El Salvador: Prison, School, and Orphanage

Log 2

We woke up after a nice 8 hour sleep and gathered for breakfast which was YUMMY! Beans, Eggs, tortillas, plantains, and tamales. We spoke about the liturgy that would take place in the women's prison during the meal.

At the prison we all had to get searched by the guards- male to male and female to female and then we gave them our passports. We walked into the prison where we were greeted by the women who live in a courtyard during the day. We toured the area while Mother Evans prepared the altar for mass. The area looks like a chicken coop. The women make crafts to sell, hang out, wash cothes and even bake bread during the day. The stay in a dormintory setting at night. They even had a snack stand in the prison selling Pepsi products!

We gathered for the eucharist with around 40 inmates. They sang, prayed and participated fully in the service. Daniel Simons presided at the service, Molly Haws read the Gospel in Spanish and I administered the chalice to the women. Several had tears streaming down their face. We took a group picture before departing- By the way It was HOT once again. Wearing black clericals was a bit much in this weather. I would like to create cooling clergy wear- I would make a FORTUNE.

We left the prison and visited a school for young kids in a neighborhood filled with gangs. One twelve year old child had been shot four times in the chest recently due to his brother being part of a local gang at the school. The school has 1500 students. We visited a kitchen that was funded by the San Lucas Mission and then hungout with the children. The kids LOVED us- They kept on gathering around us laughing and touching us. Several of us had conversations with them trying to tell them about where we were from. We visited the computer lab that only had 15 computers- it was a great room because it had A/C.

We had lunch and then traveled to an orphanage run by the Franciscan Sisters. We gave them the goods we collected in San Francisco and toured the facilities. The kids were adorable. They were fascinated by our cameras when we would show them the pictures we had taken of them on the display.

At this point many of us were so TIRED from a long day but that was not it! We boarded the bus for a lagoon which was in a volcano crater but we got there too late. We drove to the top of the volcano where there was a town called Allegria. It was very beautiful up in the clouds and it was cool. Then the bottom dropped out and a rain storm fell from the sky. We were all soaking wet and now cold.

We had drinks until it slacked and then visted a local festival that was taking place. We drove back down the volcano to a great local restaurant where I had fajitas and we had great conversations about what we had seen during the day. We were dropped off at the hotel to retire for the night.