Scenes from a Mall (El Salvador, Day 3)

Thursday, July 19: Today was all about sisters. We went over to San Miguel to take Cruz to look at a truck she was considering buying -- presumably with her compañero -- but after quite a bit of looking to find the place, it turned out the man had grossly misrepresented the vehicle and we had to move on. We ended up going over to Metrocentro, the first shopping mall I've ever been to in El Salvador; I thought they were all in the capital. This was also the first time I'd ever worn shorts on one of my visits, having been cautioned all my international-traveling life about the stereotype of fat Americans in shorts, lugging their cameras and being oblivious to local standards or culture. This year I decided that it was just too hot to wear my usual jeans, and that after all, one of the few advantages of having gained so much weight is that I'd hardly be mistaken for a sex object by anyone but my loving husband!

I picked the wrong day to start, though, because although the shorts were more comfortable in terms of temperature, I felt distinctly UNcomfortable wearing them in a mall surrounded by elegant people in professional dress. To give you more of a sense of the mall, as I took few pictures there: Most stores have a glass door, with an armed guard simultaneously opening the door for you and making sure you are entering with legitimate business. They have some of the same shops and restaurants, such as Radio Shack and Wendy's, along with national companies such as SIMAN, a department store that advertises in the national newspapers and on TACA Airlines. The stores are air-conditioned, but it was so warm inside the mall that I couldn't tell whether it has no A/C or whether the doors simply are open too much of the time for the cool air to stay in.

After buying a couple of items, we called Marco's sister Angélica, said to be living in San Miguel with her boyfriend's family since dropping out of school at said boyfriend's suggestion. We and her parents were deeply disappointed by that turn of events, as she's always been the most diligent and sensible of his siblings and, having graduated from ninth grade, she was the most educated person in his whole family. For Marco's generation, a good education was largely a pipe dream; between poverty, the civil war's fierceness in the region (and related shanghai-ing of young boys that led to their parents' hiding them at home), the distance of the school in his day, and so forth, his experience of entering school at age 11 and finishing only four years before family needs caused him to drop out at 17 was pretty typical. Some of his younger siblings only finished first grade.

The youngest ones, though, grew up after the peace accords and after a school was established just a few minutes' walk up the road. They have been able to progress at a rate closer to normal, though school sessions still last only four hours and thus finishing one grade per year doesn't always happen. All the same, one by one they've dropped out: one sister due to pregnancy and nursing at 15, another sister due to eye trouble, a brother who was sent up here to work at 17 (done behind our backs, believe me). So when this one stayed in school, we rewarded that by paying for band and drill team uniforms and, eventually, a private school when the local one couldn't offer 10th grade and up. The last time we were there, in 2004, I sat her down and had a long talk about the facts of life and the importance of prioritizing education. I pointed out that while her older sister is fond of her children, she had initially wanted to stay in school and now had far fewer options due to bearing children so early in life. Angélica seemed to listen attentively and always before had followed my advice closely ...

She'd only been at the private school a couple of months when she met this young man. Somehow everything else went out the window, including consideration of the fact that he soon would leave for the U.S. and she'd be left behind. In the time we've been away, she'd grown older than I realized, and I can see how at 19, it's easy to think that "real life" is passing you by. Those who may think it's too strict of us to think that a 19-year-old shouldn't date, aren't aware that's not how it works where they live. There is no "dating." A couple are either platonic friends or novios, a word often translated "boyfriend/girlfriend" but actually tracing back to the days when friendship was followed by engagement. Novios these days typically turn into compañeros, used in this sense to mean living together as if married. (Most people don't even bother to distinguish linguistically between those who are formally married and those who simply shack up -- the latter is referred to as "getting married" by most country people in El Salvador and Guatemala.)

We got her to meet us at the mall, as Marco wasn't ready to go over to her "mother-in-law's" house and appear to sanction her impetuous decision. She shyly came over and hugged me, and I took her aside to say what I had to say (for Marco as well, whom I'd consulted beforehand). The message, greatly condensed: It hurt her parents very much that she had basically hidden herself from them and cut off contact ... probably she was doing this in order to avoid being scolded, but she should realize the criticism was earned and "suck it up." We love her and care about her, but that didn't mean we weren't angry that after all everyone had done to give her a better life and more options, she couldn't see that any man worth the trouble will still be there when she finishes school. The example she's setting for younger siblings and the nieces and nephews, who already have seen so many drop out, also came up in the conversation. Probably the hardest part for her was hearing that her brother had forbidden me even to speak her name to him because it hurt him so to think of her, and that this generous man now said he felt like he never wanted to help anyone again. By this time, I was crying as I told her how it hurt not to see her or hear from her when that's always one of the highlights of our visits -- she's been as much a little sister to me as to my husband -- and within seconds the tears were more than mutual.

Eventually we sat down and caught up a little. Turns out her companion's mother has been telling her to go back to school as well, making many of the same points I did: she has nothing to do now anyway, it would distract her in the short run as well as helping her in the long run, who knows how long this fellow will be in the States. (The mother also urged us to tell Marco's mother that she had had no idea of her son's plans and would have discouraged them had she known; she had no idea until he showed up with girlfriend in tow.) For now, she insists she will go back to school in January when the new term starts, either at her old school near her parents or at one that her "suegra" recommended in San Miguel. The next step was getting her and Marco talking. I finally told her that if she waited for him to approach her, it could be years. She didn't know what to say, and I didn't know what to tell her; after all, I said, I couldn't suggest what I'd say in her position because I could scarcely imagine making the choices she had made. After a time, she sat down and they made some awkward small talk for about half an hour.

We bought her a $5 phone card before we left, on the understanding she'd use it to call her parents. She assured us she would call before we left and try to come for a visit (not that her mother bought that when we got home and told her).

And now that I come to write this, it occurs to me to go back and look at the photos to see if there's any hint she might be pregnant, because if so, it's going to be even harder to turn back the tide ...

As Rocco shills away and another "Top Chef" wannabe flames out

Does your chewing gum lose its flavour
on the bedpost overnight?
If your mother says don't bite it,
do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils
as you heave it left and right?
Does your chewing gum lose its flavour
on the bedpost overnight?
Lonnie Donegan and His Skiffle Group, "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight)?"

Please pardon this brief interruption of our (ir)regularly scheduled blog while we have a sing-along!

This post from the blog Dishin' Dat combines so many of my favorite things: (1) music (what's the name of this blog, again?); (2) "Top Chef" recaps and blogs; and most of all, (3) witty parodies, preferably whipped up on short order [hey! cooking pun! score!]. If you follow "TC" as well -- 'cause it'll make little sense without watching the latest episode -- check out this brilliant "Top Chef" satirical episode parodying the classic Lonnie Donegan skiffle tune.

School days & a look back at the revolution (El Salvador Day 2)

We got up bright and early, thanks to roosters who decided that just because it's only 3:30 in the morning is no reason to wait to start crowing. Once we'd had our pan y café, we played a little while with the youngest of my brothers-in-law and nephews -- you can see Marco testing his weightlifting skills in the picture at right -- then went a little ways down the hill for my first visit EVER to the local school. (We normally come in December, halfway through the vacation period.) At the school, we came along just as classes broke for a mid-morning snack. I unexpectedly ran across our niece, who is now in second grade, and her teacher's pride. Couldn't get any pictures of her that day, though, as she's always been a bit camera-shy. The other kids were tickled pink to be photographed; once they saw you can look at the digital picture right away, it was hard to get a picture at all for all the kids that crowded into the frame! Eventually I ended up using the video feature because it was the only way to get a clear shot of everyone. The children were adorable, and when the bell rang for them to return to class, I practically had to chase some of them back to their teachers. In the afternoon, we headed over to Perquín for the second of our planned "tourist" stops, a visit to the Museum of the Revolution. On the way, I took a number of snaps of the political symbolism that's painted on everything that doesn't move. The last time we were in the country, the northern and eastern departments mostly had FMLN's red-and-white colors with the star logo, whereas this time around there's far more ARENA support evident than before, as well as minor parties unfamiliar to me: PCN, CD, FDR. When I see ARENA's red-white-and-blue, I can't help wondering if that choice of colors was made at the founding of the party as a tip of the hat to the country that had so copiously funded the government's counter-revolutionary attacks; by some sources, U.S. support at the height of the 1980s civil war reached $1 million per day. ARENA is the party of the president, and was founded by Roberto D'Aubuisson, who is honored even today despite being widely recognized as a leader of the death squads and most likely the one who gave the order for the murder of Archibishop Óscar Romero (according to the UN investigations). Many people I spoke with in the area either believe that ARENA stole local elections, while others argue they simply were successful in the scare tactics they used, such as warning people that electing the leftist FMLN would result in soured Salvadoran-U.S. relations that could end in their relatives' being deported, which would mean the end of the remittances on which many, especially the poorest, have come to depend. Even though I consider that a sleazy way to stay in office, I can't say that it's necessarily untrue, especially in the current U.S. climate. By the time we reached Perquín, it was pouring rain and I wasn't sure we were going to be able to make it to the museum site. Someone who rented that truck before us must have used the 4x4 on flat highway roads, because it didn't grab nearly as well as the two vehicles we had last time (first an SUV and later a pickup). After considerable driving around, we found the museum and parked across the road, which meant waiting about half an hour under a shelter for the torrents to subside. There was a little shop outside that I was hoping to check out on the way back to the vehicle, but we ended up without time because we needed to run an errand in Gotera on the way and we spent quite the long visit once inside. You aren't permitted to take any photos inside, which is understandable but frustrating, as I could never hope to capture all the information that covers the walls of the five interior rooms. I had a little orange felt-tip and a single sheet of paper, which I covered front and back with tiny writing in an attempt to reproduce as much as possible of the printed material and the layout of the displays. Later this week, I'll transcribe my notes, but for now I'll try to rough it out. The first room tells the beginning and foreshadowings of the war ... poor living conditions, particularly in the north and east, student protests that were put down brutally in 1975. One particularly moving picture shows a naked child facing off with a phalanx of armed government men with their faces obscured, large weapons over their shoulders and those big plastic shields out in front -- the picture bears the legend, "La represión sin rostro, la inocencia desnuda." (Faceless repression, naked innocence) I don't deny that such pictures are chosen to evoke specific emotions, but it's effective. On another wall was a tribute to those massacred at El Mozote in 1981, a shameful event whose cover-up and denial both by Salvadoran leaders eager to curry favor and by Reagan-administration types eager to be curried and loathe to accept that perhaps it was time to cut off funds. I doubt I will stop wondering any time before heaven how different things might have been if Carter had followed through on Romero's pleas to end the support, or if people hadn't been so eager to deny that a government we supported killed a village of some 900 people, mostly children, and labeled even babies as "subversives." (Look it up if you don't believe me.) Others have written about the surrealism of displays of ordinary machine guns, the remnants of a helicopter that carried Atlacatl Battalion co-leader Lt. Col. Monterrosa, the outer room with its reproduction of a Radio Venceremos installation, complete with cardboard egg cartons lining the walls as makeshift acoustical tile. A room midway through the inside quarters shows support posters from all over the world, many in German or Valencian, others from France, Italy, Ireland, and Mexico. Artifacts included everyday items such as shirts, bags, patches, even a calculator marked "Genovelio." A related exhibit is marked "Life in the camps," and shows medicines, first aid kits, and backpacks, together with other items arranged around the theme of the "four fronts": western, central, paracentral, and eastern. Outside the museum is a large crater, made by the dropping of a 500-pound U.S.-made bomb. A disarmed sample of just such a bomb appears in front of the crater, and the guide told us that was the smallest of the three bomb sizes used: 500, 750 and 1000 pounds.


(My husband later showed me a dry valley near his childhood home that had been a lagoon, but dried up when the government dropped two large bombs there. "How did you hear of it -- did people tell you?" "Tell me? No, I heard the bombs with my own ears.") Another display in the early rooms shows various compañeros (comrades) who were killed in the early days, including one grouping that is exclusively women. I asked one of our guides, a man in his mid-40s, if he had known any of the people pictured on the walls, and he answered that he had known and worked closely with most of them. He was in the guerrilla from age 16 to age 22. He was most informative and reflective ... toward the end, as we were standing in the room dedicated to the ceasefire and 1992 Chapultepec peace accords, I asked if there were anything he regretted or wished his superiors had done differently. His answer, after a bit of clarification on my question: "We learned that violence is not the solution. Thank God for the peace accords -- it was a rest for us, because if after 12 years of fighting, with arms, equipment, supplies, 24-hours vigilance, being ready every day and night, we still didn't win, then we never were going to."

Burned, but Blessed

A San Miguel, yo le canto la cumbia / A Santa Ana le canto la cumbia
A La Unión yo le canto la cumbia / pa' que vengan a bailar
A Sonsonate, le canto la cumbia / A Morazán, yo le canto la cumbia
A San Vicente, le canto la cumbia / San Salvador, yo te canto esta cumbia

Y decirles, bailen la cumbia, báilenla ya (2x)

Ahuachapán, yo le canto la cumbia/ A Cuscatlán yo le canto la cumbia
La Libertad, yo te canto esta cumbia / pa' que vengan a bailar
A mi Cabañas le canto la cumbia / A mi La Paz yo le canto la cumbia
Chalatenango te canto esta cumbia/ Usulután, yo te canto esta cumbia
Esta cumbia popular ...

-- Cumbia Popular, by Los Indígenas (song to El Salvador's 14 departments, on Descarga No. 6)

Nursing a baaaad sunburn from our most recent jaunt to rural El Salvador ... we went to Playa El Espino as part of our first attempts to do any "touristic" stuff on our visits, and I forgot not only my sunscreen, but also that I had just finished a course of Cipro, which increases sensitivity to light. Yikes! The good news is that I don't report back to teach until next month, so I can sit around the house and whimper. (And blog.)

Once again we managed to see all the nieces and nephews, which is always a treat; three new ones since our last visit 30 months ago, and two more on the way -- one here in the US and the other in El Salvador. One of the youngest, Mayra, age 4, came up to me and said shyly, but formally: "I'm glad that you [Ud.] came, because it's been so long since I last saw you that I wasn't sure I remembered what you look like." This from a little darling who was scarcely two the last time!

Let's see, what all did we do? Arrived 17 July on TACA, which was far less hassle than the last time we went -- a disaster in which they refused to return our trunk to us for over a week, made us drive back across the country to get it after promising repeatedly it would be delivered, insulted me for having "married the guerrilla" merely because my husband's family lives in the northeast, and refused to reimburse us our costs in any form except for a voucher to fly with a company that at that time I never intended to use again. Only because they're so much cheaper than my preferred airlines did they get us back this time around; the flight attendants are wonderful, but ground-level staff are rude and arrogant, and for whatever reason, the flights themselves had more and worse turbulence than any other jet flights I've ever made. Maybe that last part's coincidence, but it's not something I'm looking to repeat.

We went to find our Club Rent-A-Car guy, who took us to the off-site location where they now keep the vehicles. As an aside, let me highly recommend this domestic company; we found them on our 2004 trip after Avis left us high and dry, saying they didn't have the vehicle we'd reserved but could provide something else for even more money than the absurdly high rates all the companies have to charge in El Salvador (a factor of the higher risk of theft or accident). This time around Club's offer even included use of a cellphone at no extra cost, though it runs on the usual prepaid Tigo cards most phones there use, which you have to buy for yourself. Even with having to buy the cards before you can use the phone, it's still a perk US companies never have offered me, and handy if you don't want international roaming charges on your own phone.

Four hours or so were spent driving east, first on the CA-2/CA-7 highways that are in pretty decent shape, and then later on the curving mountain roads that are narrower but still paved, and finally on the off-road type terrain that was the reason we'd rented a 4x4. Around San Miguel, it started to rain -- no surprise in rainy season ("invierno") but most frustrating, as my husband had decided at the last minute that he couldn't bother going to the store for a tarp to cover the suitcases and THEREFORE it simply wasn't going to rain. Despite being rainy season. Because the world and its conditions always bow to his convenience. (Remember that I love him dearly and think he's one of the finest men on the face of the earth; it's just this really is his assumption when he wants something to be a certain way.)

At 11:30 Tuesday night, we arrived at my in-laws' house, where we were welcomed to the recently improved extra room, which now not only had finished walls to cover the adobe that was still being scraped at the last time, but even a door and window coverings that shut; even the main house still has simple openings for windows. The bedroom has further added a loveseat and dresser. They've put in a propane-fueled gas stove since we were there, though the firewood hearth is still in use, as is the outhouse, the stone outdoor sink with fish to eat the mosquitoes, and the cement shower stall behind the house, for which I need to remember to bring a new shower curtain next time. Marco settled into the newest hammock, as they now have a luxurious three stretching across the living room. This room, for no apparent reason also now sports a traditional sofa, covered in plastic to keep off the dust and presumably also the depredations of the diaperless grandchildren, four cats, three dogs, and the various remaining members of a 22-member flock of hens, roosters, and baby chicks. No ducks or pigeons roaming the house this time, and no pig in the yard this time either, though while we were there, my sister-in-law bought two goats that were temporarily lodged on the front patio just under our window, and pulling out of the front yard now involves navigating around a cow and her calf.

Now we'll lie down to rest in the large bed with its fresh linens, turning off the still solar-powered (hurrah!) overhead light, to wake up tomorrow and take you to see all the sweethearts up the hill at the school.

A loving point of light

Tu diste luz al sendero
en mi noche sin fortuna
iluminando mi cielo
como un rayito claro de luna-- "Rayito de Luna," Trio Los Panchos

(You lighted the path / in my luckless night / illuminating my sky / like a clear ray of light)

It's been ages since I wrote an entry, partly because I tend to work first from what I want to write about, then relate it to a song. But today, because it's been so long since I wrote, I'm going about it the other way, looking at my songlist and making a free association with the title or topic.

So today I'll write about the love of my life, who truly has been my own personal "rayito de luna." It's already evident that I tend toward the depressive, and I know better than to think that all there is in life is one other person. Yet it's true that my love often is the saving grace for me. Even when I'm in doubt about God or feeling sorry for my love that he has to go through something I or we are going through, the fact is that he keeps me going just by being alive and by loving me.

A terrific book that I highly recommend and that changed my life was God's Call to the Single Adult. The book has six key messages about being Christian and single, among which is "You are a complete person in Christ apart from any relationship you will ever have"; another is "Marriage is not God's ultimate will for your life" (read the book to fully unpack that one). I learned both lessons, and I still have them in my heart. But I also know that I am a better person for what I have learned from my husband, and I've avoided unwise choices at times by remembering how hurt he would be.

He is more patient than I, and knows far more about real hardship, which helps when I'm being a stereotypical "spoiled American" by complaining how long the food's taking to arrive at the restaurant ("Have you ever actually had to go hungry?", which he has) or fussing that the drugstore should have a couple of 15-minute parking places so we wouldn't have to park a few spaces farther away. I'm a better teacher for having the input of someone who only got a few years of school to develop formally his considerable intelligence. Falling in love with someone shy and working through those early months when he didn't know how to express, in either language, what he felt and thought has expanded my ways of seeing the universe. I only hope he can say he's a better person for what he's learned from me.

Seven years, eight months, and counting ...