El Salvador Delegation 2025: Day 6

June 22, 2025

Today is my birthday. I didn't tell anyone that, though. Our days are all planned and I'm here to be immersed in being here.

Cecilia's sister Pati is here with her daughter Katrin. Pati and Katrin live in San Salvador where Pati works. The women are pulling the petals from flowers to fill a basket for Katrin to carry in the Corpus Christi procession later this morning. Our plan is to walk around the market, since Sunday is one of the big market days (the other being Thursday).

Katarin with her flower petal basket and procession outfit.

Market Day

After breakfast, we headed out toward the Plaza and market. We wandered around the street vendors toward the far end. On the way, we stopped at a pharmacy to get some antacids to make another health kit. The pharmacy sells all sorts of  medications...both what would be over the counter as well as by prescription only here in the States. Normally, everything is sold by the pill. Nobody keeps a bottle of aspirin in their home, because they can't afford to buy a whole bottle (even a small one). So when people need an antacid or ibuprofen or whatever, they go to the pharmacy and buy 1 or 2 pills at $0.10 or $0.25 or whatever each. We bought a box of 36 antacids (like Tums, only each tablet in a blister pack) for about $10. The box said $12, but we got a discount because we bought so many.

At the pharmacy buying antacids.

Then we went on to the far end street where a lot of the kitchenware and metal vendors are. A couple of the women wanted to buy cestas and Mary wanted a machete. This was the place! 

Street vendors from the outlying communities selling whatever they have to sell.

More street vendors and people walking in the street.

After that, we went around the corner and into the indoor market area. The outdoor vendors set up on the sidewalks or in the streets by putting out a blanket on the pavement or tables. The indoor market is more for permanent vendors. The booths are crammed with merchandise of all kinds up to the ceiling and there are areas for buying food and eating at a table. Other side rooms are specifically for meat vendors or vegetable vendors. Otherwise, it's all a chaotic jumble of stuff with narrow aisles for people to walk through.

The indoor market "food court"

The indoor market can be a claustrophobic experience.

The indoor meat market room.

One of the side aisles with mostly produce.

 After we came out of the indoor market, Mass was still going on, so the procession wouldn't start soon. we decided to go to the ice cream shop for ice cream. Every time I'm in Berlín, I always get a mango ice cream at some point.

 

Corpus Christi Procession

When we started to see activity around the church, we started heading that way.

This procession is a very colorful pageant! When we walked to the market earlier, we saw the colorful "rugs" made of sand, sawdust, salt (for white) and colored sand. They are about a half inch thick and 3-dimensional. I have no idea how many people, working through the night, it took to make these carpets go all around the block. It rained really hard last night about bedtime so all this work had to be done after that.
 

Close up of part of the "alfombra" (rug). you can see how think the base of the rug is and that the designs are also 3-dimensional. They're obviously done with stencils, but it's still a LOT of work.

The rugs ran down the center of the street, all around the block that contains the main Catholic church.

The procession started from the doors of the church, then proceeded counter-clockwise around the block.

Various groups in robes lined up along the alfombras.

The palm fronds had plastic flowers added to the leaves.

 

 

 

 

Once the priest came out and took his place at the head of the procession, everyone else followed behind.

After the costumed and official processors left the front of the church, all the congregants filed out of the church and joined in. There were also a number of people along the street who walked along the other side of the alfombras. Most of the people didn't actually walk on the alfombras, although the priest and some of the main processors did.

Scenic Overlook

We didn't watch the entire procession around the block and back again. We saw it off to a good start and then walked to the overlook for a view down the mountain to the valley and river below. The sky was a bit hazy with all the humidity in the air but it was still a nice view.

L->R: Mary, me, Flossie, Kathy, Luann, Natalie, and Mike. You can just make out the lake in the valley at center.

I really enjoy the murals that are painted along a number of walls in town. This one is on the block leading to the overlook.

We then went back to the Casa for lunch. And a big surprise for me. Cecilia had seen in Facebook that today was my birthday. So, while we were out wandering in the market and watching the procession, the Team put up a banner and balloons and got a personalized cake for me.

The cake was absolutely delicious! It had a sort of custardy filling between layers and a light, fluffy frosting. None of it was too sweet, as cakes in the U.S. can be.

 We had lunch, then cake, then headed out to do more house visits.

To El Tablon and Back

As we were heading down the mountain toward Tablon, we met an ambulance with lights flashing but no siren. It was followed by 2 paramedics on motorcycles. A little further on, we came around a corner to a big truck stopped in the road and dozens of people sitting along side the road. We found out that the truck was going down the mountain when the brakes failed. The truck hit a tree, caving in the left front quarter-panel. The ambulance we met was one of at least 2 that took the injured to the hospital (probably in San Miguel, about an hour away). It's amazing that more people weren't hurt.

The scene of the accident.

 

This is what the truck would have looked like before the accident (not the same truck). Although the truck that crashed also had things other than people in the back...like a refrigerator.

We delivered the final 6 packages to families. A couple of guys today got really choked up when we gave them the packages. One was a guy, living alone, and he really struggled to keep his composure. Another was a man and his wife living in a house with a huge mango tree in the yard. He also got choked up. Both of these surprised me, given the machismo culture. Before we left the guy with the mango tree, he climbed up in the tree and knocked down a whole lot of mangos and put them in bags, insisting we take them.

On the way back up the mountain to Berlín, we again got stopped by road issues. This time, it was because some big branches had fallen across the road blocking the way. But there were already guys with chainsaws on the scene and in just a couple minutes we were on our way again.