El Pacifico

The weekend before heading back to the frozen tundra, chris and I took a solo trip to the beach.
We stayed at a “quaint” little “boutique” hotel on Playa Tunco. Boutique and quaint translates into incense, Australian backpackers and the inability to flush toilet paper (you have to throw it away in the garbage can, I was sure I was going to flood the place. The drop is a hard habit to break). Our apartment is only 30 minutes from the beach. We went for one night. In the morning we walked the beach and ran into some friends from the Embassy, the Doc and his wife go to the beach nearly every week to surf. The playas in El Sal are famous for the surf and are therefore flush with gringos braving the crazy strong undertow and paddling for 200 yards out to the crashing waves.

We watched the surfers and don’t really have any interest in getting pummeled by the ondas. Although I like to walk the beaches, Chris has decided that he does not really enjoy it. Something to do with the questionable sewage/sanitation systems in El Sal… We enjoyed the peacefulness of the beach and watching the sun come up and go down. These two Midwest kids sure could get used to listening to the surf, even if it is the smelly Pacific.

Our First Visitor & Medredes

We had our first visitor the beginning of December, Chris’s dad Don. He flew down for a quick weekend and as you can expect, we kept him very busy. Back in the 80s Don was an instructor for TWA and trained a Taca pilot from El Salvador on the 767. For two months Nicho Lopez, the El Salvadoran pilot, was part of the Stokes family. When Chris told his dad that we were coming down to El Salvador Don went into his office and came back with a business card containing Nico’s contact information. It turns out that Nico is a local legend here in El Salvador, and one trip to the local airport was all Chris needed to find his dad’s long lost friend.
Nico was the first officer on Taca Flight 110 flight from Belize City to New Orleans in 1988. The 737 plane lost both jet engines in a thunderstorm right outside of New Orleans and had to perform an emergency landing just like in the movies… nose down, bank hard right 180 degree turn to land on a grass levy. One of the only successful manual landings in history.Chris and his dad spent the day at the EL Sal Military Museum representing the US at a ceremony and reminiscing with Nicho and his comrades at the officers club. On Saturday morning we all attended the graduation of the ES military academy. Each graduate received their orders and a sword from the President of El Salvador, Tony Saca.

I took a paparazzi shot of Chris with the President. Actually it’s a side shot of the pres. with the top of Chris’s hat in the background. Ambassador Frasier and his wife sat in front of Don and I and the ambassador joked with Don about making the retired Generals sit in the back. It was a great weekend.

Early on Monday morning, Chris, I and a driver left the city for the opening ceremonies of a medrede in La Union. La Union is a department on the far east side of the country, close to the Nicaraguan border. Four times a year the Military Group coordinates a medical readiness exercise (aka medrede) in El Salvador. A Medrede is a free medical clinic staffed by doctors, nurses, and technicians from the US military. The general purpose is to provide a basic health care blitz to several communities over a two week period.

This specific medrede traveled to 5 location over 10 days, spending anywhere from 1 to 3 days at each location depending on the need. In the end they served over 7 thousand patients. There were dermatologist, GPs, Ems, Pediatricians, Ophthalmologists, OBGYNs, dentists and a pharmacist all from Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

Two of the 18 docs spoke Spanish. The US docs required translators in order to communicate with their patients. There were several groups who helped with the translation over the two week period: El Salvadoran Marinos, Cuerpo de Paz volunteers, Mormon missionaries, and a few embassy spouses. Funny story, after the opening ceremony Chris went straight to work finding more translators. One of the docs was Mormon and gave Chris the name of the guy in charge of missionaries in El Sal. He made a few phone calls in the car on our way back to San Sal and found the guy, remember…small country, small circles.

After hanging up the phone we stopped in San Vicente for our first fast food experience. (They have all the fast food restaurants down here: Wendy’s, Mc Ds, Burger King, Quiznos, KFC, etc. Chris and I can get Pizza Hut delivered to our door, third world hah!) Anyway, we stopped at a Wendy’s and in walk 40 Morona Brothers and Sisters, all dressed up in their Sunday best. It was as if God said Ha! I can do better than give you a name I can deliver them to you. We laughed and told them the story about just getting off the phone with their Jefe. The Mormons ended up helping everywhere except on the islands; turns out Mormons and water don’t mix (just a joke, they are not allowed to travel on boats). The medical evaluations were pretty basic: fever, rash, infection, tooth extraction, anti-parasite script, vitamins, anti-biotic, etc. I volunteered for three days with two other spouses. We were transported every morning out to a remote island by a marine cargo boat. And by cargo I mean livestock, goods for market and whatever else they needed to transport. I had always been told that the navy/marines first job is to ensure their craft is clean. So clean it four times right? Well the El Sal Navy/Marines have not adopted the same MO. They were pretty content to just hang out it cow poop. The Grandma Shirley in me wanted to start throwing garbage overboard and soak the thing in Clorox.
The clinic was held at a grammar school, their summer vacation is Oct-Jan. Each room housed a different doctor. All the meds were donated and brought down by the Military. The dentists were very busy and not very popular. After an extraction the patients would receive a little pack with 15-20 Motrin tablets. Buenos suerte mi amigo. The OBGYN was amazed at the number of female creams she had to prescribe one day after not prescribing any the day before. Turned out, the first day she had a male interpreter and the patients would not tell him what was wrong with them. It is still very taboo and unacceptable to talk about sex and birth control down here. In many places very young children are having babies because no one will talk to them about “the birds and the bees”. Very sad situation. The next medrede is the first week in March back down at the islands. IF you have any interest in participating send Chris an email and we can provide more information. It was an eye opening experience for me, the other volunteers and all the doctors. It definitely makes you think twice about becoming inpatient waiting 20 minutes at the doctor’s office back home. Many of these people walked, or rode in the back of a pickup, for 2 hours to sit in the sun for 4 hours waiting to see a doctor. The sick children break your heart and then melt it with their sweet little curious voices. We’d love to have you join us if you are able, no need to speak Spanish, they always need people to corral and carry stuff. Vale la pena, vale la pena.

Dia De Las Gacias

Our friends Adam and Erin Smith opened up their home to over 25 Embassy personnel and Peace Corps Volunteers for a Thanksgiving feast. Chris and I were responsible for the ham. We bought two Virginia hams at a great deli near our apartment. All we needed to do was to heat them up. About 4 hours before go time I headed into the kitchen to start the prep. Much to my dismay the oven would not work. Fortunately, about 30 minutes earlier our Chilean neighbors stopped by to introduce themselves and told us to stop by if we ever needed anything… knock, knock, knock...

Chris and I have sponsored a couple Peace Corp volunteers, Jessica from Maryland, Leah from Minnesota and Rachel from Texas. Whenever they are in the capital they are welcome to stay with us and we try to take care of them. Most live in sparce accomodations, many bathe in cold water they have to carry from a well and pour into a three foot diameter plastic tub. Such is life in the country/campo. Some of them are responsible for building their homes and receive a couple hundred dollars each month from the Peace Corps. One volunteer told me that the entire annual budget for Peace Corps is equal to a single days budget in Iraq (I have not done a fact check to confirm the accuracy of the statement).

At dinner one of the volunteers asked Chris if he was a volunteer in the Peace Corps. He responded, “no it’s more like the War Corps, kind of like the peace corps but with guns”. Give thanks…

The Friday following Thanksgiving we traveled 1.5 hours up the coast to a resort called Las Vereneras (translates in to the poinsettias). Las Vereneras is a private club with personal homes and rental villas. The area is called Los Cabanos and it is pretty underdeveloped, but it has two nice resorts, one of them is all inclusive and looks like a standard Cancun experience - minus the warm beautiful water.

About 15 families from the embassy rented individual villas for the weekend. There were kids galore, great waterslides and a pirate ship in the middle of the pool. There is a wonderful support group for Embassy families in El Salvador. The kids go to private international schools in San Salvador. Every weekend there are family events at the embassy pool or trips out to Mayan ruins or to the beach. Chris and I miss SUmmers and Mae terribly and can't wait until they visit. They will love it here. The beach is not really a swimming beach. The sand is volcanic and it smells like the pacific. Its great for walking but better to relax in a hammock on the patio overlooking the sea drinking out of a coconut. I don’t think Chris went in the water once. Chris was able to get in a quick 18 and become fast friends with the only other person on the course at 7am. There are only 3 golf courses in the entire country and this one just squeezed in the second 9 within the past year. After not playing in over 3 months his first drive on a par 3 landed 1.5 feet from the hole. Tiene mucho suerte. All in all a good weekend at the beach.

Marine Ball

One on the benefits of living in a major metropolis is the ability to take advantage of the cultural activities. Which is what we did the second weekend in November. On Thursday night Chris and I attended what has become to be known as the best concert in the world, MANA, with an a tilde over the N.. Chris and I, along with tens of thousands of screaming El Salvadorans, packed the San Salvador futbol stadium to hear Mana play. Mana is a Mexican band that Chris has been listening to for over 10 years. He says they are the Latin U2 . It was great because we actually knew most of the songs. And they are great songs. We had 11th row, center stage seats. I have attached a video from the concert that I found on you tube.
http://www.truveo.com/Mana-San-Salvador-Me-Vale/id/2463552604
The entire concert was ruckus and confirmed that this place is not as dangerous as they make you believe. As you can imagine we stood out a little, literally, we could see over the heads of all the people in front of us. Not an obstructed view in the house!

On Friday night we attended the Marine Corps Ball in the Hotel Intercontinental, hosted by the Marines posted in El Salvador. We were celebrating the 229th anniversary of the Marine Corp. It has been interesting for me to get to know some people from the Army, Marines and Navy. There are only a couple Air Force guys down here and they take a lot of heckling from the other military branches.

At the Marine Ball we enjoyed a night of dancing salsa, meeting new people from El Salvador and from the Embassy, and laughing with our friends who were taking advantage of the free bar.

Chris and I took dance lessons three years ago and decided it’s best just to wing it. Salsa, disco, meringue, what’s the difference.



Word on the street was that the President of El Salvador was going to make an appearance. No such luck.

It was a working party for Chris so we sat at a Spanish speaking table. You’d be surprised at how much can be communicated with smiles and “oh noooo”, “si!” and shaking your head, regardless of whether or not you understand anything.






Chris looked handsome in his dress blues (our friend Tom calls him Major Nelson from I dream of Jeanie) , but the Marines dress uniforms take the cake. I am happy to report that we were not the last to leave the festivities. URAH!

Juyua & Suchitoto

An unexpected three day weekend in early November allowed us to venture out of the city to explore some of the Spanish colonial towns near San Salvador. On the United States scale, everything is near San Salvador, but with the terrain and traffic, a short 30 mile trip could take close to 2 hours in El Salvador. We decided to take 2 day-trips so that Mr. Football (?) wouldn’t have to miss Saturday night football at the boss’s house.

On Saturday we set out with two friends, Erin and Adam, for the Juyua Gastronomical Festival. Some of you might be thinking the same thing I was …”tempting”. It sounded more like a first class ticket to zipro-ville to me. Nonetheless, we all piled into their Subaru and drove up into the mountains to the west of the city. The city was very quaint, central park, a large mercado of crap made in Guatemala and China and a very professional looking array of food booths. Chris jumped in with his eyes shut, no tiene miedo with no aftereffects suffered, figures. I wimped out and ate fresh cashews and an orange I brought just in case. Maybe next time...

After lunch we hiked down to a few waterfalls and pools on the mountain side. To speed up the trip to the trail we accepted the assistance of a few friendly locals who agreed to drive us down to the trail. We rode in a mode of transport called a Tuk Tuk, because of the sound the engine makes when struggling to haul 4 gringos up a 3 degree incline.

Before departing the town we stopped in at a pharmacy to buy some aspirin for my pounding head. You can imagine my surprise when they charged me 4.5 cents for two pills. Don’t they know how much it costs to develop those drugs? They could be selling them for at least 5 times as much and make a 500% profit.

On Monday we set off on our second day-drip to Suchitoto. Suchitoto is another Spanish colonial town to the north of San Salvador. It endured very heavy fighting throughout their civil war. The buildings still have bullet holes and large murals of FLMN & Communist leaders. After the civil war the revolutionaries/guerrillas went legit and formed a political party. I’m not an expert, actually I’m barely informed, but I compare the FLMN to the Democrats and the Arena Party to the Republicans. This is a bit of a stretch since many FLMN activists identify with the ideals of Hugo Chaves and Fidel Castro but it simplifies the situation for me. My general view of world politics in skewed and sometimes inaccurate.

We traveled up with four other couples, actually Chris invited us to go with them and they accepted. They are all involved with regional security so we felt very safe blindly following them thru the countryside. After lunch and walking around the standard city central: park, church, hotels, shops…we decided to take a boat trip recommended in the travel book. Eleven bodies climbed into a sketchy looking boat that proceeded to drop at least one foot into the water until there was less than 12 inches of play between boat floating and boat sinking. And that wasn’t the concern; the concern was whether or not we could plow thru the plants that grow near the land. As the plants were overtaking the boat I just kept thinking snakes are more afraid of you than you are of them.

The boat captain succeeded without any snake incidents, and guided our craft over to an island that contained an ancient cave. On arrival to the island we all shook our heads in a “fool me twice, shame on me” fashion as we inspected the 4 by 2 foot cave. Back to the boat, back to the city… enough exploring for one weekend.

mi casa es su casa

Chris spent two weeks looking for housing for us in San Salvador. The majority of Embassy people live inside gated communities with little to no green space. Since El Sal is a critical crime zone, as far as the state department is concerned, the housing requirements for safety are extreme... you cannot just pick any old house or apartment. There are regulations in place for razor wire, alarm systems, bars on windows, cameras etc.






After weeks of searching for a furnished home up to speed with the security regs, Chris settled on a nice apartment complex. It is brand new and beautiful. We have 4 bedroom for all the visitors we are sure to have, tennis courts, pool and close proximity to the embassy. Our edificio is like the united nations.

We have a beautiful top floor apartment with views of the volcano. We eat most of our meals on the patio and are enjoying the reprieve from "house projects" here. The view from our kitchen window is great for watching for friends or when the tennis court opens up.

All in all we have a great place to live that is easily accessible to shopping, embassy, restarants, neighborhood and highways. 30minutes from the airport and 40 minutes from the beach. Plenty safe and ready for visitors.