Festival de Maiz

We left Ixtahuacan in the back of Don Diego's truck. With the wind and sun at our backs, we gazed at the Guatemala mountains. Each person we passed had a story, a struggle, hopes and dreams.

We spent the night in Guatemala City, took a bus to San Salvador, took a van to Suchitoto, and here we are! Our coordinator Todd accompanied us through this journey, for which we are grateful.

We are staying at the hostel in Centro Arte para la Paz, which is a really nice place. Semi-cold showers, but believe me - you want a cold shower after a hot day in El Salvador!

The center itself is pretty amazing. They have a room full of instruments - violins, guitars, drums, keyboards. We are in a place that promotes creativity - and finds the funding to create.

All the staff (at the hostel/conference center and arts center) are very kind and excited to have us here for 2 years. We have a meeting this afternoon to decide which classes we will teach (in Spanish, si podemos...)

More about that later! Our first full day in Suchitoto, Peggy drove us to El Bario's corn festival. This was at a small school out in the country.

We met some of the kids at the school, and were sitting in the shade waiting for the event to begin (an hour late, typical Latin American time). The principal came up to us and said they needed another judge. Judge for what?

They needed a person to judge the outfits made of corn. Thankfully Peggy, the director of the arts center was also a judge so she could help me with some of the words I didn't understand. It was a beautiful celebration of one of the most important foods in El Salvador.

There was dancing, singing, the contest, corn, and a cowboy who could make his horse dance. It was all a great introduction to this area's sense of culture and belonging.

"The smallest countries have the longest national anthems."

-Sister Peggy