To Usulutan

A page from our Journal that we are publishing from home: We are still enjoying the afterglow of being in the community for the past 4 days. Now we’re headed to Usulután for the delegation to see our former community and visit three projects our church funded while we were in mission. We received excellent final reports of the projects so we wanted to see these successes personally. We left San Salvador early Tuesday heading east to the Orient, El Salvador’s bread basket. Our first stop was the hardware store in Concepcion Batres. The store front is freshly painted and it’s striking. The store is now double its square footage since inception and has an “L” shaped glass counter separating the supplies from the customers. Future plans include using the large yard to store brick and concrete products. We walked to the molino for the delegation to witness how important a molino is for the community providing fresh ground corn for the daily diet. Three members of the staff of Oikos meet us at the molino. Oikos has a full day planned for us so we quickly board our transportation and head south out of town where Concepcion Batres is very lush green due to the high water table. A middle aged couple trained by Oikos provides us a tour of their 3 acre plantation of maracuya, pineapple, and papaya. First they cleared the land of the coconut trees and harvested the wood for making fences and trellises for the plants. The couple share responsibilities with the man managing the garden and the woman arranging the sale of their produce to vendors in Usulután. A second small plantation a short distance from the first has a family raising papaya and squash. The family spokes-person is a woman who explains the sales of produce in Usulután and how the income is used to support the family. See both on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXoZnGlqpCA We return to Concepcion Batres for lunch, then it’s back in the vehicles heading north to San Jorge to enter the dry, dusty river bed and begin the ascent up the volcano towards St Julian. This is familiar territory for David y Nancy. Oikos takes us to another family benefitting from our funding and they demonstrate the methods used to grow crops on the volcanic slopes. The man thanks Our Savior’s for the financial support. Our next stop is in a community of very poor families. Their project is just under way and they seek funding to expand. 50 women are here to tell us about a future project of chicken coops for their families or for their neighbors. The community has 10 chicken coops and needs 30 more. They tell us about how much they love to work in agriculture and more chickens would offer meat, eggs and cash when they sell eggs. Their poverty is striking and their needs touch our hearts. See this on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuPcja-QeOU It’s getting dark and it’s time to leave. We are sweaty, sun burned and caked with dust. We stop at the office of Oikos for a presentation from Guillermo and after questions, we head to the hotel. It was a very hot day and we are too exhausted for dinner. We return to our rooms to shower and retire. With modest amounts of funding together we have changed the lives of families and communities. Salvadorans are hardworking people, they just need a “hand up” to get started. We have good stories to tell our faith community when we return. The next day the delegation leaves early for the airport. We return to San Salvador for 5 more days. David y Nancy