The last few
days here have by far been the most challenging. On Wednesday I woke up at 7
feeling great. Claire and I were planning on visiting Casa De Solidaridad
(where she lived last year) and were not leaving until almost 11, but I figured
I would get a head start on the day. I woke up and ate a big breakfast and got
some things done around the house, by 10 I was sleeping and all my breakfast
was in the toilet. I didn’t throw up.
When
it was nearing time to go Claire woke me up and asked if I wanted to join. Not
wanting to miss a day I went with Claire to Casa. It was a great time, aside
from being pretty sick. I developed a bad fever during the day, which left me
with a bad headache and lessened my already weak Spanish skills. The following
day at the library was fairly quiet but my poor Spanish and lack of trying to
speak continued due to my poor health. I was beginning to become discouraged
with my inability to communicate and had felt as though I had taken a few steps
back after a decent start.
Today,
Friday, things started to change. I woke up feeling much better and slowly
began to eat. Today was the national test day for AIDS and Cristina’s work was
hosting a test center. She works for an organization called ContaSIDA, which
translates to AgainstAIDS, so naturally they had a pretty large turnout for the
test. She invited Claire and I along for the day to help out. Although the test
was interesting and the medical system very foreign to us it was apparent early
on that today was going to be a long day. We arrived there before 7 and by 10
Claire and I were looking for something to keep our spirits high. Claire told
me, “maybe something will happen today”, pretty vague and simple but as it
turns out, she was right.
Once the test began Claire and I had
been split up to work at different stations, she was at the welcoming phase and
I was at the exit. Usually I like the challenge of being on my own without any
help to communicate, but today I was so exhausted I was having trouble with the
simplest phrases. I felt discouraged and useless. Eventually it felt as though
people were writing me off as unintelligent and that is exactly how I was
beginning to view myself.
Around noon, I
was sitting down talking to the other woman who I was working with when a kid,
around my age, fell to the ground. He had violently stumbled back and fell into
the wall and had hit a protruding facet on his way down. I instantly ran over
to help him. He was unconscious and I turned him to his side in order to make
sure he did not choke on his tongue. When it happened nobody really knew what
to do, they all panicked or froze. I was by far the youngest person working
there but I have had a lot of experience with seizers and so I was familiar
with this sort of thing. Once the situation was under control and people
“unfroze”, a man sat down and tried to roll the kid onto his back. I had met
this man earlier; he was one of the top people in charge at ContaSIDA. I tried
to explain to him that the kid needed to stay on his side in order to keep from
choking but I had no idea what the verb for choking was and even the term for
tongue had escaped me. I tried to act it out and found no success; instead I
just moved the kid back to his side and said that that was the way it needed to
be done. He, and the other Salvadorans all listened. They trusted me. In that
moment, even though I could not verbally communicate, I was understood.
This event,
although it was small, really helped put things into perspective. There will be
times when I get discouraged and cannot fully understand someone or cannot
fully express myself, but when I really need to, I will understand and when the
time becomes necessary, I will be understood.
(Also, the kid
was fine. The facet… not so much)
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