9/7

Wearing my melanzana for the first time in El Salvador. Driving away from the Zoo today I sighed “Oy, este pais”. Then I laid in my bed tonight with Margot, the closest thing to home and laughed uncontrollably. This is my heart at this moment.

This country is pulling and pushing, leading to laughter, tears, so much joy and a heavy heart.

The streets are busy and chaotic, buses and backs of pick up trucks filled with people, horns constantly honking, no rules to be followed, expert drivers weaving, turning and somehow avoiding crashes. Vendors fill the streets, yelling out at you wherever you go to buy their papusas, ice cream or junk. Uniformed men with the biggest guns I have ever seen guard businesses and nicer houses. Coils of barbed wire on top of every building. Uneven sidewalks, beautiful palm trees, barred windows, papusarias littering every road.  Horns honk and men whistle at gringas walking by, out of habit more so than anything, or at least that’s what I can figure out so far. The eyes of my kids at Cedro are of love and pain. Toys on the playground are more dangerous than we in the U.S. would ever allow and the kids laugh just as hard or harder, and somehow they too keep their balance in the chaos. Driving out of Cedro every man has a machete, used as a tool not a weapon. Fincas (coffee), milpas (corn) and other farmland fill the roads, what we would call aluminum shacks and what they call homes are spaced out and hidden in the trees. Women walk miles with heavy loads balancing on their heads and most people look older than they are because of hard work and struggle. In the UCA professors look no different than those at home, well dressed and respectable. Students walk around with ipods and sit with their laptops outside of classes. Outside of the zoo Don Manuel kindly reminds me to put my camera away and a woman sits on the side of the road crying. Women breast feed wherever their child is hungry without pena and without demeaning looks from those who are “more sophisticated” or maybe just less human. Moms ask if there is enough food for them and one asks if her kids can have a sip of my water. Please, drink it all. The air smells like toxins but after a rain smells fresh as can be. Dogs run rampant, rib cages showing through. Oy, este pais.

Raw

Lupita, one of our beloved cooks tells us the story of her uncles being killed in front of their children, of the men breaking into her house at night looking for her father, of the pain and suffering and of the blessing they had of leaving the little town that was only the beginning of so much corruption. Of going to school without shoes and of living in fear. Julio tells us about his tia migrating to the U.S. and later his sister taking their cousin to be with her mother. Leaving her kids behind. Being detained, paying off the cops and arriving to a family member who left her desperate. Of her children who have never known their mother and live her with their Grandma. The risk of sending them to their mother and the pain they experience not knowing her. We learn about the poverty that forces people to leave. The extremity of the conditions that lead people to sacrifice so much.

Then we tell our own stories. Bear our souls and connect over just what being human feels like. Opening up, letting people in, thinking about all that it means to be all I ever want, vulnerable and genuine.

Raw

That word scares me. Just like the rest of the world, sometimes I feel like I have it all figured out, or at least something. Then I am reminded that in reality, I still and always will have so much to learn. Last night we reflected about “People enshrined in my heart, risks I have taken and sufferings that have seasoned me” I wrote and shared about things that are just easier to keep to myself. I thought deeper about them, saw them differently than I have for a while. Remembered pain and joy, love and support and realized things that I am still grappling with. I had an amazing conversation about the rawness of humanity, of the beauty and pain/fear that this leads too. I thought about how easy it is for life to take you somewhere you didn’t plan and how much intention goes into living right. I let my heart soar with kids at the zoo looking at monos, tigres, pajaros and identifying their colors and English names. I let it hurt for two brothers whose brains work differently and who have so many fewer services than they need, who want nothing more than love and life and who are so far behind. I came home and fell asleep in the hammock and then Quentin played “Tears in Heaven” and I explained to him how special that song is.

My heart was exhausted. So I laid in my bed with Margot and we fleshed some stuff out, and then we laughed and laughed and laughed about nothing. An explosion of so many emotions, of big learning and feeling and trying to understanding. Catharsis that was so needed. And now I am here, at a candelit table with three beautiful people, feeling my heart, eating cookie dough and living in this crazy life.

This is El Salvador and Casa de la Solidaridad.