Today we went to Trini´s house and worked in her corn fields.  We left at 7:00 am and traveled in the pick-up truck a little over an hour to her house.  About 7 of the older boys came with along with Julie, Mari, Trini, another woman and an old man who was doing the driving (Julie and I aren´t really sure who this man is, but he is nice and drives them around sometimes).

Trini´s house was built through Habitat for Humanity.  It is a nice little cinder block house with two bedrooms, a kitchen area, a little bathroom, and they have added a little room on the back.  The house is near the town of Suchitoto but is in the country (we had to go down a bumpy road and through a small river).  They have electricity and some days they have running water.  The first thing we did when we got there was check to see if the water was running today- it wasn´t.  Then the boys got out the little TV and got it hooked up to the antenna which was on top of a long branch.  The TV had to be hooked up so that they could watch the soccer game that was on.  It was so funny watching all the boys crowd around the TV messing with the antenna and adjusting the buttons to try to get it to work.  They eventually got the game on although it was in black and white and was pretty staticy.  We made some breakfast of beans, eggs with veggies, bread, and hot chocolate. 

And then we went to the corn fields to pick weeds.  The boys were using machetes to cut some weeds and the women were just pulling the weeds by hand.  Farming in El Salvador is very labor intensive- they don´t have tractors and there is no way that tractors would even work on the hilly, rocky soil.  So everything is done by hand- planting, weeding, and picking.  I cannot imagine what a farmer from Illinois would think of the corn fields in El Salvador.  I don´t even know how the corn manages to grow in the rocky soil. 

We spent most of the morning picking weeds (Julie and I did pretty good, but we didn´t work as hard as the Salvadorans.  Salvadorans are such hard working people.  Even the kids pitch in and usually work harder and do better than I do.).  Mari, Julie, and I went back to the house to make some lunch.  Mari did most of the work to make some soup and warm up some tortillas.  Julie peeled some potatoes with a knife and we discussed how much easier it would be with a potato peeler.  Everyone came in from the fields, we ate lunch, and the boys turned the soccer game on.  We cleaned everything up, locked up the house, and went into Suchitoto to visit Jorge´s grave before heading back to San Salvador. 

About a week ago, the police brought a family to stay here at the Casa Concordia.  I´m not sure if I completely understand what exactly happened, but I think I understand that the kid´s father was killed and then they family got word that whoever killed the dad was going to come and kill the rest of the family.  So, the family is staying here until the police can find a new place for the family to stay.  There are two young girls, a young woman, an young man, and an older woman.  They are in a safe place here, but I cannot imagine the fear and grief they must be going through.

The day before we left for Guatemala, the police showed up with an old woman.  Apparently they found her wandering the streets.  She was confused about how she got here and she said that she was from Guatemala.  Who knows how she ended up in San Salvador.  We tried to ask her, but she didn´t seem to know.  The police were going to contact the Guatemalan embassy to see if her family had reported her missing.  That evening we had a pizza party with all our Salvadoran friends and she joined right in with the festivities.  A few people gave some thank you speeches and then the old woman stood up and offered a cute little thanks.  I highly doubt she had any idea what was going on, but she just went with the flow and joined the crazyness.