Instead I think I'll just go on a rant about things that happen here that will always leave me looking about as confused as Miss South Carolina.
Bear with me.
First and foremost is the mystery of the United States. Here the United States, as with most of the developing world, is seen as the land of enlightenment; a place where you learn all there is to know about the world as soon as you step foot on gringo soil. Whether you´ve been there for 3 days, 25 years, or just went for lunch at a Jack in the Box in Charlotte, N.C., you will inevitably return entirely cultured and more sophisticated than anyone you will ever meet again. Not only the travelers believe this in their heart of hearts, but more importantly all the people this person meets genuinely believes this to be la verdad, as well. People will go to the grave over things their best friends leña collector says because he once got deported from Omaha, Nebraska after a 9 week stint washing laundry at the local nursery. For this reason I run into the funniest disputes in La Peña over the silliest stuff.
For example, my host father Don Santos has been to the states a few times in his 56 years and for this reason everyone in town puts a lot of weight on what he says about the United States of ´Murica. The other day I was just minding my own business naming each and every bean in my sopero before I subjected it to my molars and I heard Don Santos say to his son Tito ´no hay aguacates en los estados.´ (which sounds a lot more like ´know eye awakataze en los estaows´) To be honest he was so convincing I almost believed him myself until I remembered Flank Steak sandwhiches at Cassina´s house and distinctly remember spilling a Double Bag in the guacamole.
Don Santos fought with me for about five sixths of a minute before I put my foot down. Needless to say Tito was drop-dead stunned when I explained what Stop and Shop is. It´s hard to illustrate that we have every tangible thing on the planet...By the way, thats what I look like when I laugh.
The next day we were cercando my yard with barbed wire fencing to keep the cow excrement of my new cement floor when it started pouring for about 20 minutes. We hid as best we could until it stopped raining and got back to work. Don Santos then made the astute observation that there was an enormous rainbow right in front of us off the mountain. He looked right at Tito and dared to say, how dare he?, that gringos don´t have rainbows in the United States. That one is self explanatory.
Let´s make a switch from micro to macro now. We´re on the national level of head scratching.
Metapan made it to the National final against San Miguel and were to play at the Estadio Cuscatlan in the Capital of San Salvador. The National Final is like the Superbowl of the United States, but I would argue a little more important because there is only one sport here in El Salvador that anyone between the ages of 2 and 61 care about. A bunch of us from Metapan had an immense amount of ganas to head to the final so we made plans to meet up and go together. The game was scheduled for Sunday the 16th of May at 7 PM. By the 13th of May the game was changed to a day game on Saturday the 15th of May. I got a call from my buddy Gabe on that Thursday the 13th saying the game was changed again to a night game on Saturday. So that Saturday, while on my way to the capital, I was skimming through the want ads of the Diario de Hoy and stumbled upon a page dedicated to how yesterday (the 14th of May) they decided to change the date of the game from the 15th to the 23rd. You may not understand how miserable this was but after getting 3 hours out of La Peña and having to hop off that random bus somewhere in Santa Ana I was pretty upset.
Last Sunday (the 23rd) I got to the game at around 2:30 after it was abruptly changed from its start time of 7 PM to 3 PM to receive my entry ticked that still read The National Final of El Salvador! Metapan vs Aguilar (San Miguel) Saturday March 15th 3 PM.
Another thing that leaves me bewildered is the idea of glasses. Just the other day Tito asked me why I wear glasses and that I am not old enough to have them. This is an observation I have made before, please do not get me wrong there, but no one has ever approached me about it. It´s the truth. No one here wears glasses until they are on the downward slope of 50 (if you take offense to this please push that little X at the top right corner of the screen and never return to this website. 50 here is different from 50 in the states.) There are just an obscene amount of glasses probably prescribed without real need in the United States starting with the little spikey haired blonde kid from Stuart Little and Jerry Mcguire. I have been racking my sorry excuse for a brain to figure out whats going on around here and there. Here´s what I´ve come up with.
1) Salvadorans have superhuman eyes and don´t need glasses until the 5,000,000 mile mark on their pupusa meter.
2) Gringos have really weak eyes and need glasses slightly before the second Harry Potter book.
3) Gringos absolutely love being prescribed things...Whats a new accessory for my seriously lacking face? Health care covers at least part of the lense, right? I´ll cover the other $450 for my Gucci frames that automatically make me sexier to anyone who can possibly get that close to my left temple to read that these are, in fact, very expensive glorified crocheting needles covering up my insecurities. ...Was that too harsh? I never know these days. I am too insecure to ever be sure.
4) When you´re poor you learn to deal with shit. ¨because in hard times everyone´s eyes get better or at least good enough.¨ The Poisonwood Bible
5) People here see just as poorly as gringos do, but because its not cool to wear glasses until 51 they make sure to hold off until its fashionable.
I am going to settle on superhuman eye sight. It´s without question the most believable.
I guess my ride into town this morning counts,too.
Nora is making the trip tomorrow from Panama to El Salvador and I couldn´t possibly be more invigorated at the idea of meeting her at the airport and losing myself in a sense of familiarity for the few days that she can stay. Thankfully my family here in La Peña knew exactly how much this meant to me.
I was woken at 5 AM with a knock at the door. Upon inviting them to come in Tito and Niña Marta explained to me that Don Alfredo was not going to Metapan today and would not be going tomorrow either because the rain keeps washing the dirt bridge away. They knew I had planned to leave Friday but they said there would be no way to go, not even from the neighboring village Cuyuiscat. They said they were leaving in 20 minutes in the pickup because Don Santos is not feeling well and needs to go be checked out at the clinic. I crawled quickly out of my mosquito net and packed 3 weeks worth of stuff (because training 2 starts on Monday in San Vicente) in the alloted minutes and left La Peña without having a chance to say goodbye to anyone.
About an hour later we arrived at said missing bridge and were met with two options, go back to La Peña with our pickup, or ditch it and cross the bridge that is currently being built by foot and hitchhike a ride to Metapan. I knew I lived in El Salvador when I was picking up my maletín out of the back of the truck and Tito was locking to door in the lot of a local lechero. Equipped with my backpack, maletín, and hunger we walked down to the bridge in the pouring rain. Llegamos a la puente and we scaled the ladder and walked across the elevated bridge beam by beam until we got to the other side.
>There are moments like these that I am reminded that life here may be acceptable and definitely enjoyable most of the time, but this was just downright funny. I literally started laughing looking at the makeshift wooden ladder that led us up to the equivilent of a rebar train track. I debated changing my footwear for the walk but decided if I was going down I was going down in style.
The river was flooded underneath us from the torrential rains that have been pommeling northern Santa Ana for the past 4 weeks and this bridge was a mere skeleton allowing me to see that if I fell not only would it really hurt, but my iPod (my only possession of value) would also be ruined and I wouldn´t be able to listen to Temperature by Sean Paul for years and years to come. It was the idea of losing that Kingston sound that had me shaking in my crocs, not the height. Pff. You know I am a tough guy, right?
So I got to town, had the chance to say goodbye to Don Santos and Tito and am now clueless with what to do with myself one day ahead of schedule.
This is El Salvador. Glasses, washed away bridges, and rainbows. Take heed.
I am gonna go find a way to get to Nora without losing fingers or getting wet. Wish me luck with the bridges.
Here are some pictures Jordan took here in El Salvador.
