This blog was inspired by two very thought-provoking parties.
The first: My grandmother who hounds me every time that I speak to her (not as often as she’d like) that I need to write another blog so she can have something to fill her time at work. Imagine that?
Me - ‘Happy Mother’s Day, Meme!’
Grandmotha – ‘You should really update your blog, you know?’
The nerve of some people. You think she’d be happy enough that I wasn’t in her basement wasting electricity by leaving the fan on all day, but no, she feels the need to assign me chores despite the fact that I am thousands and thousand of miles away. That’s how she provokes thought; through insistence.
The second: While wasting time (isn’t it always wasting time?) on facebook I stumbled upon something that my good friend, KC, wrote to another good friend, Jaime, on her wall. It read:
Don’t exaggerate your experiences, to yourself or others.
KC had written this to Jaime quoting something that Jaime had written in her blog. Well I damn near busted a move this quote excited me so much. ‘Wow,’ I thought ‘Jaime really hit the nail on the head on that one.’ It turns out, however, that Jaime just copied it from a book written by the Dolly Llama, (that’s how you spell his name, right?) but either way (sorry for taking your thunder Jaim) it really is something that needs to be acknowledged.
So here we go.
To those of you who are wondering, I have not yet saved the world. Furthermore, I don’t think I’ll be able to fit that in my agenda in the 2 years or so that I will be here. I am sorry but I just haven’t got it in me; the time, the resources, or the know-how.
My students that Lifting La Peña sponsors do not get all A’s. To be honest, out of a 10 point scale, our average grade right now in Social Studies is 5.5.
Last year I did a dental campaign. This year there wasn't any more toothpaste left, so I laid the responsibilities to raise money for more toothpaste on the teachers of the school. After three months of school the students still were without toothpaste. I had to buy it myself. I guess I'll be the one organizing raffles and fruit sales in order to raise these kids $10 for toothpaste. How's that for sustainable?
Last year I ran a reforesting campaign, too. We planted about 500 trees of 17 different class of tree here in La Peña in an effort to reforest the most rapidly deforesting country on the planet. Just yesterday while chopping my lawn a man stopped by my house to chit chat and he, like so many others before, told me about how the majority of his trees already died and didn’t make it to the rainy season.
In all honesty, I often times find it hard to find interesting things to write about. You see, there is a certain dilemma to being here and actually successfully conveying even the slightest glimpse into what is really going on around me and putting enough spin on it that you’ll give a damn. Let me reassure you though, whatever it is that I am doing is not saving this world or the next. Most days are filled with small, almost obnoxious tasks that to be honest, when completed, fill me with more pride than you can imagine. For example, today I had to, again, fix the water that runs to my house from a little hole in a rock at the top of the mountain. Do you have any idea how unbelievable it feels to finally, after days of poorly thought out solutions, figure out a way to provide yourself with water when you were without before? You better believe I let out a sigh of relief and enjoyed the moment while I could before I had to wash 13 pairs of dirty socks, a bunch of underwear, TWO pairs of jean shorts (I am a part of the Proud Jean Short Wearer Club of Western El Salvador), and a whole boat load of T-shirts by hand.
As if that doesn’t get your skin tickling, right? How is that for ‘making the world a better place?’
Let’s not fool ourselves here. Although I love being here, and I really and truly do, I think what Dolly Parton said was right… I can’t exaggerate any part of this experience. I haven’t found a free cure for AIDS or helped train some Salvadoran ninja-warrior who can take down FOX News…like I said, I probably won’t save the world.
I haven’t met the president yet, and I haven’t supplied La Peña with running water, and the road into town is unpaved, and we are STILL without a Health Promotor, and on top of that there are still a few houses in this town that are without electricity, and although I can imagine how great it would be to have a positive influence in these peoples’ lives there is an overwhelming possibility that I just can’t make those particulars happen.
But sometimes I do get lucky and feel like I may be heading in the right direction.
About a month ago my friend (and Lifting La Peña scholarship recipient) Marvin came by the house. It had rained the night before and a small landslide had made the dirt road to my house inaccessible so he came climbing up to my house from the face of the mountain. I am not going to lie to you, I was a little taken aback to him come stomping up the side of the mountain, walking through the brush, but he explained what had happened to the street as I poured his cup of coffee and handed him a large bowl of Puppy Chow (thanks again, Cindy!).
After a few minutes of laughing at how dirty his shoes were from the hike I made a comment about how great it must feel to have a Saturday off from school for Semana Santa.
(My most sincere apologies for the 'he said, he said.')
Marvin looked up from his cup of coffee and told me that was what he had come to talk about: that he was not going to continue with school.
My face got really red and a brick settled very abruptly in my stomach.
He told me that he would pay me back for the calculator and the uniform. He told me that he would just need a few weeks to make the money, but he would find a way to raise the $22.50 to pay me back.
‘Slow down,’ I told him after I could bring myself to speak, ‘Why aren’t you?’
Marvin is a genuinely great kid. He is the eldest in a family of six without a father. He plays guitar in the La Peña Catholic Church every Thursday and Sunday. He is the President of the Directive of the school in La Peña. He is a ‘vocal’ on the La Peña local governance committee. He is the captain of the La Peña soccer team. He is exactly who I had in mind when the opportunity to start the scholarship came up back in February. Marvin is the one who took me, a complete stranger at the time, to a swimming hole over an hours walk away from town the day after I arrived in La Peña last year. He is the kind of kid you’d wish your sons could be like. He’s the kind of kid I hope my sons are like.
He told me that the father of his brothers and sisters (different fathers, his own father doesn't acknowledge him) who lives in the US stopped sending money a few months ago and probably won’t be sending any more. Because of that he needs to find ways to earn a little money to buy sugar, rice, toilet paper and other things of that sort for the family. On top of that he said the rainy season is coming and he needs to plant all the corn and the beans to put food on his family’s table for the next year. He looked me in the eyes and told me that he just couldn’t keep up with all of it and have time to study every night and give up his Saturdays to go to school. He said he would need those days to work in the milpa.
I didn’t know what to say, and believe me, it’s the worst feeling in the world when you not only can’t think of the words, but in a foreign language.
I was broken, crushed. This wasn’t just any student. This was Marvin. Marvin who despite having so much work to do in providing for his family still voluntarily holds soccer practice for the younger kids in town every Wednesday afternoon.
I told him that the money was not an issue at all, that he was not to worry about it in the least, but that I really wished that he would reconsider because education is important and this is a great opportunity.
He told me that the students in Metapán were too far advanced.
I told him I would give him more classes, private classes if he needed, every single night if it came to it. I would permanently fuse a dry erase marker to my right hand in order to teach him every single date in Social Studies, every single pronunciation in English, every single step in the Water Cycle, whatever it took.
He told me ‘That’s just it, Grego, I just do not have the time.’
It was really, really heart wrenching. I explained to him that he is one of my best friends here and he was, more than anyone, who I wanted to see benefit from this opportunity.
He told me he was the man of the house, the only one who works, and he needs to feed his family.
He was right. I couldn’t argue against it.
I told him I would do anything, anything at all, except do his homework for him or give him money.
He told me he understands, but with planting, harvesting, and fertalizing his own milpa how would he have time to do his homework and give up one day of work a week AND help other people in their work in order to earn money?
So I asked him if the problem was the workload or the ganas. Did he want to continue and not have time or did he just simply not want to continue with school? I told him to tell me the truth... I told him that he always has and I wouldn't expect any different now.
He got really red in the face, with all the pena of his 20 years so incredibly apparent in every syllable, he told me he didn't want to continue.
I almost lost it. I looked to the floor to hide my disappointment.
I told him to think about it. I told him he has an entire week and a half to think about it before the next classes homework should be started and finished. A week and a half. I told him to talk it over with his mother again and see what she says.
I told him if he doesn't feel like he is advanced enough we can make him advanced enough. I told him I may not speak Spanish very well but Math is in English.
I poured my heart out to him.
I told him how education is incredibly important. I told him that to me education is THE most important thing in the world. I told him it’s the only way that we can better ourselves without the help of any gringo, or the help of some mayor, or the help of remittances from the United States.
I told him if it came down to it I personally would go to the milpa with him every single day from the first day he plants until the last day of aporreando so that he could spend less time in the cornfield and more time studying. I promised him. I told him I KNEW that he could graduate if he was just given the chance, that I understood his situation, that I was going to help if I could, and of all the people in this town who deserve this opportunity, it is him. I told him that maybe graduating from High School doesn’t get him anywhere new, any extra money, or Claro satellite television, but that I didn’t want him throwing this golden ticket away. I told him that if any other student from La Peña had approached me about wanting to quit, I wouldn’t take it to heart or offer to spend months in the corn field, but he is different. I told him he's been one of my best friends since the day I got here and I mean it when I say that I will do anything in the world that I can to help you, Marvin. One week, Marvin, just go home and talk to Niña Miriam and think about it…
And then he interrupted me...
'La verdad es que voy a seguir,' with a very bashful smile, eyes half closed and filled to their brims with tears. 'Cuando me habla asi, me da la fuerza a seguir.'
‘The truth is that I am going to continue. When you speak to me like that you give me the strength to continue.’
I almost cried.
I almost jumped for joy.
I didn’t know which would have been more appropriate, but I was elated. I promised him again, just in case he didn’t believe me, that I would be there every single day. I told him I still had a lot to learn, but I would learn quickly and help as much as I possibly could. I told him to tell me when we begin, that I am really excited to get myself out of the house and learn how to plant.
He looked up from his Puppy Chow, smiled, and said ‘Hey, lets go back to that swimming hole we went to last year.’
On our way out of my house he nudged me and said 'Hey, Profe Doris told me that I can become a policeman with just a High School diploma.'
The reality is that what I do every day is a far cry from saving the world. I am not providing clean water or jobs to the marginalized, ending poverty, or even doing anything that is worth the space this blog takes up on the interweb, but every once in a while, despite all of the 5.5s out of 10 and the dead trees, I get lucky and find a smile hidden behind all these doubts and failures.
So for any of you who stuck around until the end of this blog, please understand exactly what it is that I DO do without any exaggerations: I chop my yard with a machete, I dig trenches behind my house to keep the water from rushing in, I spend hours every week unclogging the 300 meters of tubes that run water to my house, and soon I will spend my time planting and harvesting corn. Let's not kid ourselves, I have not changed the world and I can safely say that I never will, but I am thinking that the next few months of planting corn with Marvin may be what I had hoped for all along.
