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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Smashed Onions and an Ant Hill (Our Trip to El Salvador)

Last weekend we traveled to El Salvador to deliver one of our new staff to her placement in the far eastern mountains of the country. First, we spent a day in San Salvador, the capital.
The main thing I learned is that I'm happy we live in Guatemala City.
The traffic was crazy.
Here's the middle of a 4-way stoplight. 
 We were stuck in this traffic jam in the middle of an intersection for several minutes. 
There was lots of honking involved.

 This lady wasn't happy with how close we got to her vegetable cart so she turned around and smashed an onion on our van. Then she turned around and ignored us.
Just a typical traffic jam, I'm sure.
 One of our happy little travelers. 
 After too much time stuck in traffic we tried to make the morning worth the hassle by visiting the central plaza of the capital where the national church and the National Palace is located. 
(Sound familiar?)
 Hazel just wanted to chase the birds.
 The church. 
 Waiting to charge our cell phones and making friends. 
 When we got to Perquin, another four hours outside of the capital, we stayed at a beautiful hotel, which I'll post about next, because there's an interesting MCC story there.
 The girls really enjoyed playing on the porch and particularly enjoyed this flower grassy area (in the picture).
One morning, while I was enjoying the hammocks on the porch, the girls were playing in this little grassy area. Suddenly, I heard screaming from Ellie.

She had kneeled down in the flower bed right in the middle of an ant's nest. 
She screamed, "Ants!" "They're biting me!", although at first I thought maybe she had been stung by bees. 

I saw there were ants crawling all over her legs so I scooped her up, ran to our room and straight to the shower, simultaneously trying to wipe whatever ants I could off her body.
I quickly stripped her down and made her stand in the shower while I tried to wipe off all the ants.
I had a couple of bites on my arms and feet and I have to admit that they did not feel good. They were pretty sharp bites.
 And this poor girl was covered. Mostly, her leg and her arm, but I imagine it wasn't comfortable.
Stay tuned for more of Perquin and El Salvador.

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