in the midst of a magical balsam forest

view of the saltón from below

2008-10-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

Dia de Independencia:15 de septiembre 2008

2008-09-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

the lórax by señor seuss

2008-09-06T15:55:00.000-07:00

Soccer Game Success...We tied

2008-09-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

yikes

2008-07-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

and they'll live happily ever after...

2008-07-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

If you'd like to see more photos from my sister wedding http://spinksphotos.smugmug.com/Wedding

My Buddy Jason Comes to Visit

2008-06-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

third year death anniversary celebration june 2008

2008-06-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

a fly standing on the wall

2008-05-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

El Saltón - Area Natural Protegida El Balsamar

2008-05-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

20 minute walk from my house

Latrine Mission Completed

2008-05-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

The latrine project has been successfully completed. Wednesday, April 30, 2008 the inauguration was held in the beautiful antique hacienda of the community El Balsamar. The sub director of Peace Corps El Salvador, the coordinator of partnership grants, the coordinator of projects for the NGO GAIA El Salvador, the mayor of Cuisnahuat and the beneficiaries of the latrines all attended the humble ceremony. A delicious corn drink and corn on the cob were served to all as a refreshment after the cutting of the tape.

In the end 33 latrines were built instead of the initial 30 latrines due to left over materials and funds. Everyone has started to use their latrines and so far (cross my fingers) no problems or complaints.

Due to the latrine project, we’ve had a substantial raise in participation in environmental committee activities. We’ve had outstanding attendace at all the environmental trainings and workshops. A neighboring community has started to help train in the preparation of a seed called Ojushte that is native to El Salvador and specifically to our area. The seed is highly nutritive, containing lots of vitamins and calcium and is super delicious. All people involved in the latrine project have attended the ojushte trainings.

In the begining of last year, for our first cleanup campaign we had about 23 participants. Before the latrine project we were on our 10th cleanup campaign never reaching over 105 participants. This last cleanup campaign held on Earth day, April 22 we had an overwhelming participation of 160 men, women and children. This is amazing taking that there are only 155 families accounted for in the community El Balsamar.

For me, the project has been very hard, but extremely successful and worth every single drop of sweat and penny contributed. I am super pleased with how everything has worked out. We plan to continue with house visits within the next couple of months to make sure the families are using the latrines properly and address any problems. We are looking forward to another latrine project with the help of FIAES and possibly a Rotary grant to eventually fill the need of all 155 families in El Balsamar.

Thank you so much to each and every one of you for your contribution to this beautiful project. God Bless you all with much much love

Becky and Jackie Visit

2008-05-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

married salvadorans don´t kiss

2008-04-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

secrets of the salvadoran tortilla

2008-04-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

starring: shannon wilson and diogenes aguilar

filmed by: telma sonia escalante villanueva

Latrine Progress

2008-03-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

Is that a monkey or a niño? That´s Ever Hernandez and Balmore in the background.

Miguel Aguilar, taking a little breather.

Angel Castro, Maritza Guzman and niños.

Carlos Lopez - Sope militar

Santos Guzmán, Lorena Aguilar, niños Jennifer and Cindy Guzmán Aguilar and Gabby and Andy Galdamez

Another Bad Ass Bigote

2008-03-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

Noe Eleazar Hernandez, (The man who gave me my parakeet) resting in my hammock, attempting to play my guitar with his dog Scooby and his bad ass bigote.

Musical Shirts

2008-03-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Once again my dear friend Diogenes appears in my blog. One might think that I am falling in love...

My Little Birdie

2008-03-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

I´ve got a bird. His name is Eleazar, or Elio, or Piojo. I´m not sure why I have this bird. It´s against everything I teach here in El Salvador and most things I believe in life: Caged animals, owning things, etc. But, I do love him dearly. He´s a baby right now, so all he eats is corn flour mashed up in water. I feed it to him in a spoon and he gets it all over himself, and me too. I put him on my shoulder and he goes around with me everywhere. I sing to him at night and he shuts his little eyes tiredly and falls asleep. He is learning how to talk, whistle and sing too. His bones are so tiny and fragile and after I feed him his little belly fills up and gets all squishy.

Apuráte Hombre!

2008-03-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

MMMMM Mustaches

2008-03-05T08:41:00.000-08:00

I Love My Job

2008-03-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Twenty Six Years Completed - February 22, 2008

2008-03-05T08:26:00.000-08:00

My Friend Don Beto

2008-02-25T08:56:00.000-08:00

You went up to the orange trees and I went down to the center. Found shelter just before the rain came down and I didn’t think of you anymore. But, in between I wondered what you might like. I wondered if you realize, like I do, that you have everything.

A hundred pound wrinkled angel sent to teach me lessons. Perhaps, the closest example to everything I’d like to be. I love you - purely and wholly.

I remember when I was falling in the river, slipping in the mud and laughing and you didn’t think it was funny, and when Yoli, your daughter, broke the Jocote tree branch - you were so serious. I wonder why. Everyone knows you well – a mixture of inappropriate humor and wisdom. Don Beto, You are me trapped in an old man or perhaps, I am you and that’s why we are connected this way. That’s why I have the urge to give you everything. But only for a moment, because I know it would do you no good to have things. Because I know that’s not what you want.

Thanksgiving 2007 (What Silly Things We Are Thankful For)

2008-02-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

Sat on the edge of the road: sweaty, in a white jeep, outside of a white jeep, talking to police, waiting impatiently, and waiting patiently when I could. I thought of men, a thousand of them, not wanting to live in trash or near it. The burden, the problem, the waste of the whole country, comes to teach few a lesson. And they, in turn, want everyone to see.

So they sit in the road, put stones in the way, burn tires so no one can pass. We all suffer and only few of us are able to do what is actually wanted to be done: Which is to think, to act peacefully, slowly and consciously. Some of the truckers pull out their hammocks, attach them below their big semi trucks and take naps in the sliver of shade it creates. Some go from car to car talking, bragging even, that they’ve been there since 3:00pm yesterday. We decide to go for lunch and come back because -- we can. We can take breaks. And the community waits; lights up some more tires and waits for the police to come.

They do come. They fly in with gas masks and guns in the backs of fast trucks. There are no sirens. A few silent minutes go by. Some shots are heard and I hope they were fired in the air. An ambulance comes wailing by. A helicopter swoops over to remind everyone of the war. War times- time to be afraid, time to run away; clear out. But we are all a little smarter than that. We all wait.

They finally let us pass to continue towards our Thanksgiving dinner destiny in the mountains. Thanks for letting us pass. Thank God and thank the community for: First- being brave and sacrificing their time perhaps their lives and their health for a worthy cause and Secondly- Thanks for eventually giving up (I think to myself) so that I could eat my Thanksgiving dinner, so that I wouldn’t have wasted my whole day. What a silly thing to be thankful for and God must see all the silly things we are thankful for and all the beautiful things we are unthankful for. Steadily constantly unresolved - must always be okay that not everyone can be pleased or thankful for the right things at the appropriate times.

As we drove by I saw people-dirty, tired people in the back of pickup trucks and I smelled a massive heap of trash; a landfill with tiny lamina houses surrounding. I saw it all through a tiny glass window and then it was gone. I am sorry for it all, thankful that I spent half my day waiting for the cause and sad that I spent part of it impatiently and annoyed. I imagine the quiet ones go back to their houses and cry from the smell, the helplessness, the frustration, the unfairness.

And we eventually arrive - late and tired. We clank our wine glasses and shove gravy smothered turkey in our mouths. I smell the roses that are planted around the pool. I smell the coffee with baileys Irish cream, chocolate cake and apple pie. I use the toilet. I sit on it comfortably and flush it before I wash my hands with warm, clean potable water, and walk back out to the calm chatter of the party, dimly lit. I am lucky. I am content and thankful for the dinner, the situation, how it all has resolved. And my life simply always resolves like this.

The next time I feel unthankful, frustrated and unlucky, I will try to remember and be thankful that because of this, someone else is perhaps thankful, content, feeling high– on top of the world- lucky.

So The Work Begins (God, Be With Us)

2008-02-03T08:40:00.001-08:00

January 29, 2008

Latrine project begins. Here we are unloading and dividing up all the cement blocks. More than 170 for each latrine. 2 truckloads of sand down. 2 more to go.....

Ladies and gentlemen, we are on a roll!

My Lovely Jeweler: (Career Dillema Advice)

2008-01-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

Tonight I wanted to write a song. I wanted to write a letter to the Montessori school. I thought about doing yoga, but I didn’t. I sat down to write this instead.

More thatn 20 small trees in bags sit at my doorstep waiting to be planted. They’ve been there for weeks and today I pulled 4 out, tossed them into the lawn and planted flowers in the bags in their place. A waste of a tree, I thought to myself, 4 trees. Four trees that could have been big and useful in 30 years. But, so tiny and annoying in front of my doorstep, taunting me, nagging me to plant them somewhere, it was hard for me to see their value. Hard for me to visualize, conceptualize the real livea i’d taken. But now, I ponder it, realize what I’ve done.

My point is, there are a million things to feel bad about. When we make our decisions they have their affects and consequences. Negative and positive. Today a tree died and flowes were born it its place.

But, why couldn’t I have planted the trees and used the bags to plant the flowers in afterwards? It was an issue of time really, possibitlity limited by time. Of all the things I wantd to do this evening, I could only accomplish a few. Planting the flowers would have taken much more time if i’d have had to look for a container and fill it with dirt. There were the dirt filled bags with Ujushte tree seedlings and I knew in my heart, I had not and never would make the time to find a place to plant them, knowing it would have to be far away from the hungry free range cattle and I’d have to water them daily. There are already plenty of Ujushte trees here and I actually wasn’t quite sure why 200 were donated in the first place. Besides, what’s 20 in 200?

So, we make our decisions, sometimes without thinking much and sometimes only thinking of ourselves. Tonight after thinking about my trees and flowers, guilt could driven me to search for places to plant the remaining 16 plants. Or, after weighing consequences, effort and probable outcome, it may just not be worth it for me or for anything.

This is life. We can’t feel content all the time, can’t make all of our decisions without any negative affects and we surely can’t feel bad all the time, can’t make all of our decisions driven by guilt and despair. We must see and look for the positive in what we do, what we want to do, without ignoring any consequences.

So, in the end, I sent a few of the remaing trees off with members of the environmental committee to be planted in the protected area (they will probably die), and I threw the rest into my compost worm bin. They will serve as nutrients for a future tree nursery we will begin in February.

Thoughts on Love, Life and Happiness: all the essentials

2007-12-27T16:06:00.000-08:00

Love. Am I happy?

It’s hard to explain present state. It is easy for me to think of England and explain that I was happy. Berry - happy. Childhood – happy. Although I know there were times when I felt quite miserable, they must have been mere moments. Things I figured were failures

Went for my run up to the orange trees today and I thought of failure. I thought of a quote my mom likes from a movie called unfaithful. The man says, “There are no such things as mistakes. Just things you do and things you don’t do.” Maybe the same could be said about failure. There are no such things as failures. Just things that happen and things that don’t happen. Of course I don’t know really how I feel about these statements. On most any issue I have conflicting opinions.

I’m starting too broad, I know. Why don’t I choose something smaller? More personal.

My outlook, opinions, present state on relationships. Romantic ones of course. It seems a very interesting subject for almost everyone I know or meet. Especially here: Why are you not married? Why do you not have children? How old are you again? Have you ever had a boyfriend? Etc. etc.

Firstly I’d like to admit or explain that I think romantic relationships can be beautiful. I think families can be beautiful. I think marriages without children, with adopted children, 15 children, open marriages can all be beautiful; nunnery, singlehood, orphanages all can be beautiful and very appealing to me at times. So, I should stop saying that I never want to be married or have children. It is vey much a possibility. One in a million.

Asking me if I think I will ever get married is the same as asking if I think I’ll every visit Thailand, live in Michigan, go to graduate school, etc. Sure, maybe, I’d like to someday, who knows. Maybe when I’m 80 I’ll be able to say no or never to more things. But, now, I guess I cannot know.

Asking me if I’d like to ever get married is another question. I would have to say: sure or yes even. But, next ask me if I’d like to remain single. I will give the same answer: sure, yes.

There are millions of lifestyles and in the same, millions of venues for experiencing and living Love. Every time we choose one way we give up a million other ways. That’s how life works. But, whatever paths we choose and however unfair life is, I feel like Love exists and is available. I like what Kurt Vonnegut says in his introduction to slapstick. …..”Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous….”

Here in this little part of El Salvador of all the places in the whole world, unmarried, young, in the Peace Corps – I am one of 126 in this small country, one of thousands in the world doing things similar. How do people continue to do these sorts of things if there was no love? How do I stay here when I could go anywhere else? Because I just do. And here, just like anywhere else in the world, I am happy, I make friends, I get lonely, I make people laugh, I get angry and I cry, I sit and go for runs and I love. I feel love.

So now, after a few failed romantic relationships, It isn’t at all that I’ve lost hope in love or that I fear intimacy. It isn’t that I’ve become more fearful. It is, I think, that I’ve become less fearful, less worried. One reason why I might have taken so badly any past failed romantic relationship was fear and worry, panic even, that I could never find another path of life or situation better. I foolishly believed that that one situation out of a million was and would be the best I’d ever have. But, the more I learn otherwise, the less I worry, the less I cling helplessly to things letting them define me. And this allows me, consequently, to give even more of myself, invest even more deeply my love and compassion because I realize in the end, after all, there really is nothing to lose. For instance, I know I’m leaving here in another year, but that hasn’t stopped me from attaching myself intimately to these people. Javier and Berta will be life long friends, so will Telma, Marina, Diogenes and Don Beto. I will keep in touch and I will think of them always and it will hurt when I leave, but it is worth it. And although I feel like this path, this place is the best I’ve ever had, I’m no longer so foolish as to believe that I’ll never find anything better or equal.

I think we all feel like it is best when we can make our own decisions; when we can carve out our own futures and destinies. But life, I would say thankfully, is not this way. When we are unexpectedly knocked of our planned paths, I would say that it is beautiful. It helps us to realize how adaptable we really are. Puts me into really believing evolution. Evolve. We realize that, no, the world doesn’t revolve around us but we evolve according to the world. We were not meant to change the world, (no matter what our parents tell us) the world and all species were meant to change/adapt together.

So, I’ve learned or I should say am always continuing to learn to let the world change me. It’s so much more interesting that way. We just have to learn to relax, adapt, let go of wanting to have so much control.

I’ve found here that I am a very adaptable person, physically, emotionally, spiritually, whatever. All of these things remain spinning floating around circumstance, situation (which can be chosen or can simply happen)

And I’ve found that asking someone whether they are happy seems a very empty question; cannot be applied to the overall because I am not sure that happiness is the main goal or purpose for life at all. I could be sad in the moment about something and be able to say, but overall I am happy. What does that mean though? That more than 50% of the time I feel happy? If we feel equally balanced in sadness, happiness, clarity, confusion, anger, passion, calm, peacefulness – why, then, should we sum it all up with: happy?

Like you’ve noticed in my writings, I’ve found a place to express my anger, confusion, sadness and happiness equally. The letter I wrote to the class was full of new thoughts sadness frustration perhaps, but also happiness, hidden jokes, things that made me laugh like the thought of the kids fighting over who could hold it first. Happiness for the new things they might think of and learn about waste. It made me think of that cheesy ornament I tried to hang in the townhouses to piss off my roomate. A joke.

So, simply telling you that I’m happy is hard. To tell you the truth –

I feel balanced. I feel healthy in my situation. I would not ask for a different situation. I do not want out, but also am not afraid to change, know that nothing lasts forever and everything is loaned. I surrender myself to life, to nature, and at the same time, dedicate myself whole heartedly to it, basking in all the pleasures and pains and let what will happen happen.

I could go on forever, but my wrists are going numb. I love you very much.

Letter to my Brother and a Class Full of Kids--Revised: (Correspondence Match)

2007-12-21T05:37:00.000-08:00

“Beep Beep” said the bag all decorated for a 15 year old girls birthday party; a cartoon girl with a pink puffy dress; Quinceñera; Fiesta Rosa. Large pink bow attached to the bag to match. And inside? What was inside beeping; giving itself away? Well, what more could a young pubescent Salvadoran girl want than a plastic clock lamp with a big pink plastic heart, flashing yellow light bulb behind; clear, pink, white plastic flowers, gold plastic trim?

She really didn’t have to be so embarrassed that the bag was beeping. It was no secret what was inside. (I’d been to a Fiesta Rosa before. The girl gets like 15 of those clock lamp flashy things.) She was bent over near some bushes prying open the staples that the store keeper had ever so neatly stapled into the top of the bag to keep what was inside a mystery. She was cursing him for not taking the batteries back out after testing it for them.

I was there when they picked it out. “Que bonita!,” she had said to her daughter, “Bonita, verdad,” turning to her husband. To my surprise, everyone sincerely agreed, admiring the plastic work of art. I saw the store keeper testing it out from the corner of my eye, the family ooing and awing, while I hunted for a more practical and at the same time original gift. I didn’t like anything I saw. So, I settled on a cheap photo album consoling myself with the thought, or question, that, in the law of economics, doesn’t the supply usually try to meet the demand? I mean, doesn’t the store sell what the people like; what they ask for? I concluded that it wasn’t my birthday and however unbelievable it was, I accepted that she would like the gift.

I guess I still couldn’t really accept it, because as we paid I asked Telma “ Isn’t she going to receive about 10 or those watch clock lamp thingies?” She says “Well, yes, but that’s just what you give for a Fiesta Rosa.” Fine. Whatever. What a stupid stupid custom, I stubbornly think to myself. I would rather receiver a bowl of beans or a block of salty cheese than even one of those gifts.

Then, I thought of my own culture, all the senseless spending: Precious Moment collectibles, Elvis Presley plates, stuffed animals, chandeliers, Christmas nativity decorations, diamond rings; things that serve no useful purpose but to look pretty, flashy, show off the money, maybe hold some sort of sentiment. While the plastic clock lamps seemed like McDonald toys to me, they actually are a show of senseless spending the same as any one of the items mentioned above. Because, here, they don’t come free with a meal you buy. They cost money. Maybe only $2-4, but when you make $5 a day, that’s a lot. Enough to say “Look. I bought everything I need and, hey, I had some left over.” And they really like the things; think they’re pretty; proudly display them. Sometimes people give these things to me as gifts or souvenirs for some event: wedding, birthday, funeral, 9 years dead. People are to take one and end up taking 20, shoving them in bags, under t-shirts, pushing a couple my way. I think “What am I supposed to do with it?” It’s supposed to carry some sentimental value, of course. But I hate it. I hate looking at it. I hate knowing that someone actually took some time to make it, that it is made of useful material that could have been used to make something more useful, and energy that could have been spared and used in planting a corn field or cooking a stew.

I could go on, but I choose not to. I choose only to send you an example; a “recuerdo” from a Fiesta Rosa I attended back in February. It’s been sitting in the corner of my room for about nine months now. Some people have 20 of these displayed, collected, hoarded in drawers of their houses; these or things similar, bigger with lights, buttons and sounds.

Do with it what you like. You may have the indifference to already, or someday, throw it away. You may think that it is funny. You may actually, being the youngsters that you are, like the thing. Some of you may argue over who gets to hold it first. It may sit some where as a reminder of frivolous human consumption and waste. When you see it, you may remember that everything is made of something, that nothing is “trash” even if it is not useful to us in its present form; even if we, personally, do not find it beautiful. You may think of this and choose to take it apart, recycle the recyclables and use the other parts in some project. Perhaps you may, in it, find some sentimental value, want to keep it in a drawer or on a shelf, look at it and think of a young Salvadoran girl and her special birthday party. Maybe someone will play with it at recess, write a journal topic on it and pass it on to someone else as a lesson or as a joke. Or maybe…

Oh, who know what you will do? But, at least now, spending, I’m not sure, $10-12 on shipping, gasoline it takes to get to you, card board box to put it in, the burden is no longer mine.

Enjoy Youngin´s

Shannon Nicole Wilson

Tribute to Wendy Maribel

2007-11-12T07:43:00.000-08:00

She gets into a truck. Policemen driving. policemen in the bed. Waving goodbye.

She’s thinking in Spanish of course but I’ll write it in English:

Her head is rocking, shifting from side to side as the rubber tires grind over the dirt rock road. Her mind floats along like it’s attached on a loose rubberband: open and willing but unable to fathom what night be ahead. so she listens.

Listens to the voices on the radio soft and serious staticy. Crunch of rock against rock against air filled rubber. For a minute she thinks of her brother and wonders where he ran to.

She slips inside of him for a minute and becomes a sweaty 12 year old boy running breathing hard through coffee plantations up to the other side under balsam trees, cedars, ceibas over dead leaves, sludgy mud and water streams. He rests for a minute feeling like he´s escaped from something important wonders on a tree slump. Tomorrow he will think harder of his sisters, his baby brother. His mother will come back only to run away, to lose herself. He is the last thing she wants to see. He will think of all the wet stones, the exposed tree roots his tiny bare feet, strong and boney, slapped in their fury to escape yesterday. His feet will be sore and he will go to work riding on the back of a wooden cart, wooden wheels pulled by two strong animals, a pervert, a loser, in front guiding them to the corn fields.

While he swings his machete and listens to lame jokes his mind will slip in and out of his family and his duties; into dreams and destinies. He is not angry, sad, nostalgic. He is simply working; making the movements.

Four days. Five days. A week and a half later he is waiting for them to come back for him. Wendy is waiting too.

He tells me today that he will help pick up trash tomorrow in the cleanup campaign. I want to ask him how he feels, but it seems too dangerous. So, I say”okay” and he walks off into the woods.

On Protected Areas

2007-10-21T09:47:00.001-07:00

Don’t touch what’s inside please, it’s protected. It’d be better if you didn’t even enter. But, if you must, if you are so curious, enter quietly please, so as not to disturb the natural habitat. If you’ll notice, the animals inside, the plants, all live quite happily this way. They don’t care whether you’ve come to see them or not. They’d probably prefer you didn’t and you say to yourself: What is it good for then? What purpose does this area – protected, guarded, prohibited - serve?

Because it is left alone, it grows stronger, bigger more diverse extending it’s natural elements/ gifts up and out to the rest of the whole world cleaning up the air and filling in the holes in the ozone, putting shade and water back into the ground that, on a rainy day, spills outside the area into the rest of the world, clean and full of nutrients and composted minerals. The animals multiply and sing their sweet songs filling our air with melody - something sweeter and more refreshing than smog.

And so (contrary to love songs and romantics) are our hearts. At least some should be left alone, protected. At least some should be - Able, within its own self, to be fruitful and multiply. An example of a love untouched, uncut, slashed, broken, manipulated. Left alone to grow stronger, bigger, more diverse, extending its natural elements/gifts up and out to the rest of the world for generations and generations only making itself more pure and more pure and not just for a few but for many - Its own little ecosystem, unconcerned with intruders or visitors.

But, if you must, if you are so curious, enter quietly, please, so as not to disturb the natural habitat. Don’t touch what’s inside please, it’s protected. If you’ll notice, she lives quite happily this way. She doesn’t care that you’ve come to see. She’d probably prefer you didn’t. And you say to yourself – What is it good for then? What purpose does this love: protected, guarded, prohibited serve?

And if you ask this question, you are thinking small and selfishly. You are not thinking of the rest of the world nor the hope for its future. Perhaps you are only thinking of the one tree you would like to cut down for a beautiful wooden table or the one small tiny bird that has such a beautiful song that you’d like to have it in a cage in your house so that you may listen to it all day and take care of it until it dies. Maybe it’s the tiny delicious fish that swim in my river.

If that’s what you are looking for, well, there are plenty of areas in the world that are not protected. Go, but be careful how you take, what you take, how much. Be careful how you give, too; what and how much, or it will all be gone and you will come visiting me again, desperately, perhaps, forcefully and you will destroy me. And we will all be destroyed and it will not be anything like love at all.

Muerto no.5

2007-10-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

July 8th. Raining hard. Thundering. Just changad out of wet pants into dry pajama bottoms, peed into an old gatorade bottle, tossed it out into the lawn and rinsed the bottle with down pouring gutter water. Listening to Avett Brothers: Emotionalism. Thinking of the 5th dead person since I´ve been here. I didn´t look this time either. (The rain´s dripping hard down on my things, my hiking pack, clothes. Making them all moldy mildewy.) Don Tito: Little man in a falling down house made of dirt and sticks and pieces of tin, once sold me a bunch of bananas. They said he died from tiredness of the heart. I will have to tear up the census i did 2 months ago hurriedly, outside, without a seat. Maybe tiredness of the heart is something like a heart attack. Rain jacket, knee length skirt and rainbow flip flops walking through the mud and rain, water streams. Rainbow bright. Being a kid. This time an adult. An adult where death seems so real, touchable. Don Tito, two in the morning in his bed wonder if he knew it when it came. Wonder if he was shaking or yelling because i just keep picturing that he was shaking. 75 years old. 3 in the morning i heard them next door in the office getting money to go buy a coffin. Here there´s no waiting. Time turns the body, no refrigerators, technology to preserve things, make them work around our schedules. There won´t be any taking of vacation days, first class tickets flying in last minute. Just us around his tiny rotting body. Tall candles singing praying with rosary beads singing Ave Maria Ave Maria hoping my voice would swell and rise up to heaven with the rest wishing I’d known more of the words. Looking down at my mud caked flops wondering what someone back home might think if they could see. Always birds eye view. Had three cups of coffee tonight. That´s what you do when someone dies and they give you bread and you take 2 and later ask for more. They want you to stay up all night, praying singing laughing until early next morning when everyone rides into town to bury the body because who can sleep with a dead person inthe house? So we accompany. Sat on a woven sack on a mud floor, watched people kick dogs, listened to them yelp, listened to faint prayers wafting up through hard piercing rain on a lamina roof. Drip drip. drawing attention to my moon boot rainbow flops agin, sniffing death, candles, lemons-to keep the evil spirts away, bodies, farts, coffee boiling over firewood, chicken and rice only offered to certain folks eating nervously self conciously. I thought, “Do dogs have souls, too? Do parakeets?” I thought of how foolish people are. Self absorbed. Selfish. I wondered: Do people go to hell and burn for being ignorant? Isn´t that the problem? Ignorance, which might be equivalent or at least relevant to innocence. Who of all of us here in El Balsamar is worthy of hell-eternal damnation? Is it the mother of Wendy, Maria Espinoza? Mother Maria who lets her daughter, 8 years old, wander off into woods with old men who reek of alcohol and piss, knowing she´ll bring back a dollar, maybe 2. Is it the drunken men, boys, who set their drunken father afire last summer, who sing and drink who shoot bullets in the air, take Wendy to the woods, fall in the streets and stay there forgeting to go home to their wives. Is it the descent men? Ever Hernandez, who works in the hacienda and goes home to his wife but only after he has taken Berta Gomez or Marina Mundo to the woods, women with children, husbands. Could it be me? I´m naming names, but could it be me for doing nothing, for simply passing by saying “buenos dias.” Could it be me for looking down at it all like I´m sitting on an educated cloud thinkng this is just life. Looking at it all giving up trying to trace it back figure out who´s to blame, seeing everyone as children, foolish children. Is this how God sees allof us? Even the educated ones who walk around with briefcased paperwork, those of us who do things we think are good seeking praise, and getting it. So mush that we think we are blessed putting ourselves up on those clouds and wondering just what happened to the rest of the world. And so we invent hell, a place to fear, a reason to do good, a place to put people who piss us off. We are all foolish. We either all go to hell or we don´t. That´s what i think.

Just Call Me Sally Struthers

2007-10-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

Last night I lay on the tile floor in my room on top of my sleeping bag, beneath a mosquito net with 2 candles lit beside me. I started to read a book my brother had sent me but couldn’t concentrate for thinking about the day that had passed, for thinking of a friend of mine: Diogenes. 30 years old, married, 3 beautiful children.

We are in the middle of a wood saver stove project. We’ve brought in a bricklayer from another part of the country. I’ve loaned him my bed where he sleeps in the bat filled communal house. He’s not used to life without electricity or potable water and offered to quit if the project couldn’t raise his salary slightly. So, I spent the day yesterday trying to help in anyway possible: asking families if they could budget to give a free meal, to make sure to put someone strong to help. Most families’ husbands work in another part of the country so they have paid Diogenes to help.

I thought of Diogenes hopping from house to house mixing the cement, digging the holes, wheel barreling more sand. For a minute I thought of my trip home for Christmas. I thought of me taking a hot bath or shower, lying on a couch, watching a movie, scented candles and cherry pies. I imagined Diogenes on my grandmother’s couch in clean pajamas watching a movie like my dad would with a piece of warm apple pie and ice cream on top. I felt a deep longing for Diogenes, my friend, my genuine friend who makes me laugh, worries himself for my safety and health and all I wanted was to take Diogenes home with me, give him a job and watch someone hand him $80 at the end of the day instead of $4. I wanted to teach him to drive and teach him English, take him to Elisabeth’s farm, and show him an indoor bathroom with tile floor and a flushable porcelain toilet.

My mind shifted, like it always does, to all of my other friends here: Telma, Elisa, Don Beto, Rosario, Marina, all the hope filled children in the school. How can I keep living such a divided life? Making genuine honest relationships, falling in love with all the people around me knowing that it is all something I will leave behind. But, it isn’t this that worried me. Because we all leave good things behind, that’s something I’m becoming accustomed to. What worried me is the huge difference between my two lives. How can I pretend that this isn’t all just an experience for me, a choice that I have made for myself? How, in my community, do I not always feel a little elevated with my opportunities; my future. The fact that all of the things that they want so badly I have gladly left behind, but could easily return to if I wanted.

I thought of my latrine project. Something I put together with lots of hope and ambition, perhaps a bit over my head. I sent it off and it sits on the internet. I come to the capital, send messages and it sits on the internet. This is how I communicate back home. I get back to my community, a woman with a huge container of water on her head asks me how the project is going; I can’t imagine what kind of process they might think the project is going through. Some people have no idea how the internet works, have never seen a computer.

When I worry myself about the project, when I lay awake wondering if it will really happen I realize, selfishly, that it is for me that I want the project so badly. Not that I personally want a composting latrine and not even that I think they are all that great. It is, shamefully, my reputation; my pride, that makes me worry. I cannot leave my community without leaving something physical behind. Latrine project or no latrine project I know that I will leave behind something, something indeed more valuable than any sort of physical possession, something worth more than clean pajamas and a night at the opera. It will be filling and satisfying and it will hurt, but it will be love and I will carry it with me and nothing else in the whole world will feel or be more important.

So then I think who cares about the latrine project then? If it fails then oh well? Sometimes lots of effort, time, passion is dedicated to something that just ends up being a failure and some failures are not worth dwelling too much upon. So, if it doesn’t happen, I say to myself, I just tell my community that I’m sorry; don’t worry there will be more projects in the future and I can say good bye, plan for my next adventure and I’m off. My life is that easy.

So, here I am: In the midst of possibility, time to make a huge decision. Do I simply in my mind continue to sway back and forth on the issue between: It doesn’t matter, I’ll just be patient, If it doesn’t happen, Oh well; or, do I go for it, invest it all 100%.

As I lay on the floor last night I made a huge commitment. I said to myself; “Let it be a stupid decision, let it be a selfish decision, let it be a mistake, but, I’m going for it, all the way, this project will happen, because if money is the only thing holding it back, I myself can sacrifice that much.” I’ve never been in monetary debt before, thank God, but aren’t we all in debt really? Isn’t everything loaned to us? Even our own bodies we have to leave behind in the end.

Maybe it is part of a strategy. You all know me so well and have been so willing to help me when I’ve needed it sending me candles, chocolates, incredible letters, clothes, books to read, c.d.’s, always asking if there is anything I need. But, asking for money for a project for people that you don’t know who may never fully realize or appreciate the donation or the sacrifice is tough. It’s an easy email to skip over and forget about because there are just too many causes in the world asking for plain old boring money.

So, get ready. Just call me Sally Struthers. Here goes my strange plea: Right now I ask you: If you have a little money lay it down for the cause. If you don’t have money, think of that as you sit on your porcelain toilet filled with clean drinkable water. If you know people or organizations who have money ask them to lay some down for the cause. Because the next email will be a plea to help me pay off my credit card bill, just kidding.

But, seriously guys, help me out, because I really want to make this project happen. As soon as all the money is donated, the project begins and we wanted to be able to begin in the first days of January but could begin as early as November.

Here’s the old website
(If you have problems go to peacecorps.gov and click on donors then click on donate to volunteer projects. click on Latin America and look for the composting latrine project in El Balsamar.)

https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=519-094&region=latinamerica