Alone, perplexed, comforted

Sigh… this blank page is a little intimidating for some reason. My heart is feeling a lot but my creative juices don’t seem to be flowing the most amount lately. I am the only gringo here… and it is challenging. It is challenging to speak Spanish all the time, to live in someone else’s home, to not understand the culture or the language all the time and to have nothing but my heart, my journal, and a couple books to process with.

It has been cold, rainy and dreary the last few days. And I have spent a lot of time frustrated with my inability to understand… Guarani, the other official and more frequently spoken language especially in rural areas, and just this culture. There is a lot to try to take in and understand. The culture, the people, the organization, this family, my place in it all. And my mind is constantly running and forced to do a lot of internal processing, which is not my strong point, and thus another reason this is good for me. Yesterday I sat in a cold damp room with ten women having their first meeting to form a committee. They spoke all in Guarani except for numbers and a few random words I could pick up on here and there. My hands were freezing and as I scanned the room I was so aware of what this cold means to them.. and I think I’m cold. A baby cried in the other room and I watched a beautiful rooster walk by, then some baby pigs wrestling outside and I wondered yet again “what the heck am I doing here?” Frustrated at the extra barrier to observing without the language, my very obvious outsiderness and just feeling like I couldn’t engage or connect how I would like. Then Christina (the asesora of the rural areas who I really really like) told me I could do the encuesta with the women. It’s a survey of 20 questions that evaluate the women’s quality of life. I was so honored that she let me help. And it was also challenging. I had a chance to talk to every single woman, asking them a series of questions and coming to better understand how they live. In the process I learned which questions I had to rephrase in order to be more sensitive. Do you work outside of the home? Replaced where do you work after women chuckled and responded “alma de Casa” (homemaker).  Do you have a husband? Replaced what is your husbands name when someone chuckled who didn’t have a husband. The chuckles were not coming from a malicious place, but they hurt, another reminder that I am an outsider and I needed to turn on my sensitive delivery. Sometimes I felt rushed through the questions, like a machine obtruding into their lives. But I slowly realized there were ways I could make it more personal, more gentle, and appear more like just another human to share with than a machine asking questions. These are the things I am going to have to watch for, spaces where I can take advantage of connecting with the women where I must be extremely careful about my delivery, engage gently, find ways to share in our mutual humanness, and create relationships in a matter of minutes.

This morning I sat in the families dispensa down the road again wondering exactly how to engage in this all. Having my food delivered to me, often not knowing exactly what is going on, trying to help but also stay out of the way as they do their daily chores and asking again and again to help only to be denied. They sit me down in front of the tv and deliver food to me. Partly they just want to take care of me, make me feel at home and partly I think that they have preconceived notions that as an American I just like to watch TV… when truly I have had to really try hard to enjoy watching TV with them as a way to spend time with them instead of feeling completely bored and checking out.  Finally I decided to go for a walk.. I needed to do something with myself, my thoughts were making me crazy. I walked down the cobblestone street they live on until it turned to dirt and just a few houses down found wide open spaces, roaming cows, chickens and houses more scattered. The cold and dreary weather left me feeling a little down and after a while when I stopped to take in the beautiful landscape tears came to my eyes. Lonely and perplexed by all there is to process and what this experience will mean my heart jumped to Casa Romero, home, Casita Bonita and all things familiar. There isn’t much familiar here and really all I can do is find my own ways to comfort myself, trust in something greater than me that this is right and ask for strength and comfort. It has been hard to not compare this to Casa. Not necessarily always in a bad way, but just  because it’s my only frame of reference. I miss my Cedro family.. Santos, Reina, Christopher and all the faces and souls that broke open my heart. There was a sense of vulnerability that came with the suffering they were living in that sometimes I feel distant from here. I also know that time allowed for those relationships to grow but there were also things that were just different. I miss my Romero family, the support, laughter, comfort of coming home and space to process, reflect and grow together. But as I looked out at the wide open green space, asking for strength and comfort and thought hard about being here I was comforted by the wind blowing on my face, the baby cow mooing at me and the beauty surrounding me knowing I can create deep relationships here too. And maybe this experience just isn’t about being as broken open and raw as I was in El Salvador. Coming home from that was so hard and building back strength took a long time. This is about putting that strength, independence, knowing of myself into action and learning whatever I can from the Paraguayan people. I know they have so much to teach me and again and again I am reminding myself to be open to whatever it is this experience has to offer me, to give my love, to engage as well as I can and to follow my heart which has learned a lot about how to take care of itself.

I walked back home to be greeted by 9 year old Ruty, whose lack of walls as a 9 year old make her as my closest friend so far. She gave me a big hug just happy to see me and as we walked back to the dispensa together I was comforted by her presence, this family and the many blessings that I have here. The sun came out and I sat on the patio eating mandarins we picked from a tree in their back yard with Diana, seeing such grace in that moment, even though there are still awkward silences and I don’t feel totally comfortable yet. Then I went for a run along the cobblestone street, back on to the red dirt roads, past wide open spaces, taking in all the sights and grateful to be here learning, for the luxury of knowing how to take care of my heart and what it needs to feel full, reminding myself that I will continue to grow into this space, this family, this experience.

Its not easy, its not super comfortable and I am constantly trying to understand how I fit in. But I know I need to let my brain be quiet, I need to be patient, I need to be open and engage as best as I can, and I also can be gentle with myself and provide myself with the TLC of yoga, running, journaling and staying in bed just a little longer. Its hard to be here alone but I also know I am so far from alone and I have only barely scraped the surface of what the next month has to offer me.