The Hardships of Life in “Paradise”

Living in a developing country can be both amazing and challenging at the same time

Hola, amigos 😃

It’s been a few weeks of sticky humidity and now we’ve had a few rain storms—such a reprieve! And, this week we adopted a sweet, tiny kitten. Life stays pretty exciting these days!

The torogoz, El Salvador’s national bird

The national bird of El Salvador is the torogoz. This is a beautiful, multi-coloured bird with two long tail feathers that each look a bit like a stick with a pom-pom on the end. The beloved bird has a very distinct characteristic—it won’t live in a cage. If it is captured, it would rather starve itself than to live in captivity. How fitting for this nation that has become a haven for freedom-seekers!

When the girls and I were walking to the beach the other day, we saw a torogoz. It reminded me of why we left Canada 19 months ago. We felt like we were birds in a cage, unable to do what we were created to do—live freely. For the last several months that we lived in Canada, we found ourselves worrying what the next thing they’d take away would be. And so, whenever I see those birds, sitting happily up there, I smile. They are living freely. And so are we.

But that doesn’t mean things are always easy, as I’m sure the torogoz would agree.

What does life look like in El Salvador for us?

I have a few thoughts…

Living in a developing country, there are many challenges that we didn’t face before, like not being able to drink the tap water. In most of Central America, you either need to have an excellent filter, or you have to buy all your drinking water. We used to go through a 5-gallon water jug in just two days, so you can imagine how often we had to bring the empties to the store. Recently, we bought a reverse-osmosis filter, and had it installed in the kitchen. It’s pretty amazing—sure beats hauling water jugs back and forth all the time!

Speaking of water, where we live now, we often don’t have any water coming from the taps for 3-4 hours a day during dry season. So, we fill up all of our empty milk jugs, and keep them near every sink. Sometimes we even resort to pouring them over our heads for a sailor shower. It keeps the adventure aspect of living here alive—haha! And when you experience not having running water on a regular basis, those times when it is working, you appreciate it that much more!! I said to Tom that I think it’s good for our girls to have these sorts of challenges while growing up, so they have more appreciation for amenities, and don’t feel entitled.

When I’m sitting having some “stillness” time in the mornings, the roosters are noisily announcing a new day, and without fail I hear the produce truck off in the distance. And believe me, its loudspeaker is far from quiet:

“PLÁTANOS, PLÁTANOS, PLÁTANOS! SANDÍA, SANDÍA, SANDÍA!”

But I smile because this is part of El Salvador’s culture, a culture we’re coming to love for so many reasons…

Seeing 10 people riding together in the back of a pickup truck always makes us smile. The roadside coconut stands with their huge “COCOS HELADOS” (chilled coconuts) signs—where you can buy a bag of delicious, cold coconut water with some of the soft coconut flesh included for just $1.

One of the challenging aspects to life in El Salvador is the litter. A lot of people here don’t even think twice when it comes to tossing bags, plastic forks, and pop bottles on the ground. It wasn’t ingrained in them that plastic does long-term damage. Their parents were just getting by, trying to survive all the gang violence and other issues in the country for the last few decades. When they see us picking it up, we often get questioning looks and stares. But good things are happening—we went to the kid’s surf club in El Zonte, and they were getting the local kids involved in picking up ALL the litter on the beach, even the tiniest pieces of plastic. There are also new signs along the highway about putting the garbage in garbage cans.

Since traveling to many “third-world”countries in my 20’s, I’d  always wanted to expose my kids to what life is like in these places. And when Tom and I met, we both had the dream to learn Spanish and travel, eventually with kids. Did we picture our lives being like they are now..? Not exactly, but we think God knew, and gave us those dreams for our future.

People here are incredibly friendly. They make eye contact and greet you with, “Buenos días!” or “¡Buenas tardes!” or simply “¡Buenas!” which applies for any time of day. That always makes us feel welcome. I met an artist a few weeks ago when I was out with my oldest daughter, on our way to the fish market. He was super friendly and wanted to tell us all about his work, painting various local beaches and marine life. I ended up buying one of his unique oyster shells with a local beach scene painted on it. He was happy to let me take this photo of him and his beautiful artwork.

When we met our neighbor lady a few months ago, we also met a few of her friends. One was a Salvadoran woman who lives in California, and has a vacation house just a few doors down from ours. She was here for a little visit. Two days after meeting her, she was walking past our house around 7 am, and saw us on our upper deck, where we like to enjoy our morning coffees and read.

“Would you like to come and see my house on a little island? I can take you for a boat ride out there—it’s a beautiful area near Costa del Sol.”

We were amazed at her friendliness, and readily agreed to go. We all packed into our car that Sunday morning, drove about two hours, and met a young man who was waiting with a little boat for us. He is not only the caretaker for her place, but also her chauffeur on the water. We rode across the inlet and explored her place, enjoying the beautiful breeze and the view from her upper veranda, complete with hammocks.

Next, we got back into the boat and went about 10 minutes down the inlet, to a bay where restaurants stand high up on stilts above the shallow water. It was so neat—stepping off the boat onto ramps that led to the restaurant, and then sitting up there chatting while the girls splashed around, just seven feet below us. We all loved it!

She then asked our driver to take us down the nearby river to enjoy the views. We went quite a ways, with mangrove trees lining both sides of the river. If you’ve never seen mangroves, they have some crazy roots that come way up above the water, so they’re very unique. After about 30 minutes, we stopped. We’d come to a narrow peninsula where we could climb up the sandy slope from the river and walk a few hundred feet over to the other side, where the ocean’s waves were splashing up on the shore. It was a beautiful hot, sunny day and the water splashing on us was so refreshing.

Us girls on the peninsula

As we chatted with Maria, she told us she was going to be returning to the States. “You’re welcome to pick the mangoes from the tree in my yard, since I won’t be here,” she said, “They’re really delicious!”

A couple weeks later, we picked some of her huge mangoes, and they were so juicy and sweet! After a few more pickings, with our extension fruit-picking stick, I went down to get the last of them. A community gardener came over and asked me in Spanish, “Do you know the owner of this house?” I replied that, yes, she’s my friend and since she’s now in los Estados Unidos, she told me I can pick the mangoes. He looked at me sceptically and replied, “Do you know her name?”

“Yes, her name is Maria,” I said in Spanish.

He paused for a second, said, “OK,” and walked away.

Just a few days later, our neighbour lady was over for dinner and mentioned that another neighbour had come by and was concerned. She’d said, “Have you seen that American lady, your neighbour? She’s been stealing the mangoes from Maria’s tree!”

Our neighbour replied, “First of all, she’s Canadian, not American. Secondly, she has permission from Maria to pick the mangoes.” We had to laugh. I’m glad we have some friends in this community…who speak good Spanish!

I talked about some of the challenges we’ve had here. And I also want to mention something good that I’ve experienced first-hand—the medical system in El Salvador seems to be functioning quite well. I went to a private clinic, because I’ve been having issues with my knee. I paid a small fee for the doctor’s consult. Then I was told I’d have to see a specialist. Right away my heart sank. Coming from Canada, I pictured a minimum of a few weeks to see a specialist. But they said, “He’s just on his lunch break, and has a few patients to see before you, so come back at 2 pm.”

Wow. It was noon, so I went and got a bit of lunch, read my book for awhile, and then my number came up to see the specialist. He spent about 30 minutes with me, asking questions, assessing my knee, and doing a treatment that involved a few painful needles. Ouch!!! That was also a small fee. He didn’t rush me at all, unlike most doctor visits I’ve experienced back home. In Canada, we don’t have the option of private medical clinics. And with the public system so short-staffed and back-logged, especially after Covid, people are often left waiting weeks or months for a treatment, and even years for a “non-urgent” surgery.

When we think about how rich and full our lives are since coming to El Salvador, the challenges of everyday life don’t bother us that much at all. Just like the torogoz bird, we craved freedom and being able to do what we were made for, so we flew out of the “cage” that had begun to close around us. We want to raise our kids in a culture that aligns with our values, and not live in fear of what our government will do. As you can tell from my posts, we face lots of challenges here. But what would life be without challenges….?! The torogoz knows that life outside the cage isn’t easy, but it also knows it would rather face daily challenges than live in captivity, and so would we🧡

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See you soon!

¡Nos vemos pronto!