dream come true!!

As you may recall from an earlier post, the Skatalites have been Elvis´s favorite band for many many years. They invented the genre of ska back in the ´50s in Jamaica.

So, our dream really was just to see the Skatalites in concert. We were so pumped when we found out they were coming to our little tiny country!! And to top it off, who knew I would get to play on the same stage, opening for them, and that we would even get to meet them?!

Oh, where do we start?? First i want you to see that Elvis broke out his "rude boy" shoes for the occasion......now how do i describe to you what a rude boy is? As Wikipedia says: "The first rude boys in the 1960s were associated with the poorer sections of Kingston, Jamaica, where rocksteady was the most popular form of music. They dressed in the latest fashions at dancehalls and on the streets. Many of these rude boys started wearing sharp suits, thin ties, and pork pie or Trilby hats; inspired by United States gangster movies, jazz musicians and soul music artists."

The fun thing about the concert was that there were probably around 1,500 people there, and most of them were dressed as rude boys(you ´ll seee that in the videos to follow), and everybody was dancing.

Here´s our band, Groovy Time:

Yes, in this picture i am actually singing back-up vocals in front of all those people...who woulda thunk it??Really the funnest part was when one guy dressed like a rude boy got past the security gate and jumped up on stage to dance... watch him dance on the video!

And then, like 6 more came on stage!

As soon as we were getting off of the stage after playing, the Skatalites drove up so we got to meet them behindstage before they were whisked off to a separate area. 3 or 4 of the ones that came were original Skatalite members (including the little old lady from the video i put up last month! she´s my fave!) ...i mean, these guys have been playing together for 50 years! i mean, they had to help the drummer walk if that tells you anything. but boy, the ones that could walk danced alll night long!! they were so cute i wanted to take them home with us! I love the fact that the sax player on the left in the picture is named Lester. So appropriate =) He is one of the original members.

It was really all we had dreamed of and more.

After the concert, something random happened to us (what a surprise!) We were with our friends Efra and Tania, looking for pupusas because we hadnt had dinner yet. Now, keep in mind that it´s about 1:30 am at this point. Luckily, there is a street that is open all night long, where you can buy pupusas, steak, etc etc. As we were getting close, we see something odd going down the street...and realize that it´s a guy riding a unicycle down the middle of the road. He said he was just practicing! See if you can catch him in this picture, even though it´s a little dark:

a Baldwin halloween

So, don't worry...i'm working on a huge blog about the Skatalites concert which was amazing, so that will be coming soon! however, i just had to do a blog on Halloween since i was sent these incredible photos:

First of all, the Baldwin family tradition continues...mom and dad have outdone themselves again:
Also, my grandma Memaw and her roommate were not to be left out...they dressed up for their Halloween party they had at their Assisted Living Home (UNC girls you might recognize these outfits!!):
Here's Memaw, showing off her surprisingly shapely body at 89 years old!

And here she is, with her roomie Ronnie: Ronnie's getting a little frisky:Here, in our little corner of the world, Elvis and i celebrated Halloween a little differently; we decided to take advantage of the fact that i didn't have to work on Friday, and we escaped the city to go to a little colonial style town called Suchitoto to spend the night. it's a cute town with little shops and cafes, cobblestone streets, and a huge lake. We stayed at a cute little hotel...i was so excited about having air conditioning and hot water!! we thought we were going to find refuge from the noise of the city in this little quiet town, but of course the mayor of Suchitoto decided to throw a huge Halloween party for the whole city. As in any Salvadorean party, this included a huge sound system which blasted through the whole town allll night long! we just wanted some peace and quiet so we went and hid in our hotel, but the thumping bass from the party literally shook our hotel all night...i think they stopped about 2 am. So much for peace and quiet! here are some pics from around town:

Here's a picture from inside our cute little hotel:On Saturday, we walked down to a nearby waterfall...actually i had been there before with marty when i came to visit him once, but there was no water in the waterfall because it was dry season. This time, there was a little bit of water since rainy season just ended recently. The rock structure of this waterfall is really neat:

In other news, i had the honor of playing the flute in another friend's wedding yesterday and elvis and i got to take part of the "lazo" ceremony which is something they do sometimes in weddings here...literally we put a fancy rope around the couple to symbolize their union. Congratulations Karla and Mario!

gone with the wind

Remember that i mentioned earlier that in october the rains stop, the temperature drops a bit, and the winds pick up? Well today the winds didnt just pick up, they were outta control! I thought my little ones were going to literally blow away! After school, elvis and i went to our favorite park where we like to go to walk. It's our favorite for sentimental reasons: We used to go there about everyday when we were dating because it was just a few blocks from my old apartment and therefore the cheapest, prettiest, and closest option for hanging out, and also because that's where Elvis gave me my engagement ring (not where we got engaged though! we were blessed with the ring a little later...let me know if you dont know the whole story!) We also love it because it's one of the biggest pieces of grassy areas here in the city and because there are magic trees...well thats what we call them! they are tall, skinny, smooth trees that show different colors as the bark peels off. They look somewhat like camoflauge:
Also, last week we saw a torogoz in the park, our national bird. This picture is from the internet, but you get the idea of how neat they are:

The thing is, we went to the park today to see the trees move in the wind, and boy were we surprised to see fallen trees and tons of limbs all over the park! It was so sad. This tree was completely uprooted and laying across the walking path:

We were trying to get a video where you can see how strong the wind was blowing, but the videos just don't do it justice. But a weird thing happened when we were trying to get a video...this bamboo limb just starts swinging back and forth all by itself, like it was trying to knock elvis out of the way!

So the funny thing is that while we were walking around, a policeman came up to us and started asking us questions about why we were taking pictures, if we were from the media, etc. You see, this week, there is a very important conference here in El Salvador which will include all of the presidents from spanish speaking countries... from central america, mexico, south america, spain, the caribbean, etc. This is a huge deal and they will be shutting down lots of roads all over the city, which means no school wednesday, thursday, or friday!!! Security is a huge issue since all these important people will be here. So, what does this have to do with the park you may ask? There are several embassies right in front of the park, including Ecuador's embassy. Apparently the policeman was in charge of making sure there are no threats to the president of Ecuador, which means making sure no one is taking pictures of him nor the embassy! He actually looked at all of the pictures we took to make sure we weren't secretly taking pictures of the embassy. Crazy!

In other news, i was a good citizen today and went to the embassy to turn in my absentee ballot.

In other non-related news, the Skatalites concert is this thursday! eeeeekk!!!

all that jazz

This past thursday, my jazz band had a concert in a cute little cafe...tiniest stage ever, but fun and a relaxing atmosphere. We were playing for free in hopes of getting hired later on to play for real money, but we each ended up making $5... i guess we are officially professionals now that we are getting paid =) We also got an invitation to play at some cabins up in the mountains this coming weekend, so Elvis and i are really looking forward to staying in our own free cabin! Here are some pics and some videos (again, the sound quality is not great but you get the idea!):

And last, and well, least..."My (not so) Favorite Things":

Meet our friends...

Meet our friends, Belen and Aldo Duque...married as of this past weekend! We were blessed to be in their wedding which was beautiful even though it was still raining all weekend. They are good friends of ours from church which is really exciting because now we have 3 married couples in our church: our pastors David and Lucy, us, and now them! It's exciting to see that our congregation is growing up! We even have a nursery now because we have 2 toddlers now in the church! That may not seem like a big deal, but remember that our church is only young people. Anyways, Belen is also a lawyer and she performed our civil wedding service (here you have two different marriage services, one is legal and one is religious). And Aldo, like Elvis, decided to not date anyone until he met his future wife, who was Belen! I think it was the first wedding i have been to that both the bride and the groom each prepared a song to sing with the band for the other one during the reception! It was also fun(ny) to see all of our friends from church dressed up in fancy clothes. Ive never seen most of them in anything other than jeans and t-shirts, including our pastor wally!

Here are some pics of our studly friends:

Elvis found a picture of his twin in the gym of the place where the wedding was:

Felicidades Aldo y Belen!

scrumptious salvadorean food

I got to thinking that it´s only fair that i dedicate a blog to salvadorean food which we love so much, since the last one was about southern food. first of all, i had a good question from kelly about what exactly is a pupusa?? i forget that not everyone has experience the miracle of the pupusa. Pupusas are our national dish here in El Salvador, which you can eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or all of the above, even in the same day! There are pupuserias (where they make pupusas) on every street corner, and we are lucky enough to have about 7 on our block. Anyways, pupusas look like tortillas, but they have a yummy filling...our favorites are the classics, bean and cheese. You can also get plain cheese, cheese, beans, and shredded pork, and sometimes other not so common variations, such as squash, chicken, etc. They are made either out of rice flour, or like cornmeal. Our favorites are made of rice flour. You eat them with homemade tomato salsa and slaw (well, the slaw is recommended once you build up good defenses in your stomach!) Mmmmmmm...elvis and i eat them about 3 times a week, and they are about 30 cents each. That means that we can eat dinner for about $2 for the both of us, drinks included! It´s really cheaper here to eat out instead of cooking at home most of the time. You would think that people would get tired of them, but NO!! we always get excited. and pupusas from different places totally taste different, depending on the cheese, etc. After writing this blog, we've decided that's what we'll have for dinner tonight =) If you run across a pupuseria in the states, definitely go check it out, even though i've heard they are more "mexicanized" there. in college, i used to eat pupusas in durham, and they were $2.50 each!! i used to think that was a deal, now i know that they are selling them at 10 times their real price!!! Oh, another key thing you should know before trying pupusas...they are eaten with your hands, never with a fork. so don't wait for them to bring you one! you pinch off a piece (watch out, they're hot!) and use it to scoop up the slaw and sauce.

I also thought you might like to see what a typical Salvadorean dinner looks like...well actually this is what most people eat for breakfast AND dinner. We usually eat a little more americanized because everybody here eats their main meal at lunch (chicken, rice, salad, etc), but we prefer to eat our big meal at dinner when we´re together. However, last night we did eat salvadorean style, homemade beans, plaintains, avacado, fresh cheese, tortilla. There are variations of this meal to switch it up...people usually eat eggs with this, and you can mix rice with the beans, trade bread for the tortilla, add a sausage link, and really the one thing we were missing last night was crema...a sweeter version of sour cream which you can put on top of everything!!! Again, no one gets tired of eating beans here. Bean soup, refried beans, etc etc etc. i can't think of an equivalent food in the states that everyone eats every single day. I think that before elvis met me, he ate beans every single day of his life! Also, like with pupusas, the tortilla or bread is used to scoop up the beans instead of a fork. We are now accepting reservations for december when we go to the states for anyone who wants a traditional salvadorean meal ;-) You won't even have to wash forks afterwards!

My Favorite Things?

For those of you that know me well, you should know that ironically enough, one of my least favorite songs in the whole world is "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. I really just can´t stand anything about that movie. Maybe the only song worse than that one is any song by Kenny G. I LOVE music but i also feel very very strongly about some songs. Anyways, here is where my situation gets to be more complicated. The dilemma is that in my jazz band rehearsal last week, we were talking about the new songs we are going to start rehearsing, and one of them pulls out "My Favorite Things". I thought, for sure he is joking, but oh no. He was serious. And so i start trying to explain the fact that that song makes my skin crawl, but i think they just thought it was funny or that i was exagerating and definitely did not pay attention to my cries that we not play that song. So, what am i supposed to do?!?!?! I don´t want to be devisive in the group, but I really don´t think that i can play that song. Suggestions??

On a more positive note, we did get a package this week from Tyler (getting packages is definitely one of my favorite things!!) She had sent us a whole bag of those chewy Halloween pumpkins!!!! MMMM my fave!!!! Last year we almost went crazy going to all of the grocery stores, looking for candy corn, or any hint of those flavors so familiar to my childhood, but to no luck.

Keeping in line with the theme "my favorite things", we have also been experimenting in the kitchen lately. We usually like to try cooking ethnic dishes from around the world that we have never cooked before (Elvis´s specialty is Thai food!) But recently, we have been trying to actually use recipes and cook my favorite recipes from my mom´s kitchen. Elvis loves Southern cooking just like I love Salvadorean food, so it works out nicely. Most of our dinners turn out to be a southern/Salvadorean hybrid. I was really excited when my first quiche turned out well (broccoli, spinach, and cheese), and my first key lime pie also, using fresh limes from the patio behind our church. We were also really excited when we found Bisquick in the grocery store for the first time (and surpringly enough, it wasn´t overpriced!) so we made homemade biscuits and some oh-so-yummy chicken and dumplins!!! maybe it was just because i havent had chicken and dumplins in a long time or maybe it´s my pride getting in the way, but i feel like it was right up there with Cracker Barrell. =) We did add some salvadorean squash in there to put our personal touch on it. Now, Elvis really wants to try to make homemade ground sausage....people here eat lots of sausage, but only the sausage links, not ground sausage patties. We really want some good ol´sausage biscuits, so Elvis is on a mission to make homemade sausage. We just aren´t sure yet of the herbs and seasonings that they put in it. Any ideas???

My first key lime pie:

Elvis got artistic with the chewy pumpkin picture:

P.S. Marcie's comment was so witty that i decided to just go ahead and put it on the blog. Her suggestion was to sing these different lyrics in my head while i play that song whose name we won't mention...

Thai food by Elvis and fresh limes for pie,

Cool, breezy evenings and papusas to fry

Chewy Halloween candy good friends will bring,

These are a few of my favorite things

When there’s carrot pizza,

And no Chick-fil-A,

When I have to say goodbye(s),

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don’t want to die.

Thanks Marcie!! You've already got me humming =)

wacky weather and a japanese night

Sadly, we don't have fall here in El Salvador, nor do the leaves change colors. However, the winds will pick up at the end up the month, the temperature will drop down a few degrees, giving a little bit of relief after months of strong heat (just cool enough to have an excuse to finally wear long sleeves for a day or two, and just cool enough to make cold showers in the morning a little painful!) Rainy season also ends in October, but it doesn't go away without putting up a good fight! There are always days on end in October that pass without the rain letting up, and turns out we are having one of those storms this week. Actually I think they have declared it a tropical depression. The bad thing about these really rainy days is that our country is very fragile in this aspect. We don't have the proper infrastructure to drain off all that rain, so lots of flooding happens as well as landslides. Even here in the city, there are areas that become really dangerous. Here are some pictures from today's newspaper: It rained so much yesterday that they cancelled school for today and tomorrow (well, us teachers still have workdays). The funny thing is though, that as soon as we finished calling all of the parents, the sun came out and it hasn't rained again! So, it's a win-win situation...no class, and no more danger for those affected by the rains!

So, to celebrate no classes, and to celebrate that tomorrow is our 3 year anniversary of getting engaged =), elvis and i had a japanese day: first, we went to a cute little japanese restaurant (good, but i'm still disappointed we can't find that pink sauce they serve at japanese restaurants at home which we ate by the bucketfuls in college!) Then, tonight we went to a free concert of a jazz trio sponsored by the Japanese embassy. It was really interesting and a great mix of cultures: a awesome Japanese jazz pianist who now lives in New York but also studies drumming in Africa; a 62 year old Japanese guitar player who has won the "world's best jazz guitarist" award several years, and a vocalist from Africa who has a 4 octave singing range, who also played different African drums. He also used pretty much every part of his body as a percussion instrument, and sings for "Dora the Explorer". It was a great mix of jazz, Japanese melodies, and African rhythms. Plus they threw in a traditional Salvadorean song! It was really neat.

So, we were leaving the parking lot, and apparently this lady didn't see us, and backed into us, moving at about 5 mph. The thing about cars here in El Salvador is that pretty much nobody has car insurance (including us), so if you get into a fenderbender (which happens pretty regularly), you just get out and settle it with the person right then and there, and they pay you on the spot what you think is fair. Also, pretty much the laws go that even if it wasn't your fault, if the other person gets hurt worse, its your fault. That's pretty much why I don't drive here. So anyways, the lady gets out, says "oops", and gives us $20 on the spot. I mean, let's be serious. We probably aren't going to go to the shop and get that little dent out, so we were pretty excited about earning 20 bucks so fast! hehe, we were thinking up more ways to use our car to make money. PS, our car's name is Cecilia, the Sentra. Thanks, Ceci, for taking one for the team!

Happy Children's Day!!

When I was a kid, I would always ask my parents why we celebrated Mother's Day and Father's Day, but never Children's Day. Their wise answer was that every day was children's day. However, here in El Salvador, we actually do have a national holiday, Children's Day! At my school, we don't celebrate Halloween, so today we celebrated Children's Day which was actually this past wednesday, and let the kids dress up to come to school. The theme this year was "Noah's Ark", so they all had to come dressed up as animals, and of course, in pairs. Here are some pictures, the first one of some kids with Noah and his wife in front of the ark:

Some of my former students:

These are my cutiepie real-life twins:

All the kids from the 3 year old class up to 12th grade dressed up, and even the staff. Here is our principal and vice-principal, aka "The human piñatas":

And as promised a while back, here are some pictures of my new classroom after i got moved again:

To get more of a feel for where i work, thought you might also like to see our beloved train which all of our 3-6 year old students ride in to go to the kindergarten everyday:

Happy Children's Day to all of you younguns out there and all of the kids at heart!