SHAZAAAM! Just felt like saying that….well it was more like a whisper. Oh well, I’m pumped right now, and you won’t believe it by who….a Methodist pastor. Allen Hunt is a radio host in Georgia, and I will post a link to two of his shows for downloading. Enjoy.
Anyways, let’s see, before getting into the beach trip yesterday, I’d like to mention a big community meal we had a few days ago. The parish put on a “Cena de la Amistad,” (Dinner of Friendship) actually I just realized I think that might have been Valentine’s Day haha (they call it the day of love and friendship and give hugs or handshakes to friends and family on this day). They have been selling tickets for 2 dollars for weeks and that night everyone gathered to feast mwhahahaha. They had a three person little band, a guitar, a singer, and something else that I don’t remember…they were dressed in green and black though haha. I FORGOT MY CAMERA, oh well. It was a pretty big deal for the community…there were about 800 in attendance I hear. The money went to the reconstruction of the parish church. We had rice and beans, something weird, and something else I don’t remember, and tortillas and coffee of course. As you can tell it wasn’t the most stellar food, but it was a nice environment.
starting out the trip after the raffle
the kids stylin in front of me
The beachers coming in after their morning fishing trip.AHHhhh…. Speaking of the environment, it is beginning to heat up here politically. The ex-mayor from what I hear is possibly going to change his previous party to be the candidate for FMLN (left), the national rival of the current mayor’s party, ARENA (right). ARENA has been in power for some twenty years, fyi. Anyways, the previous mayor showed up early and conveniently chose his spot with his bright red colored shirt on (the color of FMLN) to greet everyone with a smile and handshake. The current mayor was helping MC the event, and had helped out through certain donations of supplies, and his wife is a catechist in the parish. So, it’s a very interesting position that I’m in to sit back and watch how it all unfolds before the elections in January. I say interesting because they know I can’t take a side and that I don’t have a vote, or technically a vested interest, but both are eager to get projects done. But it’s also fun to listen to Padre Tino always plee for a clean election from the pulpit…..the calm before the storm wahoo. The meal went well though, there were people there from other cities in El Sal, as well as Alaska, CAROLINA, Spain, and Brazil. Good stuff. I did hear later that the food messed some people up that night though (Don Raul and Dona Amalia). I didn’t though!!! Is that good or bad? Does that mean I already have those guys living in there, or my body just kills everything that comes in now? How else would I eat the same thing and not get sick?...awesome… Haha.
Oh let’s see, what else… ah yes…. I caught some interesting info from Furman. There are a certain number of people’s coming home that are taking place in a certain group of people in which the inter religious discussion I always found fun to say the least. Welcome home yo.
Now the fun stuff. Yesterday, the town went to the beach! I spent the night before preparing all the raffle ticket numbers and my raffle box and putting together the prizes. The bus picked up everyone at 530am and at 6 we switched buses to go to Playa Majahual in the department of La Libertad. Before getting on the bus, Don Mauricio (my counterpart and prez of the ADESCO) called out the name and when the person got on the bus, I would give them their half of the ticket with a number, and my half with the same number that I put in the box.) Once everyone had paid on the way to the beach (that’s the way it works here on buses), we started the raffle. We had 4 2 liter sodas (3 Salva Cola and 1 Coke), 7 groups of 3 small bags of chips, 2 calendars (thank you Williams family haha), and a paddle ball game (thank you Ansley). Finally we raffled a free trip… a lady won the four dollars, wahoo.
Oh let’s see, what else… ah yes…. I caught some interesting info from Furman. There are a certain number of people’s coming home that are taking place in a certain group of people in which the inter religious discussion I always found fun to say the least. Welcome home yo.
Now the fun stuff. Yesterday, the town went to the beach! I spent the night before preparing all the raffle ticket numbers and my raffle box and putting together the prizes. The bus picked up everyone at 530am and at 6 we switched buses to go to Playa Majahual in the department of La Libertad. Before getting on the bus, Don Mauricio (my counterpart and prez of the ADESCO) called out the name and when the person got on the bus, I would give them their half of the ticket with a number, and my half with the same number that I put in the box.) Once everyone had paid on the way to the beach (that’s the way it works here on buses), we started the raffle. We had 4 2 liter sodas (3 Salva Cola and 1 Coke), 7 groups of 3 small bags of chips, 2 calendars (thank you Williams family haha), and a paddle ball game (thank you Ansley). Finally we raffled a free trip… a lady won the four dollars, wahoo.
Im not sure.
The coastline to the left....lots of COCONUTS!
Our pad for the trip is under this thatch.We arrived a short time later, it was interesting, a little different from the way things work in the US. As soon as the bus got close to the beach, there were guys all over the place yelling at the bus and Don Mauricio trying to get him to come to his place to park the bus….eventually he chose one, and we pulled in under the thatch roof and everyone got off. What they do here though, instead of setting up on the beach, is shack up in little rooms there under the thatch for about 5 dollars a pop. It’s a little 6x6 room at most, that I could barely fit into, especially the door haha, I had to bend way down. Interesting, oh well, I joined in a group of 8 that got a room, and I just left my bag in there because I didn’t need to change or anything…yeah the whole cargo shorts over the bathing suit thing. The beach pretty much consisted of these types of places. Each place had some type of food somewhere close.
The beach to the right. The sand is much darker here.
Our bus we came in is on the right.
The doors there are to the little rooms I talked about, people are chillin outside them.I walked around with Don Mauricio for a while to check out the place with Oscar. I couldn’t help but laugh because every little food place we passed they came out to bargain and DM just kept walking and would say, “yea yea, we’ll be back soon!” Eventually we came back by the beach and checked out the fishermen coming in with their boats. We had a nice discussion on the different kind of life lived here, and how they have to survive differently, and then we headed back to “bathe ourselves.” That’s what they call coming to the beach… to go into the ocean is to bathe yourself. Palabra.
This is the pier at the Puerto city where they sell all the fish. You can see the cranes at the end.
I planned on spending the rest of the day just eating cheezits to save money, but Don Mauricio and some other old guy fell in love with them and helped finish them off before lunch. D’oh. Later DM wanted to grab lunch, so I felt bad and went, and he had to help out with a few quarters cause I only brought a few dollars…hahahaha. No prob…it’s a give and take system here. Anyways, the day was fun, they don’t like to go too deep, height problems haha, but DM surprised me. He is one of the shorter guys and was right there where I was messing in the waves. No fear in that man. I couldn’t have had a better guy as my counterpart.
Everyone thinks that my Iliad and Odyssey book is the Bible haha. I’m going to have to finish it off quick before they think I’m some sort of freak :) Almost there. We left and stopped by a place called Puerto, a little larger town that is popular for it selling of fish on a pier where all the boats are dropped into the water by crane. They sell TURTLE EGGS there…. I’m interested to try some. …I only saw one vendor, but there were a ton there. That was nifty, there was also some black guys there that were taller than me and everyone from my community felt compelled to tell me that I looked like a Salvadoran next to them height wise haha. They might have spoken English, they looked at me a few times while they were passing through, but I never got a chance to ask.
The motto of The Woman Rebel, a 1914 paper founded by Margaret Sanger, who was a fighter for women’s “reproductive” rights and co-founder of the predecessor institutions of the Planned Parenthood. She was one of the few social reformers who lived to see her reforms implemented, and in 1965 contraception/birth control was legalized in the US. Here’s a random fyi, how many Christian denominations’ doctrines taught against contraception before 1930?....I’ll give you a clue, its smaller than 1. How many teach against it today?......yep, not much bigger, 1. On that note, how many taught against abortion in the time of Roe v. Wade? Is that number changing as well? Are there studies that correlate the use of contraception to the rate of abortion in a given area? Isn’t it ironic that many Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, protest outside abortion clinics, and then go home and use the products they endorse? I say all this in all honesty because I never really put much thought into these questions in the past outside of the historical context, but I might have to look into it more now.
This isn't a terrible place to start....Kimberly Hahn has some interesting ideas on the subject.
http://www.bringyou.to/JHKimberlyHahn.mp3
This is the pier at the Puerto city where they sell all the fish. You can see the cranes at the end.I planned on spending the rest of the day just eating cheezits to save money, but Don Mauricio and some other old guy fell in love with them and helped finish them off before lunch. D’oh. Later DM wanted to grab lunch, so I felt bad and went, and he had to help out with a few quarters cause I only brought a few dollars…hahahaha. No prob…it’s a give and take system here. Anyways, the day was fun, they don’t like to go too deep, height problems haha, but DM surprised me. He is one of the shorter guys and was right there where I was messing in the waves. No fear in that man. I couldn’t have had a better guy as my counterpart.
Everyone thinks that my Iliad and Odyssey book is the Bible haha. I’m going to have to finish it off quick before they think I’m some sort of freak :) Almost there. We left and stopped by a place called Puerto, a little larger town that is popular for it selling of fish on a pier where all the boats are dropped into the water by crane. They sell TURTLE EGGS there…. I’m interested to try some. …I only saw one vendor, but there were a ton there. That was nifty, there was also some black guys there that were taller than me and everyone from my community felt compelled to tell me that I looked like a Salvadoran next to them height wise haha. They might have spoken English, they looked at me a few times while they were passing through, but I never got a chance to ask.
After that we headed back to the community, and I made it with just some red on my face….sweet. Although, someone called me a shrimp when I got back, they were joking of course. I have learned that I can’t joke though here… there is a slightly annoying lady in town that sells things next to Dona Amalia, and she asked if I wanted to buy gel today after Mass for my hair while I was chatting with DA. I laughed and said no that my hair was like this because of the salt from the beach… and I joked that I only wash once every two weeks. She looked surprised and started yelling to all her friends laughing in the market as if I was serious so I had to cut her off real quick and insist it was a joke….buggers. Dona Amalia once again warned me after that the people in town I can’t joke with because they will believe whatever I say….. REAAALLLLYYYY… I’ll have to test that out…..I’m an Arabian Prince from now on. :)
“No Gods, No Masters.”
The motto of The Woman Rebel, a 1914 paper founded by Margaret Sanger, who was a fighter for women’s “reproductive” rights and co-founder of the predecessor institutions of the Planned Parenthood. She was one of the few social reformers who lived to see her reforms implemented, and in 1965 contraception/birth control was legalized in the US. Here’s a random fyi, how many Christian denominations’ doctrines taught against contraception before 1930?....I’ll give you a clue, its smaller than 1. How many teach against it today?......yep, not much bigger, 1. On that note, how many taught against abortion in the time of Roe v. Wade? Is that number changing as well? Are there studies that correlate the use of contraception to the rate of abortion in a given area? Isn’t it ironic that many Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, protest outside abortion clinics, and then go home and use the products they endorse? I say all this in all honesty because I never really put much thought into these questions in the past outside of the historical context, but I might have to look into it more now.
This isn't a terrible place to start....Kimberly Hahn has some interesting ideas on the subject.
http://www.bringyou.to/JHKimberlyHahn.mp3
4 comments:
I felt bad no one had commented on this one. You had a nice run, but it looks like this one wasn't controversial enough to get people talking. :) Either that or everyone is mad at you. Ha.
-Powder Keg
FYI Allen Hunt recently announced his conversion to Catholicism. You can find his announcement on his blog at the following link. His wife has remained Methodist. That must be rough.
http://www.allenhuntshow.com/Allen-Hunt/2008/01/14/personal_transition#comments
Rough, but not uncommon. Give it a few years, it tends to work out.
He was a pastor in what some call the 3rd largest Methodist church in the world too and runs one of Atlanta's most popular radio shows.
I knew I liked him for some reason, ha. In all seriousness though, some big people have been stepping up lately in the midst of huge opposition and risking serious personal capital... especially these pastor/theologians as of late. Some are calling it the New Oxford Movement haha.
Even if people disagree with him. They have to admire his cahones.
Preach on my brotha.
Here's an article
I found about contraception/abortion correlation...I'm lazy and didn't read the whole thing but it looked interesting. I don't understand why people get so worked up over abortion. Sure, it's pretty disgusting and all that but it's just a symptom of another problem - unwanted pregnancies. All the anti-abortion protests and marches frustrate me because all they're doing is galvanizing the pro-choice people against them even more. Pro lifers need to stop all their attention whoring and focus their efforts on a problem that they could actually do something about.
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