mutli-cultural weekend

So, we´ll call this past weekend "multi-cultural." First, on Saturday, I was invited to play again with the traditional ska band, so let´s call that Jamaican culture. It was a benefit concert for animal rights. Right afterwards, we went to another concert (as spectators this time) of a really amazing French rock band. Can´t say that i had ever really heard French rock before. But I really liked it...especially the songs that were in French because you don´t get caught up in the words. Their one song in English said, "This is my first song in English, this is my first song in english, and i have nothing to say...." repeat repeat. Hence, i enjoyed the french songs even though we didnt understand because the lead singer/guitar player was super dramatic and she was a woman, leather pants and all, which was great because really here in El Salvador in all the concerts we go to, there are hardly ever women playing nor singing. I´m trying to make a breakthrough here in the country... =) Here's a video of "Mademoiselle K":


On Sunday, we experienced a completely different but very cultural experience...a quinceaños party for Elvis´s "cousin" (we´ll call her a cousin because that´s what you call relatives here when you aren´t quite sure of the relation!) It was in a little town out in the countryside and was oh-so-salvadorean! I think that i have finally met all of the relatives that are still living in the country! We had a big lunch of "sopa de gallina india" (literally, hen soup...its really a lot yummier than it sounds!) and then hen with rice and salad and an insane amount of fresh, hot tortillas (tortillas here not your typical mexican tortillas that you are thinking of...they are about a 1/2 inch thick, made of corn, and a staple food in any typical salvadorean dish). The best part was that the hen was cooked in a clay pot over a wood-burning stove!

After stuffing ourselves, they proceeded to have a sparkling cider toast for the newly fifteen year old, in which they passed around the microphone to practically every single person there to say something. That´s pretty typical here too...the fact that everyone is expected to share words for the birthday boy or girl, even if it´s not a quinceaños. Which, is great and really meaningful when you are celebrating a close friend´s birthday, but pretty awkward for me when it is a "cousin" that i have never met before in my life. i pushed myself to the back of the crowd so far that i was actually outside of the house, on the street when they called my name to come up and say a few words. Luckily, one extra bonus of being married is that now Elvis can say that kind of stuff that gets me nervous, and say it on behalf of us both! so i lucked out! then they started up the discoteca in the living room and starting dancing (check out this sound system!!!) This was my favorite part, when the girl's grandma started hitting the flower in the ceiling with an umbrella to get the confetti to fall on the birthday girl and her dad as they were having the first dance:

Elvis and I in the gardens:

Independence Day Adventure(s)!

So, this past Monday was Independence Day here in El Salvador, which means day off for everybody!! So to celebrate, we went with a group of friends from church to a little town called Cinquera that was just completely destroyed in the civil war in the 1980's. It's just full of history, and really it seems like they just can't get past the war. Not too surprising because everyone had family that was killed there. Turns out that Elvis's dad was around that area for part of the war (he was in the National Guard). It's just so hard for me to comprehend sometimes the fact that Elvis was born and grew up in a war...I mean it's hard when all of our friends are reminiscing about bombs dropping, having to huddle down in the dark everynight, not being able to go outside and play like normal kids, family members being killed...that was Elvis's life until he was 9. Marty and I actually went to this town of Cinquera like 4 years ago, but it was a little weird because it was just the two of us, and around town you see signs "Yanki fuera!" ("Yankees get out of here!")..all of that because of the war and US's involvement. Anyways, here is a picture of the church in town that was mostly destroyed, and then rebuilt. Out front, you can see that they have put up some bombs that never exploded in the war. After walking around town in the morning, we went to a forest there in town to picnic and to go hiking the rest of the afternoon. It was really neat because we saw campsites of where the guerrilla fighters hid out during the war. I don't think i've ever sweated so much in all my life. So that's why we were super excited when our trail ended up at one of the waterfalls in the forest!

Oh, but we are just getting to the adventuresome part...We had a great time swimming and getting pounded under the waterfall until it started pouring down rain. So everyone took off running to the cars, but we stayed back with another couple to change clothes because i can't stand riding in the car wet (oh you will see the irony soon!) So, I changed and we ran off ahead of the other couple, except there was a small detail of a little path that leads to the car that everyone ran down...except for us. We took off running in the same direction we had come from, which actually was back UP the mountain we had just come down. Our nice little path in the woods was now a small river gushing down the mountain, which we were running up, trying to catch the others. We decided to stop and wait for the other couple, who never came....and never came....so Elvis took off running again down the mountain to look for them, thinking THEY were lost. Turns out, they were smart enough to see the little pathway to the car, and have a little better sense of direction than we do, and WE were the lost ones! I can't tell you a more desperate feeling....the two of us (thankfully together!) in unknown woods, in pouring rain, soaked to the bone, without cell phone service, and without a clue of where the car is. After about a half an hour of running up and down, yelling, some of our friends had come out to look for us and found us! Praise Jesus! I wish we had a photo of us after getting soaked...a friends loaned me some clothes to change into again, but i was so wet that i just soaked right through them and had to change again. So, that was adventure #1.
We were so busy celebrating the fact that we were alive and sharing stories with our now reunited friends, no one noticed that the little creek that we had to pass over in the 4 wheel drive cars to park in the woods had now risen to a 30 foot wide, rapid-filled RIVER that we could no longer cross. We waited there with the other locals that were stranded for about 2 hours, then they decided it had gone down enough to cross by foot on some stones in the river. Check out this picture, find the man with a hat on the horse, and see how the water is up to the horse's butt:
So, we waited another hour, but by this time it was definitely getting dark (it gets dark here about 6:30pm, and it's not a gradual process...it's like a 10 minute process that's it). We kept measuring the depth of the water with a big stick, and it was still about 2 feet deep or so, and moving pretty quickly. Deep enough to be able to cover the exhaust pipe of the cars and therefore shut them off. We were starting to think we were going to have to spend the night in the woods. But, we had a 1.5 year old baby with us, and several of us had to work the next day, so we decided to all turn around and not face the river, and just pray, thank God for being there with us, and ask Him to miraculously lower the river. We did, then on a burst of faith, we decided to give it a try because really it was now or never (well, until the next day!) So we sent our fearless leader, David, in the first car, and he made it!!!! We were all jumping up and down and shouting until we realized then we had to cross the river on foot to not weigh down the other car too much. With the illumination of the second car, we saw our way across the river, and waited for that one to pass (with Lucy and baby Lulu inside the car) Success!!!! I can't tell you what a rush that was! Not the kind that I want to experience again, however. We celebrated with a late-night dinner of pupusas in a nearby town...mmmm best celebratory pupusas ever!! So, that was our Independence Day adventure(s)...God bless El Salvador!!

jazz and ska

This has been another busy week music-wise. Last week we had our jazz concert, which went really well i think (videos hopefully soon to come!) and last night i played for the first time with a ska band that invited me to play with them. i was really nervous because i had never even rehearsed with them, and had to figure some of the songs out right there on stage! but a good lesson for me in relaxing while playing and just going with the flow and improvising on the spot. it was a lot of fun because everybody there was dancing and its just fun music. it's a traditional ska band, so it's not the kind of ska like Supertones or Five Iron Frenzy that you may be thinking of. We played a lot of songs from Elvis's all-time favorite band, The Skatalites, which started in Jamaica back in 1957 !!! I mean, these guys are legends and started ska music, which later gave a start to reggae music. It's such fun music, and the amazing news is that The Skatalites are coming HERE in October! i can't believe they are still around, playing. So here's the best part...the band I played with last night, "Groovy Time", is opening up for the Skatalites, and they have invited me to play with them again for that concert!!!! i can't even really digest that yet. we're just really excited about even having the chance to see and maybe even meet the Skatalites. Here are some pictures from the concert last night, a video, and then a video of the Skatalites. Enjoy!

And now the real deal, The Skatalites...

Orchestra

So, I'm a star! well, not quite. but, this week, we had our debut concert with the orchestra i have been practicing with. we played theme songs from different movies, Superman, West Side Story, Pirates of the Carribean, Indiana Jones, Ben Hur, etc while they played clips from the movies behind us and had characters roaming through the audience. We played in the Presidential Theater, and had about 700 in the audience the first night, and over 1000 the second night!

It was a lot of fun, and i even made it into the national newspaper! You can check out the picture: http://www.elsalvador.com/mwedh/pdf/20080823/EDH20080823CUL042P.pdf (i'm the one wearing red)

and if you want to try to read the article: http://www.elsalvador.com/mwedh/pdf/20080823/EDH20080823CUL043P.pdf

anyways, here are some videos, even though the sound quality isnt that great:

and the week of music continues...tomorrow night i have a concert with our jazz quintet! last time we only played 6 songs, this time we are playing 15. so keep posted for some videos from that. also, sneak peek of another future post...turns out that they moved me into a new classroom (again!), so ill try to put up some pics of that.