Not all who wander are lost: Happy Easter

Sunday, 4-24-11

Today is Easter! Feliz Pascua! I’m not sure anyone says that here but I still felt like saying it. It has been a good day but much different than the Easter that I’m used to in Iowa. Easter is an important day here in El Salvador but there aren’t as many things going on during Easter Day as there are during the rest of Holy Week. People don’t get dressed up in their finest clothes on Easter like we do in the States. They don’t eat any special food for their meals. There is the torta de pescado (fish cake soup) that they eat on Fridays during Lent but not on Easter. It was pretty much a normal mass and only a little longer than usual. We didn’t do any processing before or after the mass. It felt weird not to be processing around town. We’ve been processing the past three days so I’m not sure what to do with myself now that the processing is over.

When I walked into the bathroom this morning I found a little Easter basket sitting on the sink. How exciting! I figured it had to be from Kathy. I looked through all the things in my basket: chocolate eggs, Cadbury eggs, egg-shaped gum, malted milk ball eggs, jelly beans, a little maze, and a plastic, wind-up chicken that lays gumball eggs. I showed all the ladies my wind-up chicken and we had some of its egg gum. It was fun to have some of the usual Easter traditions here that we have in the States, like dying eggs and Easter baskets.

My Easter Basket

The chicken is laying eggs!

So happy!

Three turtles. We're still missing the fourth

We went to church for the 10:00am mass. It was Alejandría’s turn to sing so we all sat up the front. I knew some of the songs but not all of them. I like being up at the front because I can see and hear better. Plus there were lots of gorgeous flowers today at the front. I noticed a small baptismal font at the front as well. I asked Kathy why it was there. She said there was probably going to be a baptism or a wedding. A baptism I understand but a wedding during mass on Easter Sunday seemed unusual to me. When I looked over there was a kneeling bench at the front of the aisle and a bride and groom sitting behind it. We were going to have a wedding.

Like I said, it was pretty much a typical mass. We had the readings, singing, and then the homily. Father Cándido was preaching but the homily didn’t go much longer than usual. After the homily came the wedding part. The couple exchanged vows and rings. Then the parents put “lazo” (a special wedding lasso/rope) around both the bride and groom to symbolize that there are bound together for life. It only took about 10 minutes and then we got back to the rest of the mass. After mass was over people went up to congratulate the bride and groom.

The front of the church

Lots of pretty flowers

The church eventually filled up

The bride and groom

Everyone gathered around

After the vows and rings

Holding up the Eucharist

The rest of the day was low key. I worked on the computer for a while and took a walk in the afternoon. Kathy took a much needed snooze. We’ve all been up late since Thursday and the days filled with things to do to celebrate Holy Week. Everyone needs a break. No school yet for me tomorrow so I get one more day of vacation. I’ll probably work on getting things ready for school. Chelita thinks she belongs inside the house and has been trying to sneak in while no one is watching. I have to keep chasing her outside. Hopefully this is just a phase and she’ll learn to stay out of the house.

Cecilia put Kathy and me in charge of dinner tonight. I thought it’d be fun to make pancakes. I had explained to Cecilia last week that sometimes people in the US eat breakfast food for dinner. She thought it was a strange idea but she does like pancakes. So I got a box of pancake mix that’s popular here in El Salvador. I read the directions and mixed it all up. It looked strange and really thick. Then I realized what I did wrong. The instructions were for only half the box of pancakes and I’d dumped the whole box into a bowl. I guess they do instructions for mixes here a little differently than in the US. So we wound up with twice the pancakes we needed but that’s okay.

It took a while to make all the pancakes but everyone was patient. When I’d finished most of them I told everyone it was time to eat. Kathy had set up some toppings for us to add to our pancakes. Just like a buffet. We had chocolate chips, bananas, and peanut butter. Yum! Sometime I want to make pancakes here with strawberries. I think they’d be delicious. It was a good end to a good Easter day.