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.