El Salvador rest day

We had a day of beaches, volcanoes, coconuts and dinner with an amazing artist and political activist. The whole day i felt like everything that was happening was healing my body and mind. Not that i have been unhealthy. We first visited the Pacific OCean, this is a hot spot for surfing so you can imagine the grandness of the waves. The air was salty and thick, the sand was black and the stones were large and perfectly round from the beating they get from the water. I got in to swim, though i have to say the water scares me a bit. It's SOOO powerful when it crashes, and when the water recedes from the beach cover with big rounded stones it sounds like God is cracking his knuckles. It's quite amazing. I got in this water because firstly it was warm and secondly the fear of it made me a little more excited to get in it. I felt like i was in the middle of 2 strong magnets. One pulled with such force out into the ocean the other slammed me into the beach. The water is fierce and way stronger than i have ever been in. i felt like i neti potted every orifice of my body. Healthy event number one.






The we got a delicious meal under a thatch roof restaurant. I ordered coconut water and the women said it'd take a few minutes because they had to get them. Which meant that the trees in front of our table were going to be the trees bearing our drinks.



We were defiantly eating locally grown food this day!The food was spectacular.
Then we drove 30 min. to on of the many volcano's. And it rained the most of the way there because it's rainy season here. But as soon as we arrived it stopped. There was that lovely earthy smell that happens right after a rain, and was especially potent because we where in a rainforest that had pines, and mint and amazingly beautiful flowers. Ladies were selling berries that only grew up here, they were a cross between raspberries and strawberries, so delicious!! I also bought this fruit this women said was suppose to heal everything called noni. I was excited to try it but when i got it home it smelled so bad i couldn't envision getting my lips anywhere near it.



The air here was unbelievable in it's smell i wish i could live in that smell all my life. And then there was the volcano it was huge and deep and active. though i didn't see the red lava boiling up or anything.
Then we hurried back to the hotel because we were to have a guest over. This was very exciting to me, we got some wine and beer and a roast chicken, avocados, bread, melon and some of those red exciting berries from the volcano. Our guest was Paulino Espinoza. Aida from the radio program that we played on recommended this man when we were inquiring about traditional music from el Salvador. He is an amazing and inspiring man. He is a musician, a historian, a cultural ambassador, political activist.
So he arrived, so sweetly he said he had no idea why he was asked to come here. Apparently yesterday he had called the embassy to check on his status for a visa, which he got no answer, but 5 minutes later he got a call from the embassy asking if he would meet at the Marriott at 6:30 there was a band from the US. So he said yes, slightly confused. pretty funny.
But he was so enlightening about the history of this country and the history of the cultural. We keep asking what is the traditional music of this country and no one has a straight answer in fact most say that there is none. Which is actually true!!!
This country was originally inhabited by the Mayans, they vanished some say or were forced most likely, by the Mexicans. The Mexicans settled here and became known as the indigenous people. THey were doing fine selling a natural dye, until the industrial revolution happed and that dye was no longer needed. The Spanish came in and said that these farms were to be turned into coffee plantations, the one problem with coffee is that you get no yield for 4 years, so only the very rich were able to keep their land for this time, that equated to 4 families on the Spanish side. The indigenous were striped of their land and money from this transition. So there was a revolt in 1932 that indigenous people rose up, that very moment they were joined by a gigantic eruption of one of the volcano's. Weird. The indigenous did not win. The Spanish won with literally killing all of them with machine guns. No joke. And thus there is not traditional music or culture that was saved. So sad. The same thing happened in Honduras where the Spanish wished to get rid of the indigenous people and because Honduras was bigger they hired a plane with a revolving machine gun, like from WW1. This is how they were rid of there. And as a prize to the pilot for succeeding this they gave him an airline called TACA airlines, this the the airlines that we fly on between all these countries!! agghhh.

Anyway, like the US the history books leave out a lot of information. So Paulino goes to the schools and teaches about El Salvadorian culture and identity. It's really amazing. He also plays every Sunday at Mass. This catholic church centers around liberation and they lead the congregation in song. I am not sure all the details that go along with this but i know that there were many priest killed in this country because they were standing up for the poor.

It's heavy, but you'd never know about this dark history that happened during my grandmothers era. We are clueless because again we are staying at the fancy side of town next to the MALL! Apparently this place is incredibly dangerous like Honduras. Paulino said do not under-estimate this. So sad.

Ok, that is all for now. Off to teach workshops.