10/26

My words cannot do justice for this experience.. but neither can my mind. What a journey we are on.

Everyday I feel my heart absorbing more of this place and these people. Sharing about family, screaming during ghosts stories, seeing Thomas’s house and continuously learning and growing together I feel so very close to this community. I feel comfortable in my own skin here. I feel like we are really coming to know each other on a level that makes all the thinking and feeling that happens here a little more comfortable.

Today we took our sweet time getting to Cedro. As always we are on El Salvador time, or in other words Sor time. We have stops to make and every morning is an adventure. Last week we saw the central market, the school and Sor’s tia’s house before getting to Cedro. Today we visited a woman and her family who has cocoa, coconut, bananas, mint and pineapple growing in her backyard. We sat and chatted and finally made it to Cedro. It would be easy to be frustrated but the adventures are full of learning, chatting and seeing more and more of El Salvador. We showed the kids how to make cootie catchers/ fortune tellers and practice colors and numbers in Spanish. We had a home visit in the afternoon that shook out hearts. We talked about parents reading with their kids. Many cant read, others, especially dads, don’t have the time. We saw a young woman our age with a one year old on her lap and another in her stomach, her children’s father lives just up the road but no longer is in contact with her. She lives with her mom, her grandma and six siblings and the only person who works is her father. In the finca where he earns so little money. Nina Santos told me she had to work late tonight, sometimes her days turn into 12 hour days, but no matter how many hours she works she still gets paid the same low amount every 15 days. By an organization, a family, a life giving vital part of the community that we all think so highly of, but still we see the injustices, the challenges, the structural flaws that allow for the continuation of poverty.

In Life Writing Thursday we talked about suffering. About walking with people in their suffering, about sharing and holding but not letting it trigger you. Avoiding the spiral into a pessimistic paralysis. In the ability to find joy in the suffering, to accept that suffering exists and to continue on the search of alleviating suffering, even if only through opening your heart and ears and listening to someone’s story.

We reflected tonight with the Fordham Delegation, we were told to reflect on whatever we feel this experience has been for us so far. We haven’t all been together in Grace and Heidi’s house surrounded by candles and reflection vibes since orientation. Bright eyed and clueless, we didn’t know and love each other or this country yet. They asked us why we were here and we found responses, tonight we still cant find any answers.

Vulnerability, honesty, love, humbling, life giving, gratitude, suffering, accompaniment, holding, raw, pain, beauty, community, why, laughter… those were the words of the night.

Those are the words of this program.

In praxis we are feeling closer and closer to our communities, their pains have started to become ours, and their rollercoaster is ours. We have started to see this country, and ours differently. Wondering about our place in this world. Thanking our lucky stars for helping us to find our way here. Sometimes it hurts, its frustrating and seems like there are no answers.  We are searching inside and out for answers, thoughts, questions, feelings and being met with love in so many different places.

Today I thought about worthiness. About how my Spanish is still worse than the other two at my praxis, how they connect with Sor about Catholicism and know so much about it and how when those conversations happen I sit quietly sometimes trying to learn other times going further and further into the dark as the conversation continues. That feeling of not being as much, not knowing as much, speaking as well, connecting as much. That feeling that is a fatal flaw… compare and despair. How do we get away from that? Then I thought of the laughter, the moments with the kids when I feel totally connected. The moments when the questions Im able to ask lead to answers we may not have come to otherwise. When I know I can read someone’s emotion and follow that instinct in building that relationship. When I know what social analysis is and can help to form those questions and processes. There are so many moments when I too am in my element. All of us have different elements; I think part of life is about figuring out where that is. Maybe they call it vocation or maybe figuring yourself out or maybe just happiness. It comes with a little more searching when you are in a country, a life, a culture totally different than your own. But when you find it… it feels so good and the search continues.

I think one of those things for so many of us has been laughter. What a language it has been since we arrived. We have been here for 5 weeks and I think I have laughed harder and more than I have in a long time with this group of people. Our personalities mesh and differ and are hilarious. Sometimes the overwhelming amount of emotions come to a catharsis in gut splitting laughter. And sometimes laughter is the easiest way to connect to someone. Language, backgrounds, so many things matter less when two people are laughing. 2 year old Christopher on my shoulders laughing, Nina Reina today when Don Manual tried to explain why he’s not sad when we leave, Claire and I at the pila laughing about the use of the word babyshower in the middle of a sentence in Spanish, the group hiking to the waterfalls and falling left and right, the continous hilarity that happens in my house. It keeps us up, helps us connect, and sometimes is the most simple form of interaction, of showing love and mutual understanding.

This experience hurts and puts us on top of the world. In classes and praxis and every day conversations we talk about this resiliency that we have found, the hospitality and love and joy and keep on truckin attitude that defines so many parts of this country. We talk about liberating the poor, about all they have to teach the world. About how far we have to come. And our hearts continue to encompass more.  I wonder if I am processing enough, reflecting enough, seeing enough. Maybe sometimes Im not, but I also think it all comes with time… time that right now we might just not have enough of. But the thoughts are a flowin. And being surrounded by a community who helps to make those thoughts whole and meaningful is such a beautiful thing. 5 weeks in and something feels different, even more right than every other post. This country is becoming a part of my soul, and me a part of it’s.