la playa!

this past friday we had history with a speaker named Luiz Cardenal who was super interesting. his family was from nicaragua, but then they moved to salvador during the war...only to enter another war. there`s a ton more to the story but i`m just giving you a little bit...he ended up getting into politics and actually ran for the mayor of San Salvador a couple years ago under the ARENA party(which is known to be the economically conservative party) but he lost. it was so interesting to hear his story because he went to college at the UCA and the 6 Jesuits who were killed in `89 were some of his teachers. he was telling us some personal stories about them giving homework and their personalities...stories you cant really get from the history books, it was really great to listen to him. then our history teacher Gene came over to my house (casa silvia) for dinner because we were having pizza (delicious homemade pizza might i add) and ended up talking to us at the table until like 9 or 930. he`s really great, so many stories, so much knowledge and life experience (during the war in the 80s he was the full time correspontant for the NY Times in salv).

on saturday we went to la playa (the beach!) with the bacarios/as (the salvadoran students) which was AMAZING! although im not a huge fan of the salt water...actually im just not used to it at all...it was a blast. and i didnt get burnt which was a definite plus. i basically layed out in the sun all day reading my book for philosophy, wind blowing to keep us cool, accompanied by dips in the Pacific to jump the massive waves every time it got to hot...muy riccccoooooo

then sunday we went to Kevin and Trena`s house for a mass for Trena`s dad (about 2 weeks ago he died so Kevin, Trena and their 3 girls were back in the states for the last part of orientation for the funeral) the mass was beautiful, filled with so much love and community. the backyard was full of people who came to support Trena. how wonderful to have two incredible communities in 2 different countries willing to support you like that.

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as some of you may or maynot know....i am a runner. i have been since i was very young...i even have wings tattooed on my left ankle (an addition that was made this past august) i ran in college for a year or so at SLU but stopped because it was taking up more time than i was willing to give to that one thing. i guess you could say, my heart was in other places. well consequentely when i quit the team, i also basically stopped running. i think at the time i was a bit burnt out...i had fallen out of love with running. since then ive wanted to get back into it but every time ive tried, it just doesnt feel right. i want to WANT to run...i dont want to run because i think i have to. well since ive been in salvador i`ve started running a bit with a couple of my friends here. the first one felt good, the second one didnt. the third felt better but still not right. alas i didnt give up. then yesterday i went on a run, sorta by myself...but actually i just left like 3 minutes before the rest of the group...and it felt incredible. one of those runs you finish and cant help but smile from ear to ear. i havent felt like that in months...maybe years. with sweat dripping off of me right after i finished stretching i grabbed my journal and wrote "running is like meditation for me and I´m finially starting to remember why." i´m not sure if its the place or the timing but i think im starting to fall back in love with running. finally.