Last week I got into a conversation with my neighbor Mary, over the fence.   Since she has a new baby (a surprise) along with her 11 year old daughter, we talked about child-raising.  Oh, it’s old hat for me, she says.  I took care of my brothers since I was very young.  I was 13 [...]

The woman who lives on the other side the fence came by to ask last night if she could “buy” water from us.  I remembered the owner’s comments when we moved in about how they “gifted” water to the neighbors next door and “below” us (which I presumed last night, was her).   “Let me know [...]

My neighbor Sabas may be poor, but he’s got the coolest flower and fauna around. Here are his digs, a humble house of corrugated metal.  He sells firewood for a living, a scarce commodity in this area.   But don’t feel sorry for him – he doesn’t want your sympathy.   He’s happy have his good [...]

The woman who lives on the other side the fence came by to ask last night if she could “buy” water from us.  I remembered the owner’s comments when we moved in about how they “gifted” water to the neighbors next door and “below” us (which I presumed last night, was her).   “Let me know [...]

We live in a mountaintop area not far from San Salvador, El Salvador.  Our neighborhood has people of mixed economic class, with no “puerton” (gate) and no “vigilante” (security guard).  In most areas in or near the city, living in an un-gated community can be a treacherous proposition, but it is very safe here, “sano” [...]

There is nothing more humbling than to have someone 20 times more poor than you hand you a plate of food. My neighbor gave ME “panes con pollo” (chicken sandwiches) just moments ago and I was nearly speechless. It was a Christmas moment to remember. She lives in the house next door, which is made [...]

A Christmas Delantal Today Irene finished sewing together something she started a few days back.  Now that Christmas was over, she reviewed her now larger inventory of napkins, tables cloths, and sundry Christmas-colored items in the broken down top-open freezer at the back patio, now utilized as a fantastically weather-proof storage closet.  Irene made use [...]

Today we visited a sick (and we think, dying) woman who lives just up the hill from us. Four of us walked up the patchy woods of the hill; my niece Carmen, myself, mother-in-law Irene, and nephew Alejandro, who helped Irene up the steeper slopes. We brought over some juice boxes, as someone suggested she [...]

It was around 1:00pm when my niece Carmen and I went to wash clothes at the river. I put a load of laundry into a shallow bucket called a guacal, this one about 2 feet in diameter. Carmen grabbed a guacal full of her own clothes and we trotted down to the river, passing several [...]