simple gifts

The other day Noelle, Vienna and I went for a run. I love running here. the air is so fresh the scenery is beautiful and always it is an adventure. on this particular journey I spied a beautiful spiked striped yellow orange and black caterpillar. as most of you can guess I stopped to pick it up and take it home for treava to play with and us all to watch it grow into some amazing butterfly. They have these giant blue ones and many other beautiful oness here. I found an old pepsi bottle (trash is easy to come by here) and scooped it inside. there was no lid so we continued on our way , me with my catipillar. as we entered town we ran into one of the girl`s friend who started screamming at me to drop the bottle. the catiplillar had crawled out and was on THE top heading for my hand. I asked why' Peligrosa Muy peligrosa, puedo picar and mucho dwella. dangerous, very dnagerous, it can bite you and you will hurt much. I told him no, no it is only a bebe mariposa baby butterfly. he strongly disagreeed and wanted to step on it and kill it. the police station was nearby and they over heard his screams of peligrosa. They came out and radipo agrabar quickly grabbed the catepillar from me. I told them it`s a beutiful baby butterfly and they told me no it wasn`t. I guess a lot of catepillars around here are very poisonous. The moral to this story as the police told me was to never pick up any animal in el salvador without first asking a local.
The next day Vienna arrived at school late and very excited. her and her dad had gotten a ride to the school with the police. they were on their way to go arrest someone. WE FIND THE POLICE ARE OFTEN WHERE WE ARE. the other night we went to a fund raiser at our local school. they have a tradition here of raising money by voting for princesses. each vote cost a penny and the person with the most votes wins. which means the family that is either the biggest or the richest wins. ALSO AT THESE DANCES THEY HAVE THE MOST INCREDIABLE SOUND SYSTEM that will blow you out of the room. THANK GOD YOU CAN GO OUTSIDE BUT USUALLY NOT FAR ENOUGH AWAY TO not BE BLASTED. the women vende sell pupusas, pastellies, tortillas and panellies. WE ARRIVED AND ABOUT 15 MINUTES LATER 6 POLICE ARRIVED. WE HEARD THEY HAD BEEN CALLED FOR OUR PROTECTION. WE ALL FIND IT KIND OF A JOKE AS IN OUR 4 MONTHS HERE WE HAVE NOT HAD ONE BAD EXPERIENCE WITH PEOPLE. they are kind, giving and very helpful. WE ARE MORE CAUTIOUS IN san salvador yet there we find the same.
I TEND TO BELIVE THAT IF YOU FOCUS ON THE GOOD IN PEOPLE AND LOOK FOR IT IN THEM THEN THE GOOD WILL SHINE THROUGH. That has definately worked for us here.
WE ARE REALLY ENJOYING PLAYING basketball, football, and hanging out and partaking in the local activites. CHRISTMAS IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER.
this is the first year Noelle and vienna qUESTION SANTA`S EXISTANCE. Here in el Salvador the focus is on the birth of Jesus and christmas eve at midnight when he was born is the focus. SINCE Noelle and Vienna no longer believe I told them it was their turn to experience the true joy of Christmas which is giving. They`ve choose one their friends family that has 6 kids and is extremely poor to give to. TREAVA IS BUSY BUYING FOR THE LITTLE ONES AND noelle and Vienna are busy making and buying for the older ones. They`ve elected to recieve less themselves and give to this family. We feel buying uniforms and school materials will be the most lasting gift we can give. AS those kids who can`t afford uniforms litterally come to school in rags. And even with uniforms a pecking order of whose is the nicest is established. We are also including books which are in short supply actually don`t exist for most elsalvadorian children. All work is copied from the board. They do not have any school books not even for reading.
If any of you have children books please send them. We just taught english and are trying to inspire people to read which is not an activity el salvadorians do. If we could get some good books to the teachers who just took my english class I`m sure they would read them to them as i read to them daily and stressed that reading is opening a world to children. One where they can access knowledge. and that for them Knowledge is power to improve their future. Books in english or spanish please. Maybe one of you would like to organize a fund raiser to send books. let us know. Merry christmas LISA