El Salvador Delegation 2025: Days 8 & 9

June 24 & 25, 2025

June 24

I woke up at 6 and decided to shower before breakfast, rather than after. At some point after breakfast, I had another piece of my birthday cake. It was the last opportunity! I stripped the linens off my bed and brought them down to the house, paid Idalia for the pound of cacao beans I bought, texted with Al, and brought my bags down.

Alfredo arrived a little before 9:30 and we were on the road by 9:40. It's about an hour and 45 minutes to the airport. I called "Escopeta!" and rode shotgun in the front.

Me and Alfredo getting ready to leave for the airport. Luann and Natalie were in the seat behind us; Mary and Flossie in the next seat back.

As with previous trips, when I sit up front with Alfredo, we talked and laughed all the way to the airport. An hour of conversation with Alfredo and my Spanish gets exponentially better. He is so good about speaking slowly and simply, checking often if I understand what he's saying, and explaining what he means when I don't. Too bad it only happens on the way home.

Natalie and Luann were talking about what it might be like to spend a few days on one end or the other of a delegation trip and what they might do. I asked Alfredo for suggestions and translated them back to the women. Luann is a former corrections probation officer and she was curious about prisons in El Salvador; she wanted to know if we were going to drive by one. I asked Alfredo and he pointed it out when we did. He said there were hardly any prisoners there anymore...they'd mostly been  moved to the really big prison Cecot (Center for Terrorism Confinement). Cecot is the biggest prison in all of the Americas, built to "house" (using the term very loosely) 40,000 people under maximum security. We talked about our families, and when I would be back again.

We got to the airport and unloaded, said goodbye to Alfredo, and headed inside. We had bags to check then on to security. We got through security in record time; I've never been through so fast. Our gate was 15 and we had to go through another security checkpoint before we got there. Everyone got lunch and I bought a bottle of water for the flight.

Weird thing...I was sitting in my seat before takeoff when a flight attendant came up and asked if I were Sue. I said yes, then he asked to scan my boarding pass. He thanked me, then left. I've never had that happen before and no idea why it did. 

The flight to Dallas was uneventful. There is a large group of kids on the plane with us...40 of them. They are from a church in Urbandale and Flossie knows some of them, since she just graduated from there.

In Dallas, we took turns watching luggage while people went to get supper. Then, we got the news that our 10:18 flight has been delayed to 11. Then, delayed until 5am tomorrow. Ugh!

We got in line at customer service. We'd been rebooked on the 5am flight but wanted to change that. The 3 older women wanted to take the hotel vouchers and a later flight. The 2 younger ones wanted to stay in the airport all night and keep the 5am flight. Since we're all on the same reservation we needed an agent to take care of it for us.

We got that all straightened out, Flossie and Mary went to find the Urbandale kids, the rest of us went to the shuttle stop to get the shuttle to the hotel. Another couple was also heading to the shuttle stop to go to the same hotel, so we walked together. Others collected...a guy from Spain, a mother with 3 or 4 small children (the maybe-10 daughter was the only one who spoke English and I could tell it was the end of a very, very long day for her...poor kid), an older man, some other women, etc. The airline agent said that if a shuttle didn't come soon, we could call the number on the voucher. Everyone waited, but no shuttle came. A woman called and was told there would be one in about 10 minutes. We waited 15 and someone else called..."just 10 minutes." Another 15 minutes, another call. All in all, there were probably 5 calls and we waited an hour. By then, there were at least a dozen of us waiting. When the van showed up, there was no way all of us were going to fit. I got on the van and went all the way to the back. Natalie and Luann put their bags in the back and by then, there were no seats left. They told the driver they would be standing in the aisle, whether that was allowed or not.

It was 11:30 before I got to my room. I set my alarm for 4:25 and went to bed. 

June 25

I got up, took a quickie shower, and put on my clothes from yesterday...since I had packed all my clothes in my checked bag, along with my chargers. Luann and Natalie's room was across the hall and they heard me open my door so they opened their door and I went into their room while they finished packing up.

Luann called a Lyft and we  headed to the airport. We got to our gate and saw some of the same people we'd seen in the customer service line last night. We took turns getting something to eat with our $12 food vouchers. Then it was time to board.

Uneventful flight to Des Moines. Al picked me up at the airport. I took a nap when I got home.