A wonderful day in San Salvador

What a wonderful day in San Salvador. We started the day with a visit to the site of Oscar Romero's assassination. It was a particularly moving experience to learn of his life and death and visit not only the chapel where he was giving mass when he was gunned down but also the home he lived in and the tomb where his organs are buried outside of the home. As we have mentioned before, Romero, who is being considered for canonization into sainthood, was assassinated 30 years ago this week and our building project is in his honor. (If you are interested in learning more about Romero see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Romero ). We also visited Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen which is dedicated to preserving Salvadoran history and culture through words and images. We absorbed a wealth of information on the civil war in El Salvador and the struggles of the impoverished people that Romero worked so hard to support. After a great lunch of local Salvadoran food we headed out of town to the small village of Panchimalco. This is one of the older towns in El Salvador and we visited the church of Panchimalco that was built in 1638. It is a beautiful old church that is still very active today and we witnessed a bustle of activity as they prepared for celebrations for Holy Week and in honor of Oscar Romero. We ended the tour with a stop at the gallery of one of the most renowned artists in El Salvador, Miguel Angel Ramirez. He has a beautiful gallery of painting and sculpture and offers art training at no cost to local students. His backyard garden is an incredibly serene setting along a small creek that where his students have landscaped and carved sculptures into the boulders along the river. It was a fitting close to the day to visit such a beautiful spot where we had an opportunity to relax in the shade among the flowers and fountains and listen to the high school bands playing in the background as they practiced for tomorrow's celebration.