El Salvador Delegation 2025: Day 4

June 20, 2025

I had an alarm set for 6:45. I woke up at 6:30. Breakfast was at 7:00 and we were on the road to El Tablon around 7:45. It took a little over an hour to get there. The roads had been recently maintained so they were in pretty good shape until we got closer to Tablon.

We travel around the Berlín communities standing in the back of the truck. L->R: Mary, Flossie, Kathy, Luann, Natalie, me

These are the supplies we'll be delivering to the families we'll visit today. The black bags over the cab have large round soap bars and bags of lye (used to process corn). I didn't get a photo of their contents. The cesta has the health kits. The contents of the white and black bags were purchased locally and cost about $40 per set. The health kit contents were donated.

The large white bags contain various staple foods, matches, some sweet treats, and some toilet paper.

Contents of the health kits: antacids, ibuprofen, bandaids, hydrocortisone cream, antibiotic ointment, and a large tube of toothpaste. There are instructions in Spanish on the ibuprofen and antacids. "Hydrocortisone" and "antibiotic" are enough of a cognate to their Spanish counterparts that people know what to do with them. We have a supply of toothbrushes that we will add to the bags when we know how many people live in the house. Big shout-out to Iowa Dental of Grimes for donating a lot of the toothbrushes. The rest of the health supplies were donated by individuals.

Arriving El Tablon Cerna

We started at the school in Tablon Cerna where they had hung balloon flowers and a banner to greet us that says "Welcome siblings from Heartland Church and the Pastoral Team" L->R: Natalie, Mary, Flossie, Kathy, Cruz, Luann. Cruz really, really wanted to be in the picture so she's an honorary Heartlander.

This was the first time Heartland had visited their sister communities in 5 years. It was a really big deal for everyone. Most of the community knows Kathy and Luann as they've been there before. But it was a first visit for Natalie, Mary, and Flossie.

We started by meeting with all the members of the community and directiva (elected "town council"). The directiva members and our delegation introduced ourselves. There were a lot of welcomes and some general discussion of the community's projects, needs, and hopes. They talked about things that have changed in the past 5 years. Then the community members left and we met with just the directiva.

We met with the community and directiva under the extended roof of the school. We started with a huge circle of chairs for the community meeting then removed a lot of the chairs and brought them closer together for the directiva meeting.

Community News and Updates

One development that is really exciting to hear is that a Canadian organization is helping build houses for some of the most-needy in the community. The houses are built of sturdy materials and replace the most dilapidated (leaky) homes for people who can't afford to fix or update their homes. The houses cost about $3,500 to build and the organization comes to the community to evaluate conditions and then they decide who gets new houses. This takes the decision-making onus off of the directiva and eliminates any "favoritism" that may appear to come with the decision. On our house-to-house visits, we saw a number of these new houses. The people are so thrilled to get them! 

Our house visit with one of the families that had a new home, thanks to the Canadian organization. They have a main room and two smaller rooms inside.

Another development the community is very excited about is that their school will soon become an official school run by the Department of Education. This means, among other things, that the community will actually own the land the school sits on, the government will pay the teachers (the community currently pays them), and it is likely that the school will expand past the current 3 rooms and 2 teachers. This means that they can have more grades for students. Currently, one set of students (the lower elementary grades go to school in the morning and the higher ones go in the afternoon, with multiple grades of students taught by each teacher at the same time.

Number 1 Issue: Water 

Other things are still very challenging for the community. Their Number One issue is water. Municipal water runs to the community but it only runs one day per month. El Salvador is a tropical country where it rains daily for 6 months and then rarely or never for the other 6 months. Some communities have a spring or stream where they can get water, at least part of the year, but Tablon isn't one of them. Without a way to collect and store water, most of the people in the community have a very serious lack of water throughout most of the year. 

This family has one of the larger water tanks and a couple of barrels.

An example of a homemade water tank built into the ground and lined with plastic.

This family has 2 of the smaller water tanks, by their latrine.

One of the things we discussed with families as we visited was whether they had water tanks. Some had 2 or 3, but if they had a family of 5 and/or shared the tanks with other households, there's no way that water supply would last throughout the 6-month dry season. Some had 1 or none. The ones that had none might have a couple barrels. One family had 2 barrels and a bunch of plastic water carriers (like might hold fuel). Some had built water collection and storage tanks out of lamina (corrugated metal) or wood, or dug a tank-shaped space in the ground, lined with plastic to hold water. They can use this water to wash clothes or water a small garden to provide food for their family, but it's not potable. It's also impossible to keep an open tank clean so the water often is filled with moss, algae, and whatever has fallen into the tank.

Number 2 Issue: Food 

Their second biggest issue is food. These communities are subsistence farmer, for the most part. They plant corn and beans (by hand) with the hope that their field will produce enough to feed their family for the year and provide enough seed to save for the next year. If the rains come at the wrong time, or don't come when needed, they can lose most of the crop. If they run out of food, they may end up having to choose between eating the seed they are saving to plant or having to buy seed. Most people don't own the land they farm, so they have to pay rent on it, whether it produces or not. Land rent this year in Tablon ranged from $80 to $120 per manzana (about 1.6 acres). Farmers were renting between .25 and 2 manzanas, depending on how much they could manage and afford. The volcanic soil is very poor in nutrients, so if they want any sort of decent yield, they must fertilize; another expense. The one thing that is very difficult for subsistence farmers to come up with is money.

This man wanted to show us his field. Given the mountainside location of this community, most of the fields are hand-planted on slopes of varying degrees.

The truly hungry times for these families is between planting and when they can harvest anything and the dry season before harvest when it's difficult to grow or forage other food (Feb-Apr and Sep-Oct). The food packets that Tablon gets from it's partner congregation in Iowa are a real blessing for them. Then, they can eat something and not have to buy that food. That money can go toward seed, fertilizer, municipal water, or electricity.

The community does what it can. They are planting fruit trees beside the school so that in a few years they can start harvesting mangoes, papayas, nuts, and other edibles to help in the lean times. One part of the community has started a shared garden and chicken project with an in-ground water collection tank to water the animals and garden. The community gets by, barely. There are still children who don't get enough to thrive.

House-to-House Visits

We had lunch at the school and then our delegation split up so that we could cover more homes. Mike, Natalie, and Oscar (translator) went in one group. Kathy (translator), Mary, Flossie, and Luann went in the other group. We stopped at  each house to collect information about the family; names, ages, whether the children are in school and what grade, if they have water tanks, whether they farm, etc. I was the "census taker" for our group so I filled out the form. Then we'd take a photo of the family, give them the 3 bags of stuff, and thank them for sharing their life and home with us. My group visited 7 families, the other group did 8; which was exactly what was planned for the day.

We saw many different types of homes on our visits. A few had concrete block wall houses. Some were cobbled together from whatever they could scrounge...pieces of lamina, wood, mud, plastic, etc. 

This family's home is made of mud with a lamina roof. The young man is 15 and doesn't go to school because he is deaf.

This family of 4 and their lamina house. In most cases, these houses don't have any windows and the front door may be a blanket draped across the opening.

That took the rest of the afternoon. By 3:00 or so, the Team was hustling us to keep moving. They were concerned about rain moving in on us before we could get back to the Casa. We got back around 4:00 and we were all just wiped. Between the heat, humidity, and walking up and down the mountain, we were all tired and sweaty. We were sitting around the table, drinking water and resting, when Cecilia brought out a plate of donuts and sweet, fresh and warm from the bakery. Heavenly!

Eventually, I went up to my room and showered, then talked with Al for a bit. Around 6:00 it was time for supper...tostadas. After supper, we put together more health kits and some of the big white bags for tomorrow's deliveries. Then it was time for bed.