A line from one of the songs I’ve been working on perfectly depicts the way I felt before coming down to El Salvador, “I can feel anxiety bubbling up inside of me till there’s nothing I can be, but small circles of air, I’m floating as you stare.” Ever since the car accident I felt as though my life was just a string of obstacles that had to be overcome. By the end of winter semester all of my passion to go and do was drained. I felt hollow inside. The exhilarating newness of the daily life here in El Salvador has helped to resurrect that passion as I have taken in the moments that make me feel alive, moments like: smoothly surfing the aisle of the bus as the 15 year old driver madly dodges the corner, sliding down slippery rocks, free falling off cliffs and realizing that magical places like the forest in the jungle book actually exist, spiraling in rapid flips through the massive waves of Montecristo like a sock in the laundry machine, feeling like a spectacle in a parade as swarms of men whistle / cat call me on in my run against the shoreline, Fervently teaching my English class the lyrics to “WAR! Huh, YeAh! What is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!” deciding that I would be totally ok with never eating another pupusa again in my life, watching a movie in Spanish and understanding every word, giving sponge baths to 80 year old women at the hospital, seeing life through the eyes of the girls at Cipi, taking a deep breath and saying, “Wow. I’m in Central America. Cool.”
I’ve recently been working at Hogar Del Nino, a home for the physically and mentally disabled. I’ve spent the majority of my time there painting murals on the walls, which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, there’s no better way to spend the afternoon then to paint Disney princesses in the girls room as iron and wine ( a group on my IPOD) lulls me into a methodical trance.
My eye opening experience came when I spent a couple of hours playing with the inhabitants of the hogar home. There was a woman there who latched on to me in a fierce hold. In broken speech she tried to mutter my name as she swung me from side to side. Seriously, she was STRONG. Though her behavior was not any different from any of the others, her history and reason for being there was. She was born a normal human being, growing up like any other young girl would. That all changed the day she witnessed firsthand the brutality of the civil war; she watched each one of her family members mercilessly tortured to death. Those barbaric images were too much for her. Something went off inside her mind. She has never been the same.
I made one other encounter that took my perception of challenges and slapped it in the face. I was reading “La navidad de Clifford” to a boy a couple years older than myself (I would call him a man but I have yet to conclude as to whether or not I am a woman). Like so many of the other people here in the home he tried desperately to communicate his thoughts to me. It wasn’t the language barrier that inhibited me from understanding him, because of his cerebralpalsy he could not speak. I could only assume that he was as challenged mentally as he was physically. But I was wrong. He has a perfectly normal and functioning brain. I am not the only one to have made that false assumption, for the first 18 years of his life he was looked after / dealt with as if he were severely retarded, he lived in a crib, was spoon fed and talked to like a toddler. I cannot comprehend the frustration of having your intelligence imprisoned by the deformity of your body. If I were assigned to that fate I have no doubt that I would spend my days pounding my head against the wall in angry retaliation. But when I met him that day he was grinning like a child on Christmas morning. After all those years of a devastatingly limited education he has learned one lesson that puts him above the majority of mankind, he has learned to enjoy life regardless of his circumstances.
English classes ended on a very hall mark note. On my last day my students threw me a goodbye party. One of my students wrote a letter In English about how much she and the class had gained from my teaching. This meant so much to me as I often belittle my successes by focusing on my faults. It was hard to say goodbye to my students. I’ve feel like I’ve learned so much more than I’ve taught, especially because teaching English is something that I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. I know that its cliché, but I really do just want to make a difference…and I feel that teaching English will help me to make that difference.
I’m finishing this entry with a different point of view as I’ve returned to Provo. As nice as it is to be home, taking warm showers and sleeping on a soft bed, it is weird to be back. El Salvador was my life and now it’s just something that happened to me. Though I am glad it did.
