Santa Ana

Thursday, Apr. 21, 2011--Chalchuapa to Santa Ana

If I had thought this morning, I would have stayed in Chalchuapa for another day and would have just made a bus trip into Santa Ana for the day (40 minutes each way).  My hotel was nice there, and it was $15 a night less than what I am now paying to be at the Sahara in Santa Ana.

The lady at the hotel in Chachuapa surprised me with a nice breakfast this morning--black refried beans sprinkled with cheese, round chorizo sausages, tortilla, fried plantains, a sweet corn tamale (no filling), and coffee--while I was sitting under an umbrella table reading my online newspapers.  It was a great treat.

On the way from the bus to my hotel in Santa Ana, a man walked toward me and said something rather eagerly then clinched his fist hard.  I guess he was warning me to hold onto my handle of my suitcase tightly.  Everywhere, people warn me to be careful.  Yet everyone seems friendly and I have seen no signs of danger.

Santa Ana is the second largest city in El Salvador, but it isn't very big--about 250,000.  It doesn't take time to walk to the edge of town.  Everything worth seeing here, however, is in one general area in the center--the central plaza, the theater, the cathedral, the city hall, etc.  I walked there, saw them, and got photos of them around noon.  Then I stopped at a restaurant in a courtyard with bright green and orange walls.  I had comida a la vista which would be translated as "cafeteria lunch" in English using cafeteria as it is used in the southern US to mean an eating establishment with the food choices on display.  The "vista" is the view of all the food where you can point and choose.  I had a charcoal broiled chicken breast, some yellow rice with vegetables, and a vegetable that is probably related to okra that was stir-fried with egg.  To drink, I had a large horchata.  Here's what Wikipedia says about it:  "The horchata found in El Salvador is primarily made from morro seeds, not rice. Other common ingredients include ground cocoa, cinnamon, sesame seeds, nutmeg, tigernuts and vanilla. Other nuts that may also be used include peanuts, almonds and cashews. Because of these ingredients, the horchata is usually strained before serving."  I found it to have a bit of taste of iced milk coffee.


I went back out for two hours in the early evening.  I walked to the Metrocentro, a mall which is not much to talk about.  About 1/4 of the space is empty.  The biggest sections are a supermarket and the food court (which has 5 American franchises and 3 other restaurants).  Returning to the hotel, I realized why the guidebooks referred to it being in a bit of a dodgy area; the neighborhood is closed up and abandoned at night.  I may be the only guest at the hotel.


I want to mention a young man who works part time at the hotel in Chalchuapa.  His name is Henry (truly, not Enrique which I questioned him about).  We spent both nights there visiting for a couple of hours or so.  When I first met him, I immediately noticed he was very handsome and very charming.  That made me put up my defenses, because I knew he worked as a guide for the hotel.  I feared he was a bit of a hustler hoping to find a way to make money off me.  As time passed and I got to know him better, however, he seemed to be a very genuine, sincere person.  At 23, he is a university student majoring in languages.  Besides working for the hotel part time, he teaches English classes on Saturdays to children who do not all have money to pay, so he takes pay from the families that have it and he ignores the lack of payments from the others.  He is voluntarily doing translation of a booklet into English for a church so he can get the experience.  What is sad is how limited his opportunities are because of being from El Salvador and not being from a wealthy family.  This is a young man who would be an asset to any school, agency, company, etc.  He is intelligent, curious, hard working with a positive attitude, and speaks English very well.  He can't afford a computer and has to go to cyber cafes to do him homework and translation work.  He doesn't even dream of having money for a car.  I find that impressive.  He has ideas of wanting to do grand things, but not for himself.  He would like to be able to help poor people get better housing, to help build better schools for children, etc.  He has only vague ideas of what he may do when he finishes university (still two years away because he can only afford to go part-time).  He would like to be a translator, but those are jobs that require higher skills than he presently has, are very competitive, and are going away as computers become capable of doing the work.  He has evangelistic religious beliefs and would like to be able to learn to preach and do missionary work, but he has no formal ties to a large church organization to help him in this goal.  He told me how he had hated going to the bank recently and removing the $50 that had been so hard for him to save, but that he had to do it to buy a DVD player which was needed for his language classes.  I was so impressed by him, but I worry that he may no future other than continuing to live on part-time jobs that go no where.  It's frustrating to meet someone like this when traveling--someone who deserves to have good things happen to him in life but is trapped in circumstances that may force failure.  


One last comment:  Henry cleared up the question in my mind of why the owner of the hotel put out the grotesque chalk statues of half-dressed pirates and Merilyn Monroe in front of the hotel for the Easter Processionals each night.  He explained that she is not Catholic; she goes to an evangelistic church that does not believe in worshiping religious idols.   Her statues are there to point out that what they are carrying and marching behind is just a statue like hers.  It's a bit of a poke at the Catholic Church, especially considering how many people peel away from the religious procession to take photos with her statues--while sticking their finger in the navel of the female pirate, while glancing up under the skirt of Marilyn, etc.


I finished reading another book.  This one was Dark Reflection by Samuel R. Delany.  Although the book had great reviews, I was disappointed in it.  First, I got the impression that the author is one of those New York writers who loves to show how long he has been in the city and how much he knows about the "in" places of New York from years ago.  The WAY this information was written into the story seemed unnecessary and to me indicated the author's ego coming out.  Second, I think he further tried to prove how intellectual he is with more side information about poets and poetry than was needed to tell the story of this man.  The story itself was quite good.  The author just got in the way of it.  I gave the book 2 1/2 stars out of 4.