Uncertainty

Uncertainty. Doubting our choices. Not knowing our choices. Confusion.

Life sometimes hands us a decision, fates align and all is natural, organic and well. Those times are zen. 

They are trust in self and situation. They are truth and positivity and light. Knowledge in the utter rightness of the choices we make leave us with a sense of diligence and integrity in our path.

And then..

Nothing lines up. Stagnation takes over. Things seem all wrong, all of the time. Nothing feels concrete. The stars do not always ordain our futures. We stumble. We search. We reach in the dark, feeling this and that, cold unrelenting surfaces with nothing extraordinary to guide us to commitment. It is normalcy. Mundane.

Doubt surfaces, unappealing in every possible way. Can we agree, buckle down, carry on, with no real path?

Divinity has scarred us. So many big events have left us with the expectation of manifest destiny. How will we carry on without it?  

Without a firm knowledge that our choices are written in the stars, how can we, in good faith to ourselves and our futures, sort through beguiling circumstances and underwhelming options?

Choices are just not of now. We live with them. Can we trust our innate and nurtured selves to impart discretion and wisdom fully and starkly?

Supposedly people do it all of the time. They believe in deduction and convince themselves of righteousness. They find those surfaces in the dark and feel every nook, notch, bump, dent, imperfection and blemish. They piece together routes, alternatives and excitement. They emerge from the quest tried, confident, final and fixed. They choose. Those people puzzle. They worry. They choose.  

I don’t buy it. I’d like my simple and true. I’d like tried, confident, final and fixed through the fates aligning. I’d like natural, organic and well.

I’d like no uncertainty.

Feeling Pretty

How I learned to feel pretty being me:

I accepted me. This is my body. This is who I am. I can change it, but it takes time and work and discipline. I can change it, but not NOW. I have to feel pretty being me for now, until changes happen. Until I can feel even prettier. At this minute, I know I am pretty. When I lose those 45-75 extra pounds I carry proudly, I will still know I am pretty.

I invested money on me. I went shopping. I bought clothes that make me feel pretty. They fit me well. I went to shops that carry clothes in the right size; I am not ashamed to be plus sized. I went to many different shops. I didn't settle on clothes.

I went to the salon. I got THE hair cut. I feel good about my hair.  

I decided to listen. People have told me before that I was pretty or sexy or beautiful. Did I listen? Nooooo. I chose to think they were just being overly polite. I chose to think they were lying. I chose wrong. Now, I choose to believe that I am what they tell me. I choose to listen when people compliment me. I made the choice to listen. Oh my, it was a good choice.   

These are the things I did so that I feel pretty.

Hope

Hollow. Empty. Gaping. Incomplete. Needy. Gasping. Shallow. Unwhole. Unwise. Unreal.

I feel like words can’t quite put together what I am.

I look around and see not a soul save the hundreds.

I look inside and see not a soul, save me.

I touch myself and feel only cold fingers on colder skin.

Staring faces of clocks pass time slowly and quickly and wrong.

Legs of tables and chairs support me, hold me up to my fate.

The gazing of the lazy lamp illuminates empty space.

Empty faces.

None of them hold true to destiny, to the plan.

Weight pressing me onto the earth, never letting me up.

Hope rising and falling again with every breath, hope abused. Hope tarnished.

But still hope.

What I have found here...

I am sitting in the airport, hours early. I want to see home and conifers and familiar things. I want to smell rich, wet, black dirt and inhale green, the green that I know. I want to feel the hands and embrace those I have spent years loving, not months. I want to be in that place where what I know to be true is true.

Here is palm trees and bright flowers and fruit on the air. It isn't bad, just unfamiliar, just different, just not what I know. Here isn’t home. In this place, people say good day to whomever they pass. They say hello and goodbye when they know you on the street. Here they love to hear you try to speak to them, even if you aren’t proficient.

But, here guards arm buildings and stop public busses with machine guns and skepticism. Here, the people are weary and tired and hard working. Here there are groups of young men who protect one another and kill groups of other young men, also protecting one another. . Here a man with a gun will take your camera and take your wallet and take the pictures of your family, If you ask really nicely you may get back your memory, or you may be made a memory.

Here, I don’t walk alone after dark because I know that being safe is not being independent. Here I am careful. Here fireworks make me cower under my covers or huddle on the floor.

This place isn’t an ugly place, nor a dangerous place, not anymore so than parts of home. This place simply isn’t what I know. It just isn’t the culture that I grew up in, where I learned what ‘safe’ and ‘normal’ and ‘live’ mean. It is a pace that was unknown, but now isn’t. A place that I have come to know, and love. This is a place where I have come to know that things I know are true, are not. Where things I know have different truths. A place where I have come to know that there are a kaleidoscope of truths. This is a place where I have come to find truth, have found it, and now I am going home to my truths. Maybe one day I will come and live among these again. Pronto nos sabemos, porque la vida es ir y venir.

Confessions of a Gringa!

Next

I was in theatre class, doing warm up exercises with the children (ten 9-12 year olds). I tried to ask who wanted to be next.

Me: Quien quieres …. ummm next?

Internal thoughts: Dang it all, what is the word for next?

Cesar (a 10 year old): Nexto?

Me: Si? Nexto es correcto?

Cesar: Si, si, si.

Me: Quien quieres nexto?

In the next class…

Josue: Podemos jugar nexto?

Internal thoughts: What does he want to play next?

Me: Como?

Josue begins to mime the beginning of the exercises from the previous class.

After class, I plug ‘next’ into google translate: proximo. I knew that! I plug in ‘nexto’ : nothing.

For the rest of class, warm ups have been known as ‘Nexto’. I successfully named a knew game. When I asked who wanted to be 'nexto' they took it as a title, not as a position in the chronological exercise.

The Bee

Charlotte and I are walking down the street, she drops her water bottle, it hits her elbow and lands dangerous close to a pedestrian walking parallel to us on the street.

Woman stares at Charlotte and I as if to say: Why did you just try to hit me with a water bottle, and a full one at that?

Charolette (in English): Oh, sorry!

Me: Lo siento!

Woman continues to stare:…

Charlotte stares at me, as if she expects me to explain.

Me: Hay un conejo.

Woman stares with a renewed ferver…

Internal thoughts: That is pretty straightforward ‘there is a bee...’ Ahhhh! I said rabbit!

Me: Abeja! Hay un abeja! Lo siento!

Woman nods and continues walking.

Was there a bee? Absolutely. Somewhere in the general vicinity... I am sure... Did it have anything to do with Charlotte basically throwing her water bottle at this woman? No. Not in the slightest. I just thought "Se cayo'" didn't explain the strength of her spastic-ness.

She’s Gotta Go

During a language lesson with Krissia

Krissia: Puedo ir al bano?

Me: No

Internal Thoughts: Do I look like I need to go, I mean I am a bit fidgety, but that isn’t new. She should be used to it… Is she trying to see if I physically can? What a strange question…

Krissia (confused): No?

Internal thoughts: There is no way I can screw that up… I learned it in high school… Puedo=can I, ir=go, al =the, bano=bathroom. Super straight forward….

Krissia: Pero, yo necesito…

Me: Oh! Si, SI, SI. Puedes!

She was asking me if she could go.

**Honorable Mention**

This is a wonderful faux pas from my dear friend Christy!

Get Knekked

Christy was teaching a class in a little town called El Sitio. She was showing the kinder class how to play human knots. All of the children were sufficiently knotted, holding hands with other children in a sufficiently complicated manner, ready to untangle themselves. She simply had to tell them to do so.

Christy: Ahora, vamos a desnudarnos.

Women cooking within hearing distance: Hehehe

Children stare and shuffle feet.

Christy’s Thoughts: des=un, nudar= knot…. Now, let's untie ourselves, oops, no definitely means get undressed! ...but her brain was stuck, and she said it again

Christy: Ahora, vamos a desnudarnos...

Women cooking within hearing distance: Hehehe... hehehe.. he

Children stare and shuffle feet some more.

Christy repeats, no less than 4 times: Ahora, vamos a desnudarnos...

Finally, the synopsis clicked and the right words came

Christy: Ahora, vamos a deshacer el nudo

...but she had asked a group of kinders to undress, no less than 5 times.

And many more... These are just a few of my favorites...

Things on my mind....

Slowly… very slowly… I am beginning to understand. This culture is altogether different. All together something I was not raised to understand. People here look you in the eye. They say good morning when they pass you on the street. Everyone says hola. Platitudes are prevalent. Even an offhanded invitation should be accepted. If you have an engagement but receive another invitation, you ditch the first and go with the most recent.

The poverty here is also something entirely different.

Sticks, sheet metal and corrugated board equal a house.

A child doesn’t go to school today because she doesn’t have glasses and cannot see the letters in the book.

An interesting piece of cultural news: this is a nation of 9 million people. 3 million of them live abroad. The biggest city in El Salvador is Los Angeles.

There are more cell phones in El Salvador than there are people.

The average wage in El Salvador is $154 a month. I can make that in 20 hours in the states, at minimum wage. Less than three days.

People are still afraid here. There civil war ended 30 years ago. People who experienced utter and complete violence are parents of this generation. People who had their rights infringed upon, who had no semblance of social justice in their lives, who lived in fear… They had to wonder who would be gone tomorrow, who would be found murdered next, looking for the Dark Mark over their homes next.

The United States funded the government, supplied arms and ammunition and missiles and bombs. All to terrorize a people who wanted food and water and medical care. Under the Reagan Administration, under the threat of communism, our government gave the label of terrorist to those fighting for sustenance.

Now, after peace accords have been signed for three decades, solidarity is still a common word, a common goal. How often do you use that word in the United States? Our meritocracy doesn’t allow for it.

How do you feel about all of that?

It gets better. No one blames the people of the United States. No one says that I helped to fund their war, or my parents helped. No one argues that I should be dishonored because of the American heritage.

How much better are they than we, then, those of us in the United States who judge every person of Middle Eastern descent, because of September eleventh.

Teatro! Day 1 !

I taught my first class in theatre yesterday… all on my own. It was scary, while at the same time, liberating. I molded my curriculum after Boal’s theatre of the oppressed, allowing the participants to guide what was happening on stage. This lasted for about 5 minutes, until I realized that I did not have enough language skill, no did these children know anything about theatre. I think that I was being a little too optimistic.

So, while still thinking of Boal, I taped some tongue twisters to the board and had each of my 8 rowdy 6-12 year olds read one, in a dramatic way (at least they could interpret it how they wanted to). I must admit that they were hilarious. One boy decided to sing the twister about chickens as if he were singing a hym. A little girl fell to her knees and almost cried about her mother spoiling her. Another boy, with a lot of potential, was an alien reciting a twister that is something similar to “if I can, I can, if you can, you can.” All in all, I laughed way too much.

Another anstonishing point to all of this, is that I had more boys than girls! How often does that happen in the USA? It was fantastic! They were pretty crazy a lot of the time, and a few of the more clam games I had planned were pushed aside for more communal, dramatic games. GO SOCIAL WORK FLEXABILITY. I think that those children went away with a sense of empowerment and a sense of self-expression, now I just hope they all come back on Thursday!