afternoon was spent mall happing by some while we enjoyed the hotel swimming pool for swimming, sunning and schmoozing.
Monday night we met with the local Rotary club at one of their weekly meetings. An attempt was made by honoring our group by playing a recording of our National Anthem. In one of those moments we have all lived, the operator of the record player could do nothing right. It took all of ten minutes before the machine worked and we sang our hearts out to the glory of our homeland. It took just a few minutes for the player of records to get the El Salvadore national anthem a twirling to accompany the local guys exhibition of how a national anthem should be sung. Introductions were made all around and a half dozen thankfully short speeches were drowned out by a productive but noisy air conditioner. We settled down to a comfortable evening of good food with new friends that often provided us with language challenges that gave rise to regrets that we hadn’t studied harder in our high school Spanish classes.
We sat next to a marvelous little lady that we had spent some time with during our lake luncheon on Sunday. This wonderful lady, Yanira Rios, will be the embodiment of El Salvadorian charm in our memories forever. Her four inch high heels hardly brought the top of her head up to Dottie’s chin. We decided that she might weigh in at 95 pounds after a Thanksgiving dinner but that would be a stretch. She confessed to be forty-five years old but few would guess her age beyond thirty. We had a marvelous evening of discussion and shared laughter all though she couldn’t speak a word of
English and Bill’s Spanish often called for help from a neighboring diner. Our exchanged email addresses should serve to cement a future friendship even though we will probably never meet again.
Our visit exposed us again to a custom found from the south of our borders to the tip of the South American continent. People hug when they greet. Each time we met one of our hosts, we went through a time honored ritual of greeting one another verbally and then embracing. Men embrace men and women and women embrace women and men. Women often kiss the cheek of the person they greet but men rarely do. If a couple arrives at a convened party, the party stops while the pair goes around the room greeting and embracing. When a party or a meeting is over, the ritual is repeated. The first greeting may be a self introduction but names are assumed to be known thereafter.
Being a “hugger”, Dottie quickly fit in to the south of the border culture. Others of us in our group took a while to get in the swing of things but by our leaving today, we all knew that we had made some wonderful new friends that we would be quick to greet with a hug and a kiss on the cheek the next time we meet.
With a hug and kiss for all,
Dottie and Bill