Today we get up, put on our boots and work clothes, load our backpacks with water and sunscreen, and get ready to go to work. After breakfast (fried eggs, salsa, queso fresco, rolls, pastries, rice, beans and juice), we pile into the van to head out to Sitio de los Nejapas. 
On the way, we stop at a Super Selectos for water and Gatorade, also stopping in a local market along the way for a hat. Two of us plunge into the chaotic, colorful crowd while Arcelio circles the area, unable to park. Good thing everyone has cellphones here!
Stopping briefly at San Miguel Arcangel in Quezalte, we pick up Padre David and several of the young people from the parish. As students, they have the day off since it is National Teachers' Day. We will be working together with them on the project. The drive takes us up into the hilly countryside on a fairly good dirt road, arriving at the tiny church in about twenty minutes.
The church is a small, open structure with half-walls, surrounded by green fields of corn and a few houses. There is a caretaker, Jacobo, and his family living there for now, along with three dogs, a cat, and countless chickens.
The engineer, Don Roberto, from San Miguel, his daughter, and neighbor are already at work when we arrive. The materials are there also, and we learn that the project is to be a "portada", or arched entryway to the church property. This tiny, struggling church, built before the war, housed a church community that was forced to abandon the area during heavy local fighting in the 80's. The military used the building during the war, and the altar was knocked down. Now the church is trying to reclaim the property, since it is being used more as a community center than a house of prayer by the new and different community that has settled in the area since the war.
Our first task is to clear and stack brush and wood laying in a clear-cut field at the top of the property. We throw the brush onto an enormous pile to be burned, and stack the wood in a separate pile to be sold or used as firewood (the family housed at the church cooks over wood). The plan is to plant a mango orchard here. Jacobo, the tenant, proudly shows us four coconut palms that he recently planted near the church as well.
Meanwhile, a trench is being dug and rock removed for the footing of the portada. Don Roberto and Padre David show us the drawings for a nice gate. There will be a rock footing, then three courses of cement block, and a chain-link fence on top. The archway will be formed from posts made of re-bar and an iron arch, then covered with wood and cement, and finally painted. The hope is that this will raise the profile of the church a bit, generate some local interest and energy in what is happening there, and gently re-demarcate the property as holy ground. This is chiefly a way of bringing new hope to a community that is remote and largely forgotten.
By noon it is getting almost unbearably hot in the direct, pounding sun. We can each work for only a short spurt, digging, cutting, or moving rocks with shovels, pick-axes, steel bars or machetes. Fortunately it seems to be perfectly acceptable to rest every few minutes. Some, however, like Don Roberto, his neighbor, his daughter, and Jacobo, work tirelessly, almost without any breaks. They are very glad, they tell us, for the work. Many people are unemployed here, especially since the minimum wage just "skyrocketed" to about $6.80 A DAY (less than $2500/yr), making El Salvador much less competitive in the world labor market. US and European firms have been laying off Salvadoran workers lately, including some of the young adults working with us. Most of the people we talk to seem to make about $5 on a good day. Even salaried professionals apparently make only about $300-$350 a month here (~$4200/yr), considered a middle-class wage.
We have our bagged lunches (provided by Blanca and Mercedes) in the cool, dark, church building (or "casa comunal"), where they have hammocks set up. In the afternoon, some of the women from San Miguel also come up to see how things are going. They come in "tuk-tuk"s, modified motorcycle/taxis, that cost $2 for the ride up from Quezalte and $1 for the ride down...?
At around 3:30, we leave in the van, dropping about five people off at San Miguel and coming back to San Juan Evangelista for the night. After cold showers and hot, delicious, hand-made corn tamales, we relax in our comfortable guesthouse that seems more and more like home.
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