It has been a long time since updating friends and family at home and I want to say I have been thinking about how to write this. The words took a long time to come. But I also want to give you an update on our country. There is a storm raging through Central America right now and it has been raining here since Tuesday. When I say that I really mean it has been raining almost 24/7 since Tuesday and not lightly but fuerte (strong). A national emergency was declared this weekend so the government can start using funds to help people. But it has wreaked havoc all over the country, houses have been destroyed and people are dying. Roads are impassible, others have rivers running through their homes and rivers are overflowing forcing people from their homes and neighborhoods. It is also causing people to get sick since the air is constantly damp which could be really devastating since clinics/hospitals are far from most communities. It is raining as I write this and I honestly do not know when it will stop. So please keep the Salvadorans and the other people of Central America in your thoughts and prayers because at this point, all we can do is pray for it to stop raining.
I have been back in the San Salvador area for just under two weeks now. Two weeks ago I was in the northern part of El Salvador in a town called San José Las Flores in the department of Chalatenango. It has been a big challenge trying to process the week and return to the same thing when I feel so different. I am also not sure what to tell everyone back home so we will see how this goes.
I stayed the week with another girl from my program in the home of a woman named Rosa. We have a sister program for Salvadoran scholarship students and Rosa’s daughter, Susi, is in the program so that is why I stayed with them. People seemed to be in and out all week for various reasons so I will try and explain it the best I can. But I have found here that the definition of family goes way beyond the nuclear family and even the extended family.
Rosa has two daughters who live with her and both are studying in the capital. Susi is just finishing her program and will graduate at the end of the month. She frequently goes home on the weekends even though it can be between a 3 and 4 hour bus ride. Susi is an incredible person with an amazing perspective on life and she seems to give a lot of hope and inspiration to her family.
Magdalena is Rosa’s other daughter who is studying agronomy at the National University in the capital. She has been living in another town during the week and commuting 2 hours to school because she has a beautiful one-year-old daughter. So she commuted the 2 hours so she could see her daughter in the morning and evening and continue studying. Her daughter is extremely intelligent for a one-year-old. She can identify many things, can mostly tell you what she wants, not just walk but run, play the recorder and identify parts of her body. It was so fun to have her around most of the week. She brought a new sense of life to the home and Rosa always lit up when her granddaughter was around. I also was able to meet the baby’s father, Mario, who was a great guy. He loved his daughter so much and told me that he just wants her to be a strong woman. To hear that from a man after experiencing so much machismo was quite inspiring and a clear sign that things are changing.
Doris was also with me all week. And she is a beautiful girl who is in eighth grade. All of her immediate family has left for the United States so she has been living with her aunt Rosa since she was 3. We were able to connect, play games, listen to her music and just hang out. She wants to go to the university and stay in El Salvador, which is pretty incredible since all of her immediate family has left. I think she really looks up to her cousin Susi and wants to be like her.
So there were two other groups of women from our program in the community, which was an amazing experience because most of the nights everyone in our community would meet at one of the 3 houses. It would be the same group of strong women and we would hear their stories and get to just understand their lives. It was very empowering and made me so proud to be a woman.
At one of the other homes lived Leidi (pronounced Lady). She touched my heart in a way I have not experienced. So she did not have much of an opportunity to go to school and I think it is because she has a learning disability. From a young age she had to work in the home cooking and cleaning for everyone. Now at the age of 18 she is still cooking and cleaning every day. She spends most of her free time watching telenovelas (soap operas) and has no friends apart from her couple sisters. I was able to get somewhat close to her and just hang out. We became friends for the week and it was a lot of fun being around her. The second to last day she was pretty upset and finally told me that she was sad that we were leaving. And that just broke my heart. Here I had come for a week, became her friend and now had to leave just as fast.
Coming back I was extremely upset. I felt horrible returning to my group of 30 friends when she was left with nothing. I was not sure how to process this. I didn’t think it was fair to her and to be honest I am still not sure how to feel about it. But I guess the only thing I can do is remember the beauty of the week. Not that I should forget the sorrow and pain I experienced but that part should not weigh me down. The duality of pain and love is apart of every day life here in El Salvador. The big question is how do I balance both parts? I don’t think I will find an answer but I know I have to hold tighter to those moments of beauty and remember them during the times of pain.
Unfortunately on Monday night of the week I got really sick. I was just starting to get adjusted and then thrown totally out of whack. I had gut wrenching pain and I can’t remember ever being that sick. It was nearly impossible to be present with the family let alone speak Spanish so it really took away from my time with them. I was sick until the day before we left and finally felt like I could be present with them and then we had to leave. I remember the bus ride back to the city and felt like someone was totally messing with my mind. I had gotten comfortable in my life in the city and then we were thrown into a completely new situation where I was so uncomfortable. But then once I felt like I should be there, I was forced to return to my old life and try and just pick up where I left off.
I titled this entry, puchica. This is a very Salvadoran word and I think embodies a lot of my week in Las Flores. Puchia can be used in a lot of situations but it means something to the effect of “oh, snap” or “god dang it” or “shoot”. But I guess the connotations signifies the weight of the situation and can be used to express the hardness. It is somewhat difficult to explain entirely but I think it is the great word for the week. I was sick, heard painful war stories, made friends and left them – puchica.
I just got back from a silent retreat which was amazing and hopefully I will get something written about that experience soon. Thanks for reading! (Pictures to come).
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