“In the life of a New Yorker, there are several unpleasant things one will inevitably have to face: having your bag stolen, public urination…”
…and I believe what follows is “having the door that swings behind a businessman carrying a Starbucks-to-go-cup slam on your face.”
I am known as the Carrie Bradshaw of La Montana, El Salvador… Besides for the fact that I am not a tiny, skinny, bouncy blonde, nor do I wear any designer clothes… or have a 100 pairs of $4,000 shoes… I don’t even have finished floors in my house for that sake. Imagine?
But as I sit with my legs up on my wooden bench, typing away and re-reading out loud, I cant help but feel like this is my own New York column. That I am an sweet, innocent young gal just trying to find her way in a world of bustling strangers. That this is my mode of communication with the world. And, yes, maybe I have been hauling water for a week street since it hasn’t been falling, and, yes, Im sorry, but I often drip-dry because the majority of my neighborhood doesn’t use toilet paper, and okay, fine, yes sometimes I wear the same shirt twice without washing it… But, I sometimes like to imagine I am Carrie Bradshaw. I sit outside with my neighborhood ladies, on some plastic chairs and benches and we chat over brunch. Leslita is 7, Catherine is 9, Marjo is 11, we gossip about last nights telenovelas and brunch is peeling mangos and dipping them in a handful of salt, but we do it in our most-fanciest vestidos and most-limpias flip-flops. Later on, I strut my stuff down a good old Salvadoran village street with the confidence of a real New York woman. The street is a dirt path and the confidence only comes because I know no matter what assortment of rags I pull on, the 15 road workers I pass will whistle.
Actually, I am the first person of La Montana who has come to know of Carrie and it was, in fact, El Salvador that took my full-episode- “Sex and the City” virginity. (Will they even let me back into Manhattan after that release of information?) So, I guess I should re-phrase. I am known as the New Yorker living in La Montana. And lets be honest, this is no Sex and the City...nor anything that has to do with the name of it.
As I watch Carrie pay for a $15 brownie with my 15 cent tortilla in hand, I wonder which one of us is the crazy one?
They say “every blessing is a curse” but I think down here sometimes we are forced to look at it the other way around. I mean, there IS something, so liberating in the feeling of ice-cold water slapping at your skin while you bathe outside beneath the beaming sun and with the fallen leaves of the neighboring mango tree collected at your feet. There IS joyous laughter in the breaking of a $3 pair of sandals, as you try hitching a ride along the roadside back to your no-named-street little village. There IS satisfaction in the freedom you get dangling in your hammock, while spitting orange seeds onto your unfinished floor. Imaginese?
Sometimes, the things we curse, may very just well serve a most beautiful purpose.
New York and La Montana are VERY different. But do NOT get me wrong, in El Salvador there are many stolen purses and much more public urination.
My heart is torn in two.
Today, standing in the back of a pickup truck, riding to town, was like a 20 minute vacation. The changing scenery, the sweeping landscape, the kids screaming “saluuu” on the road side, cows grinding the browning grass, all while I swing back and forth, face into the wind.
As my days dwindle down in La Montana, I start to wonder what I will miss most. While the answer flashes before my eyes like a Polaroid film strip of smiling faces, I count the second-runners-up.
The view from my house of the mountains in the morning.
My beloved mangy dog, scratching at the door in the morning and then bouncing after the neighbors roosters.
The toots and calls of the passing “camion”, chuck full of sweaty “jugadores”.
A cold swim in the country river, head-to-toe clothed.
Greasy pupusas, but more importantly the burnt fingertips from trying to tear those suckers apart.
But there is no doubt, what holds first place in my heart. Its those faces. Lili and Karime. Leslith, Caterine, Marjori. Jilmer, Gerson and David. Dora and Nena. Leo. Otinia. Franklin, Damian, Miguel and Cristian. Gerson, Efrian and Lucinda. And all the parents, uncles, grandmas and grandpas that come with them.
I am going to miss their curls. Their speckle-toothed smiles. The giggles. The running after Vaquito. The drawings. The soups shared and sodas spilled. The time I said this and the time she did that. Watching them march the dirt roads with “lena” on their backs or “guacales” of “masa” on their heads. The way they talk to each other across the fence like some regular old granny neighbors. Their kiddie hugs and their kiddie hands. The way they say “jeyymiiii” when they see me. Or sometimes “profe”, or “papito” when theyre feeling real funny.
The moments. The understandings. The misunderstandings. The occasions. The times just purely paseando.
That makes me think of Christmas.
There is no way I will ever be able to compare Christmas in New York with my first Christmas in El Salvador…and so I am glad that I will not have to. Because instead, I will talk about my most memorable Christmas-Eve-EVE, EVER.
It started with a 5am wake-up call and a 6am bus ride out. The next 5 hours were spent running back and forth to my dear friend’s car, Christmas-preparation shopping. For those of you unfamiliar with Christmas in the campo, this does not mean stuffed animals, board games, play-dough… nor Gucci bags, rolex watches or whatever it is Carrie wears these days, kind-of-shopping. This means, 5 pounds of potatoes, green peppers, tomatoes, and a whole lot of consome-de-pollo. This means canastas basicas and cellophane- wrapped balons de futbol. This means, my poor, abused friend and I were running around 1000s of Salvadorans sweating our asses off in the most horrendous market in the world (San Miguel), preparing for a Bridge Inauguration and Community Christmas Party.
But that morning of misery paid off. I beamed from ear to ear as I watched a group of girls create pinatas from a workshop we had given awhile back. These piñatas would be used for our Christmas Party
Later that evening, we had a Christmas celebration with my Artesania Group. I talked about remembering the first time I orgaznied the group. How hard it was for me, and how nervous I was. And now, 2 years later, look how far we had come.
They surprised me with amazing speeches, a sweater, a necklace, earrings and bracelet, a dress designed by them and 2 pages of lovely letters. It took my breathe away. I was so surprised and happy that I don’t think I have stopped smiling until now. Wait, let me check the mirror…they gave me wrinkles.
As the time is drawing near to say goodbye, people ask me if I am sad to leave. Others ask me if I am happy to go see my family. Am I sad? Or am I happy? Well, what damn good questions.
New York or El Salvador? The city or the countryside? Paved floors or fresh air? Toilets or toilet paperless? Stolen purses or public urination?
Two years here have been very hard. In ways many of you will probably never understand. (oh how true they saying “to walk in another mans shoes”). And I could never put it into words. But these two years have also been very amazing. They have changed my life.
So, how do you say goodbye? And then, how do you say hello?
Its quite apparent that this blog entry has no overall theme. I wanted to talk about Christmas. I wanted to talk about the hard times here and how I have turned them into experiences. I wanted to talk about coming home. I wanted to show you how I may just be the next Carrie Bradshaw. I don’t think this entry passes the requisites for a proper paper for any of the aforementioned themes.
However, it is the perfect blog. Because, that is where I am right now. In f-ing Never Never Land. I am confused. Peace Corps has given us little over a month to finish our projects, our reports, our interviews, our paperwork, our health exams and logistics, all the meanwhile saying goodbye to our new friends and families. And I am supposed to make sense of it all.
I am going to be totally honest. I don’t know. I don’t know what I am feeling. I don’t know if I am sad. I don’t know if I am happy. I don’t know if my dog is better off getting hit by a car in NY or starving in ES. I don’t know if my community will remember me, I don’t know if anyone at home cares I can milk a cow. I don’t know if I want a real job. I don’t know if I can live poor the rest of my life. I don’t know if I will miss them forever, or forget them in a year. I don’t know if I can make it at home. I don’t know if I can last down here. I don’t know if you will remember me. I don’t know if I have changed. I don’t know if you are who I remember you to be. I don’t know if you have changed. I don’t know who I am, who I was, or who I am going to be. I just don’t know.
If it makes you feel better, I will tell you what I DO know. I do not want to stay. But I do not want to say goodbye. I want to see my family. I want to stay with Lili and Karyme, Gerson and Efrian, Nena and Marilyn, Dora and Otinia. I want to walk up and down NYC, eating great bagels and slices of thin-crusted pizza. I want pupusas 3 for a dollar. I want nice clothes. I want to forever not care about what I am wearing. I want nice restaurants and to be able to drink good drinks (with alcohol) publicly. I want to eat with my hands. I want a hot shower. I want to pour a bucket of cold water over my head under a sky full of stars, breasts for the whole community to see. Well, that’s just how it is here. Like it, or not, Carrie.
Do you feel better? Now you know how I feel.
Be it what it will; see you March 14.
