Day 4 - Casa de Zinc

It's Saturday... but it really just feels like the past 3 days and none of us have a clue what day it is! We took off before 8:30 a.m. with a truckload of food, tools, other things and various people and headed to our sister canton (community) of Casa de Zinc. They knew we were coming and we were bringing along a goodly part of the lunch that we would have there. We had Mily, our interpreter with us today. Mily is 20-ish (pictured here) and a native of El Salvador. She's a junior in college and has lived in the U.S. for a couple years of her life. She is a real gem. We all fell in love with her immediately and we could not have had a more dear person to join us today!

We had found out that there were 17 families spread out over the countryside that are considered to be part of this community, so we brought along shovels, crayons, writing tablets fruit roll-ups (one of which I'm eating at the moment), cucumber seeds and children's books in Spanish. We also had pictures printed of our group to give to each family. There were also aprons that we gave to all the women older than 12 years old. They had been made by the women of Trinity Church. More of the garden tools that we will be giving these families will be arriving as soon as possible and will get to these families when they do.

We met with the Directiva, which are the leaders of the community. They are all men and we all talked while most of the women worked on lunch, along with some of the pastoral team ladies that went with us. We sat under a plastic canopy that had been put up just for us and we sat in the molded plastic lawn chairs that our funds had purchased for them in 2008. We talked about various things – questions that we had for them and questions they had for us. We learned a lot about their community and told them some things about what goes on in Iowa. We also talked about some possible future projects of which we may be able to be of help to them.

But, one of the biggest things that we learned is how warm and welcoming these people were to us. They welcomed us with open arms. Pastor Dave Endriss made balloon animals for the kids and huge smiles would appear when they received them. They were all dressed in their best clothes and they may have been their only clothes. Before and after lunch we drove to each of the homes in the community and took pictures of each of the families after we presented our gifts to them.

They were so excited to have us visit their homes - homes which are on the dustiest of dusty roads, with dirt floors and concrete or tin walls. There's an occasional chair here or there with chickens and dogs walking in and out of the house. There's usually a hammock, too. There might be a door and there might not be. But I tell you this not to point out the extreme poverty. I tell you this to let you know that none of this phases them. They are such proud and humble people. The rare person has a pickup, but none of the ones we saw today had one. They walk everywhere they go. It's 6-7 or more miles to get to town when they do go. And those with jobs have to go there during the weekdays. Any water they have, has to be hauled to the house. Most of the houses have the water filters that we saw yesterday.

And the roads to actually get to these homes? Well... they're barely wider than the truck (remember it's a small Toyota). Part of them are dirt and part are made of the volcanic rock that is everywhere down here. There are huge ruts, holes, dips and huge everything when you're riding standing up in the back of the truck (not me, again today). The fastest that Kathy (Mahler) drove on any road was 15 mph. But, that seemed fast when we actually got that high! She did a great job - and you must remember that we're in the mountains of El Salvador... the roads were going almost straight up, almost straight down, or winding around to get to the top of the mountain, where we were more than once... and the view was spectacular! What an amazing sight that was! We were on top of the world... during the dry season of the year here... on a dirt road... visiting some of the sweetest people in the world. Kathy's knuckles were white and we were all saying our prayers every time she's ask us to! (as if we weren't already doing that!)

As we reflected tonight... what we all had seen today was a bunch of strong, kind, loving, warm, welcoming people who want us to know their story. They want us to continue this relationship, as they are so very appreciative of all that we can do for them. The handshakes, the hugs, even the kisses from the smallest of the small ones all made it worthwhile. The "thank-you" that came from a 9- or 10-year-old boy when we were ready to leave was as precious as it could be. He could not have been more proud of the fact that he knew how to say it in our language!

And the pastoral team plays a big part in all of this. They are the ones who work with these community leaders to urge them to be organized and be focused on what it is that we can do to help them. They encourage them to work together so that we will be able to work with them.

Even though we spoke through Mily, it didn't matter. We all could feel what it was that we had to say to each other. They applauded us before we left. They thanked us over and over and over again. They asked us to come back. And we promised that we would.

–Betty