WATER IS LIFE!

8.28.10

This morning I had a great surprise, that I was able to shower with running water! It has been confusing because I know the water runs, not sure if it does every day though. But, I’ve seen my host mom fill up the receptacles with water almost everyday, but I’ve tried to turn on the “bomba” to make the water run, and it doesn’t. The bomba is something that pumps water from the river into the plumbing in the house, or that is my understanding. Anyways, it was AMAZING to shower without a bucket to dump over my head and such, it felt great. The picture shown is of the bathroom, it's difficult to see but the green things are the receptacles where water is held when there is no running water.

This morning I started the census of Salinas with Alllllbbbbaaaa! I say her name that way because it reminds me of the Flinstones when Fred says, "WIIIIILLLMMAAAA!". She is my neighbor and I was introduced to her by Chalo (an employee at the San Vicente Town Hall). She doesn't have a job right now and agreed to help me do a census since she knows everyone in Salinas. We talked to 33 different families and it took us from about 9-2pm, a really long day of repeating questions. Most of the questions include people's names, ages, level of education, occupation, income, and the types of health problems they've had, from asthma to malaria or dengue, a sickness from mosquitoes.

Tonight there was a mass at the Catholic Church for the Virgen Cisne, not sure what role she plays in the church, sorry! Alba came to pick me up for church, so we went to mass a Brazilian nun who gave mass. Salinas doesn't have a pries that consistenly comes to hold mass because there aren't enough priests, so usually one of the nuns comes from San Vicente every couple of weeks. Of course at mass they had me jump right in and do a reading. Today is the mass for the Virgen de Cisne, so there was a procession afterwards up to where they had set up for a baile, or dance. Everyone has been asking if I like to dance or if I can dance. I didn’t want to stay at the baile because I don’t feel comfortable yet with the ppl, and didn’t want to be embarrassed. Alba and I hung out outside the baile while ppl were starting to come and talked to her uncle. Afterwards we went to the Evangelical church just to check it out. We were standing outside for a while and people kept offering for us to come inside but I was comfortable just watching and was almost ready to leave. This church was worshipping, loud music, lots of people with their hands up in the air, and people crying. One woman approached us and pretty much dragged us into the church to sit down. It was just a little uncomfortable because I don’t know the people that well and I don’t usually see tons of people balling with their arms in the air. Then towards the end of the mass the pastor started asking people to come forward to pray and “ receive the word of God” etc. Eventually, he called Alba and I up to join the group of people, and everyone continued to cry and scream out etc. It was fine for me to stand there, but THEN, the pastor called me out and and tried to get me to come forward again with a man to give myself to Jesus. I then felt more uncomfortable and didn’t really respond/stood still, and according to Alba, turned fire red! Then he asked, “You don’t beleive?” I pretended like I didn’t understand what he was saying to me and eventually he moved on. It was frustrating because I didn’t even want to come into the church, and it was my first time going there. I don't know a lot about Evangelism, but I respect other religions and the way they want to worship. However, I don't appreciate being accused that I don't believe in God by someone I don't know and who has never seen me before. I talked to Alba after about it that I don’t go to the same kind of services as the evangelical church, but i respect what they do and how they practice their faith, I just don’t share the same style as they do.

I talked to Pastorita (my host mom) when I got home about it and she said she was baptized Catholic but really likes the Evangelical services. She told me a story about how she was having trouble with her pregnancy with one of her kids and needed to have a C-section. During the process at the hospital and after, she said she was feeling like she might die, because everything felt so far away and she had lost a lot of blood or something. She said that she had told God if he let her live that she would come back to church and find him at the Evangelical church. She said she is still working on it to get back to the church but we didn’t really go farther into the reasons why she hasn’t been.