un mes

Last week we celebrated our one month anniversary of being here.  An entire month has gone by!  It went quickly, but also I think of HOW MUCH has happened in that one month...and I can't even imagine how much more will happen in three more!  This week was full of a lot of appreciation I have for being here in such a unique program.  A common theme has been reality, how do I define reality, how is reality different for different people, and what does all of that mean.  Attempting to define reality in El Salvador has been an interesting process.  Obviously there's no concrete answer for that.  Being in such a program, however, sometimes I wonder how much of a biased view we are getting and how much of what we learn and experience is reality, but with classes and praxis and reading and traveling I feel like I get a better picture of it every day.  For classes we do SO much reading...but its all so interesting that it doesn't bother me too much.  Besides classes, Angelica and Ana in Tepecoyo are always telling us that we can ask them anything we want without shame, and they are extremely willing to share their lives with us...which has been a privilege.

This weekend I explored San Salvador a bit, visited the Catedral, el Palacio Nacional, y la Biblioteca Nacional.  San Salvador was quite the experience.  On Sunday we drove to Chalatenango to visit the houses of Orbelina and Dinora.  It was really fun to see where they come from and to meet their families and hear some of their stories.  Plus I enjoyed seeing a different part of the country.  Next week is campo week, so I'll spend the entire week living with a family in Nuevo Trinidad...so for now we are all kind of getting ready for that!  Chau for now :)

fin de semana en tepecoyo!

Gahhh so much I could write about right now.  Monday and Wednesday were good days at praxis.  We spent Monday visiting houses and resting at Angelica’s house.  The visits were interesting, awkward, funny, sad, uncomfortable, and lots of other things.  I’ll just list a few comments and things that made me think. 

I learned last week that over 60% of the income in El Salvador comes from remesas, or money sent to people in El Salvador from relatives that live in the US.  30 years ago, agricultural exports generated the most income, but now remesas have taken over.  So the economy is relying on sums of money that people send from our country to theirs...that’s crazy.  One afternoon I was talking with Ana, Lillian, and the woman we visited, Señora Anselma, and Ana revealed to us that when she first started accompanying American students with the Casa program she was surprised to hear that as students we had jobs.  She figured that as Americans, our parents probably had plenty of resources to put us through school without our help, and as anyone knows while that’s true for some people it is definitely not a standard here.  So it was fun to sort of unfold that stereotype about Americans that I’m sure other people here have.  Ana applauded us for being able to save up money for later or for large things like education, because many people here aren’t good about saving money.  Again, this is not true for everyone, but the general trend is that the remesa money is spent on things like fast food or fancy possessions rather than on healthy food, education, or health.  I think a lot of people in the States would be angered by this apparent lack of common sense, but it’s just the way things are here.  Ana made a comment “uno se acostumbra a vivir sin mucho dinero,” people get used to living without much money.  When you’re living day to day, some extra money that comes in the mail is a huge gift, which is why it is often spent on a special treat. 

The women I’ve met in La Javia are at home all day.  Most of them wouldn’t be able to find jobs anyway because the education levels are so low and many aren’t even able to read or write.  Taking care of the home while the children are away at school is definitely a large task, but at least stay-at-home moms in the States can jump in a car run errands to get out of the house.  Obviously that is not the case here.  So the women stay in their houses or in the areas surrounding them, all day every day.  I feel that if I was in their shoes I would feel a large lack of mobility and a sense of being trapped, but maybe that’s just because I come from a different place.  For so many people this is just how life is, and that is okay.  We got to meet Ana’s parents, which was so fun despite the fact that her father was mostly deaf and partially blind, and her mother couldn’t understand our broken Spanish.  But they were so cute!!  I asked her father how long he had lived on that piece of land, and he responded that since his father owned it, he had been there his entire life.  So almost 80 years.  And then Ana grew up there as well, and now raises her two daughters right below her parents’ house.  I guess it makes sense that some people never move from where they live and I feel stupid for having this moment of understanding surprise me so much, but it makes me be so conscious of all the places I have traveled and seen. 

Some of the house visits are awkward, because we all sit down and introduce ourselves but then nobody will say anything for long periods of time.  My first instinct is to scramble to think of a semi-interesting question to ask the host, but sometimes I get a short answer and the silence continues.  Usually its the woman of the house that will come sit with us, and at every home she will stop whatever she is doing just to sit with us and enjoy the day.  I may be wrong about this, but I get the sense that I’m feeling a lot more awkwardness than they are, just because the women aren’t usually the first ones to ask us questions.  Maybe for them the important part isn’t having this continual conversation, but rather just time spent in the company of others.  This seems so simple, but when I think about it, this really doesn’t happen often at my home.  If we have guests over, there’s a certain expectation to be with them and engage in conversation, especially if I don’t know them as well.  Even if I’m misjudging this, it’s an interesting concept to think about.  Silence can be a beautiful thing, and we don’t always need to fill it. 

Wednesday we started English class!  I have 8 kids between the ages of 13 and 22 in my class.  We all sat around a table and learned the names of numbers and letters.  Most of them were really eager to learn which was really fun to see!  I’m really excited to spend time with all of them the rest of the semester. 

This weekend was overall a great experience!  Ted, Alexa, and I stayed in Tepecoyo from Friday to Sunday, we got back just a few hours ago.  The living conditions weren’t really what pushed me, but many of the social situations did.  Friday night we learned how to make pupusas from Lilian and Angelica.  They were such experts at moving the dough in their hands and we definitely failed a little bit but it was fun to try!  Saturday morning we walked to Zona 3, about a 45-minute walk away, and stayed at the house of a woman named Melinda.  Everyone started cooking as soon as we got there, and I got to watch some guys climb a huge mango tree and chop down mangos.  We walked through this huge coffee finca to get there, and all of a sudden we stopped and they just jumped into this HUGE tree…there were times that I couldn’t even see them because they were up so high, it was crazy.  And they did it all wearing crocs.  We ate chile rellenos and some delicious pineapple juice for lunch.  I brought my deck of cards, and Alexa and I taught Brayan and Briana, two of Angelica’s young grandchildren, how to play war.  Brayan was the biggest cheater, and whenever someone played a joker (or “una bici” like he called it…referring to the bicycle on the card) he would steal it.  We had lots of laughs together.  The walk back was very tiring, and Angelica let us all rest in our room until dinner.  After dinner we watched Step Up 3 in Spanish with Angelica and Katy and Briana, and we called it an early night once again.  Which was so great. :)  This morning, we rode in the back of a pickup truck up to Zacamil, where Angelica’s sister lives with her family.  Angelica said to us something like “I bet people don’t travel like this in the United States,” to which we laughed and agreed.  It was such a cool way to see our surroundings!  We spent a couple of hours with Angelica’s sister Deisy and her family, and I got to help her daughter, also named Deisy, with her English homework, which consisted of translating word for word a story in English that her teacher made them copy down about aliens and spaceships.  Direct translation is quite possibly the worst method to teach a language, and it made me really frustrated that this is the way she has to learn English, which is difficult enough on its own to master.  The couple of times that I have had the opportunity, I have really enjoyed sitting down with people one-on-one and helping them with English…it definitely makes ESL stay on my radar as something I may want to pursue in the future.  On our way back from Zacamil, we stopped halfway to pick up Angelica’s husband who was cutting wood.  We saw Angelica climb down a really steep descent, take a HUGE log from her husband, and proceed to carry it up the hill again.  Angelica is at least 50 years old, maybe close to 60…I don’t know if I’ve ever witnessed a woman that age tackle a task like that!  Ted came to her rescue and carried it up half the hill for her, luckily.  Such a crazy scene to witness that made me laugh.  Also, I should mention that the drive to Zacamil, and even to Tepecoyo by bus, is BEAUTIFUL.  The place that we stopped on the way back had a backdrop of huge mountains. 

I write of all of the fun things we did this weekend, but it was also a challenge.  I felt that we were in such an awkward position sometimes as their guests.  We slept in beds, and although we didn’t ask I have no doubt that we took someone else’s beds for the weekend.  In addition, although I can carry a conversation in Spanish I was having a really hard time thinking of things to say as we walked, ate, and just sat around.  The three of us were kind of awkward, and it made me feel really horrible since we were guests in their home.  I didn’t want it to come off to them that we weren’t having a good time, because that definitely wasn’t the case and they were so good to us.  But honestly I know that they didn’t feel that way because they have housed many students in the past and are SO caring and patient with us, I just felt bad.  In addition, almost every time we’ve been to Tepecoyo someone has shown us a video or pictures of previous students, telling them of how grateful they were to learn so much in Tepecoyo, and how much they loved everyone there and were a part of their family.  The videos are so touching and I love going through all of them.  It definitely makes me feel like we have big shoes to fill, however, whether this is a good or bad thing.  Angelica and Ana are always telling us “no tengan pena,” basically don’t feel bad about anything, whether its our Spanish, our inability to eat their food when we’re sick, or anything like that, because we are their family.  Constantly being exposed to all of this makes me love all of them and want to truly be a part of their close-knit community, so I feel bad when things are awkward (at least for me) and I just hope that I’m taking full advantage of every day I’m there.  It was a very different kind of hospitality than the hospitality I’ve ever received, in many awesome ways.  Like I said before, maybe a lot of this was just my preconceived notion of how to behave as a guest, but it made me think nonetheless, and made me so grateful to be at this site!

This post is getting ridiculously long and still covers nowhere near everything I could say, but one more cool thing I thought of is that on Friday Jon Sobrino came to our history class!  He’s a famous liberation theologian, and I’ve read a lot of his works at SLU.  He lived with the six Jesuits who were murdered in 1989, and the only reason he is still here at the UCA is that he was visiting Asia at the time of the murders.  I’ve gotten to read more of his works on Romero and the Jesuits, which have been so fun to read.  Sitting around a table with him was a privilege after I’ve heard his name so many times, and it was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime chance.  I even got to talk to him in person after and he was happy to hear that I go to SLU, since he studied there for 5 years. 

Tomorrow we have off, and I’m planning on catching up on a lot of homework and sleeping.  I’m so excited to be clean again after a nice shower, and ready for the rest of the week!  Abrazos, en serio les extraño muchisimo a TODOS!!

la realidad

Hi!  It’s been quite a crazy week in many ways.  On Monday and Wednesday I got to go to Tepecoyo!  Getting out of the van with Alexa and Ted, we all realized we had no idea what we were doing, and didn’t even know where to go because we couldn’t remember where Angelica lived.  All we could do in that moment was laugh, and when we found Angelica she told us she wasn’t expecting us for another few minutes which was why she wasn’t there to pick us up.  That sort of comical event broke the ice for all of us, and I thought it was a great day.  Also, before I forget, she sent us home with two chickens in a box that day to give to Kevin and Trena’s little girls.  We laughed and thought it was hilarious…looking back on it they probably thought we were stupid because I guess that’s a pretty normal thing to do, haha.  We went on a few house visits with Angelica and Ana, and even though they were a little uncomfortable at times because either I got lost in the rapid Spanish conversation or I just simply didn’t know what to ask or say, it was a great experience.  All of the women we met were so excited that we were going to be offering English and computer classes for free, because then their kids would have some sort of a background or head start before starting up school again soon.  On Wednesday we went to Edith’s house again, where we had gone on the first Saturday of praxis visits.  She told us a lot about the education in Tepecoyo.  Out of everyone I’ve met here, I don’t think I’ve seen suffering as apparent and visible as it is manifested in her.  She had 7 children, but 5 years ago one of them went out to buy something and never came back.  Trena told me that a man claiming to be a private investigator had come by a couple months later and promised to find her son for $300, a sum that’s unheard of, but with some help and much sacrifice, she found the money to pay him.  However he never came back and was was never found.  She’s struggling to get the rest of her kids through bachillerato, or high school, and she talked a lot about how the costs are really putting a strain on her family.  Although they no longer have to pay a quota for school like they used to, the classes are charging more for clear backpacks ($12,) and notebooks and other supplies.  In my political science class the other day we learned that the minimum wage here in 2010 was $158.40 per month for someone who had a formal job.  The Canasta de Alimentos which is the amount decided by the UN that a family of 5 needs to survive on to guarantee una nutrición digna, or enough food to survive in a healthy manner, was $227.95.  Even worse, the Canasta de Mercado in 2010, which was the cost of healthy living including all other expenses, was $648.37.  So, if a family of five has a father who has a formal job at minimum wage, he can’t even pay enough for healthy food, much less supplies like backpacks, health costs, transportation and a million other necessities.  And even this is a good scenario, because many people consider themselves extremely lucky to find a formal job.  Edith is a single mother with six children to care for.  All odds are against her and her family.  Many kids drop out of school at an early age, even though it primary school is “compulsory,” to get some sort of job selling things on the streets or begging for money.  And the cycle repeats.  Talking with the women in the community has taught me that even these jobs can be extremely dangerous.  I can never imagine my parents letting me taking some of these jobs even at the age of 19, but families here just don’t have that luxury to choose.  Learning all of these things, seeing the facts in charts in class and then seeing the faces with which the statistics match up has been overwhelming.  And what is worse, Edith is just one example.  It has yet failed to amaze me at the amount of suffering people have experienced here as a result of the war, the violence, and the poverty.  All of these things affect the way that people think, process, and live on a daily basis…in ways so different than those with which I have been raised.  And El Salvador is just a tiny country in Central America.  The world is a pretty big place.  Not only am I continuing to realize how grateful I am for all of the opportunities I have, but I’m also reconsidering my true definition of reality.

This week was the first full week of praxis and classes, and I’m glad to be getting into a schedule.  I’m enjoying each of my classes, and sometimes they all mesh together because everything we are learning is so pertinent to my experiences here.  More on that later probably.  Yesterday, Saturday, we went to the BEACH!  Like the real beach, one on the ocean, to everyone who tells me that lake beaches in MN aren’t really beaches, hah.  Which is so weird, since I talked to my parents today and my dad said he was going out to play ice croquet on Prior Lake…I guess that’s weird in more ways than one.  I was excited to go, but when I saw those HUGE waves of the Pacific Ocean and the sand and shells, I was so happy!!  We all sprinted out to the water and were there for at least an hour.  I don’t remember if I’ve ever seen the Pacific Ocean, maybe when I was really young, but I know I have never seen waves that huge – it was great fun, but I have to admit a little scary when Alexa and I struggled for a good ten minutes after maybe going a little too far out, haha.  Today I went to a teachers’ training workshop, which eases a lot of my fears about starting English classes on Wednesday, and tonight we are all going to Kevin and Trena’s for a barbecue to watch the super bowl.  I didn’t even follow football that closely this year, and I hate both the Giants and Patriots, but having both the beach and football in one weekend is such a treat, and something I definitely needed!  If there are hamburgers I will literally cry tears of joy!  

I’m both excited and nervous for this next week – especially because I am spending next weekend in Tepecoyo with Angelica!  Should be another jam-packed week or two!  Please keep sending those prayers, and know I am keeping everyone at home very much in my thoughts and prayers. 

Con mucho cariño y amor,

Sarita.