The People

I think I've mentioned this in previous posts, but sometimes I am amazed at how helpful, caring, and genuine the people are here. One would think that poorer people would be more stingy in terms of help both physical goods and time/support due to lack of both of those things, but I find it isn't the case. The people here have just been raised knowing that they should give what they've got. Maybe they subconsciously believe in the "what goes around comes around theory," in which case I'm surprised the people here aren't rich yet because they give all they've got. I've got plenty of basic examples like people giving me tamales that they've just made, or someone helping me carry my bags if their hands (or head in the case of women), aren't full. The kids come and help in the garden (this might just be boredom...but still), and my neighbor has helped me bring in my laundry if it starts to downpour and my clothes are out trying to get dry. I guess it could be part of living the small town life too...help a neighbor because shortly they'll lend you a hand. It is a nice change of pace from the more distant/cold neighbor relationship culture of the United States.

I decided to write about this topic because I had an experience today that showed so much Salvadoran generosity and really helped me out a lot. I am so close to getting a stove project off its feet and have the training dates set up and the women where they are going to make the models ready. Today was the final push of going to the hardware store to order all of the components for them to haul up to my site. They had a good number of the things I needed (as I already knew having called several times), but I have had the worst of luck with pumice. I am not in a volcanic area and thus don't have pumice on the hillsides or flowing down my creeks. I've got to go find it. I was told by lots of people that just search through the sand that people buy for construction and you'll get a bunch. This has its problems though: a) I'm not thrilled about the idea of making people go with me or going alone to search through big piles of sand to find enough pieces to fill a sack, b) I was recently told that the sand selling places had been getting a lot of complaints of these rocks and so they had started sorting the sand before delivering it, and c) these companies have just been chucking the rocks and not saving them. I thought I was SOL. Then at the hardware store we were going over everything to be delivered and I asked if they knew anyone I could contact regarding my pumice dilemma. So while I sat there the secretary made five phone calls finding out if there was someplace I could find pumice. She found a guy who knew a guy and called him and he solved my pumice nightmare. And not only did she find me pumice she told me they could stop by and pick it up and bring it with all of my other stuff to my town. Amazing. Do we have service like that in the States? Maybe, but I think it is rare. This woman totally made my day and reduced a lot of pumice stressing.