DAY 5—We try to make time during our work camps for the volunteers to experience the local culture. Today was our day, and a great day it was. We left La Libertad at 10:00 after paying the phone bill, finding the post office and buying $62 worth of diesel. The trip from La Libertad to San Salvador is a hike—I’d guess that you gain about 2000 feet in elevation in 35 kilometers. We’re driving a Kia Pregio, which is a nice piece of machinery. Sheilla and I drove it up to San Salvador earlier in the week and zipped up the mountain. With nine passengers the going was a little slower today, and we were one of those vehicles that the rest of us are generally irritated with—crawling up the inclines and then speeding on the downhill to get enough oomph to make the next climb.

We made it to San Salvador without causing too much grief, skirted the city, and header northwest towards Ahuachapan, a 100 kilometer trip. There’s an orphanage there that Jeff Cardwell and DJ Bakken introduced me to a couple of years ago, and I visited it on every trip since. It’s home to 50 girls, ages 2 to 13, who for a variety of reasons have no other place to live. Given the inherent sadness of such a place it’s really very pleasant. It’s run by nuns who show the girls great love and try to give them a leg up in life by teaching them sewing, embroidery, knitting and baking. A good friend of our in Colorado Springs, Kathy Read, has a stitchery and stamping business and always sends a suitcase load of supplies for the girls’ skills training. This trip we also brought money collected from a number of friends to help them rebuild their cistern, which was damaged in last summer’s storms and has left them without a steady supply of water. One of the donors is the 8 year old granddaughter of Fuller Center Board member Marlene Muse, who wanted to give a meaningful gift to someone in need for her birthday.

Our time at the orphanage was golden. The Ascension folks romped and played with the girls and took hundreds of photos, each of which had to be closely inspected. How they’ve every learned about the marvels of digital photography is beyond me. Then the girls sang us a couple of songs and we had to take our leave. It’s a hard place to say goodbye to.

We then drove to Chalchuapa to visit the Tazumal pyramid. This is a structure that was built and rebuilt over the centuries with influences from the Olmeca, the Maya and the Tolteca peoples. Amazingly it wasn’t discovered until 1942, and a good deal of work has been done since then to restore it. It was a fascinating stop and worth the visit.

We stopped at an artisans’ market in San Salvador on our way through town and everyone picked up a treasure or two. Then on to Mr. Donut where, despite the name, we had a true Salvadoran repast. Fuller Center friends Maria and Mario Cruz joined us there to talk about the future of The Fuller Center in El Salvador.

Tomorrow Sheilla & I leave for home. It’s been a wonderful week of memory making. We’ll miss the people and the places and look forward to our next visit with fond anticipation.