El Salvador

BLOG NUMBER TWO!!!  I think after this one I will stop counting, it is just so exciting to be able to share my thoughts and not really care if anybody cares because it really doesn’t matter, it is like a public journal but better :P So I thought I would share about a huge experience that I had about a month ago that was totally life changing and has changed how I view life and the state of living that I have grown up knowing.  I went to El Salvador (Google it if you are not sure where it is) with my entire family in a group of 25 people ranging from about 11-60 to build 11 houses and visit a Compassion site (also Google that if you aren’t sure what it is, it is a great organization).  I met so many incredible people and it has by far been the highlight of my life so far.  We left super early on a Saturday morning and arrived in El Salvador in the afternoon I think, I can’t really remember :P Heat is by far my favourite thing, I was so totally not made to live in Canada, I love the seasons but where I live “winter” is basically slush and cold kind of explaining my love for heat. Plus my best friend and a few other good friends were on the trip with me and had been last year so I was ready for an amazing experience.  Nothing can really prepare you for seeing all of the poverty, the amount of commercial on television about it and hearing about it and seeing pictures from other people’s trips really do not give the same feeling as seeing it for yourself.  Each day on the way to the village we were working in we would pass graves and people trying to sell food on the side of the road.  Some of the families had to pay 25 cents to get water for their family or walk for hours to get it or try and sell things to be able to feed their family.  It may all sound old but I think everybody should experience a trip like this to just see what the majority of the world is like because it is nothing like any of the first world countries.  We stayed in a motel while down there which was great and all of our meals were provided by the pastor’s family of the local church we went to, she fed us breakfast and dinner and packed us peanut butter and jam sandwiches and fruit for the worksite during the day and with 25 mouths plus our two translator that is a lot of food! The first full day we had there, Sunday, we spent the morning visiting the people that we were going to build houses for and the committee of locals that decided who was going to get a house.  Seeing the conditions of the houses was incredible, they were literally just tarps or pieces or scrap metal against a wooden structure.  Knowing that the pathetic structures they called their home had to keep them safe through the rainy season and any other potential threat and seeing that it clearly could not do that but could not get anything better was heart breaking.  They were the happiest people though, the children automatically loved you and the parents were shy at first but after starting to talk to them they were hysterical and had an incredible sense of humour. We built 4 houses on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday we only had 3 left to build which gave a huge opportunity to play with the kids, which I did most of the week anyways because I was not to great at building, who were just energy balls.  Thursday we did a key giving ceremony, we put together house warming gifts for each family and gave them a Spanish Bible and a ceremonial key to their new house which was a great day but very bitter sweet because it was our last day in the village.  I “adopted” three more sibling while I was down there, Alexadria, Oscar and Norita, they are all siblings and were so great, maybe in a later post I will just talk all about them, I miss them so much but saying good bye to them was so sad, but I have their pictures everywhere and a necklace and bracelet that I wear all the time just as a daily reminder that I am so incredibly blessed.  We spent the last night in a hotel/resort before we came back to Canada and I was miserable.  I did not want to be in a fancy place, I just wanted to be back in the village with the people I had grown to love and knowing that less than an hour away there was people who might not be able to feed their family or have a safe place to sleep was terrible.  Coming back to a home where I have access to anything I need at anytime was also kind of hard to do, as a result I have gone through my room to get rid of anything that I do not really need, knowing how little people have and that I have been blessed to be a blessing I had to make it a reality.  In El Salvador they are so thankful to be able to have the opportunity to go to school and get an education and they never complain about work, our one translator, Hector, needs a job for the rainy season when no teams go down to provide for his family and my whole family fell in love with him and his family and it breaks all of our hearts that he is having a hard time trying to send his son to the best school and provide for his family while I am getting a free education and am working basically three part time jobs.  I have also always had little patience to begin with but coming home and hearing people complain about little, materialistic things is now starting to bother me even more because we have been raised in a society that screams that we need to have all of the new, cool stuff that will never last and not make us happy in the long run.  I think we all need to take a step back and look at our lives and instead of looking at the negative and what we do not have look at what we could give back to the world, whether time or money or things that people need.  It is not hard to find a place to donate stuff you do not need or an organization to volunteer at to help people who need it.  My family helps out at a program called Out of the Cold every few weeks on a Sunday morning serving breakfast, about 3 hours and it seriously makes peoples days. We went near Christmas last year and they all wished us a Merry Christmas and I hated saying it back because I knew they wouldn’t, I had to try not to cry because they were so sincere and happy even though they lived on the streets where it was freezing cold and miserable. If you don’t want to do anything to help people, no big deal, well kind of, but do not go complaining about life because it always could be worse.  That wraps up my rant on this for now, but I am sure it will come up again. Just remember, be thankful for what you have J