28 September 2010
My Morning Walk to Centro Arte para la Paz
Most mornings I get up at about 5:15. The days I go to school, a pickup comes at 6:15 to take us to the lake. The others days, when I go to the center I leave by 5:30. Just as the light is peeking out in the sky, I begin my walk:
As the t-shirts say...
And nearly three weeks later here we are again!
So much to tell you all from these first three weeks, but I want to start with a story from this morning:
This morning, Ariel (another voluntaria here with me at the center!) were on call for the patinaje (skate park). So we pass out helmets, all the protective gear, and then watch the kids skate -- and every once in a while we are the audience to applaud cheer clap and gasp at whatever new trick has been learned. It was going to be a slow morning, only a few were signed up. However, none of those who had reservations came, instead we had 15 year old Alex (who changed his time from tomorrow to today) and 11 year old Cristian (who was supposed to come yesterday but we were closed). So these two basically had run of the park for two hours. After about an hour they got a little tired of just skating. So Cristian went to get a snack and came back and sat next to me and ate and told me a bit about his family while Alex kept skating. When he was done he subtly threw the bag behind him on the grass. "No, por fa," I told him, "necesitas buscar un basurero" "Ok, ok" he said and picked it up only two minutes later to do the same thing.
At this point Alex decided he wanted to join us and was sitting on the ground as well. And they decided they were ready to skate again, to "aprovechar" their last 30 minutes. "Ok, ok," I told them "pero primero Cristian, necesitamos buscar un basurero," Alex and I started to head inside, only to look back and find Cristian laying in the grass. "Muerto," said Alex, and went back to get the giggling yet trying so hard to lay still Cristian. Rough housing, we made it to the corridor were the trash can was when Cristian, pobrecito, collapsed again. Alex brought the trash can over, got the trash in, put it back and then fell down, muerto as well.
By this time, Ariel had joined us once again. Looking at her across the two "dead" boys I said "Ariel, sabes la unica remedia para los muertos?" She smiled, and in agreement, we each approached one of the boys and started tickling them like crazy. Cristian, whom I was tickling, started rolling. So I was walking being him, tickling him as he rolled into the rocks bordering the courtyard, where he lay laughing, laughing. After a bit, we switched and I tickled Alex and Ariel, Cristian. Alex would just lay there, hiding his face in his hands trying so hard to stay "dead' so we could keep playing. Every once in a while his body would just reverberate with all of the laughter he was keeping inside.
Meanwhile, Ariel and I were getting worried. Our "remedia" wasn't working -- they were still on the floor! So as a last resort we got out our water bottles and splashed the boys with a little bit of water. That combination seemed to work! (and perhaps the memory that only 15 minutes remained for skating) and we got up, found the keys to the bodega where we had already put away all of the equipment, and watched them skate for 10 more minutes at that point. At the end of skating time, as they were putting their "protectores" they asked if we could play again. We said we had to work, but to come back and we'd have another game.
It was so wonderful to see these boys just delight in the attention. There's something important, some crumb that is sitting right on the edge of my consciousness that I'm trying to grasp the words. Maybe it's along the lines of a memory from my childhood: the tickle games with my uncle, mom and dad. Just the uncontainable giggles that are sometimes unbearable, but with the touch, the laughter such a feeling of love and security are transmitted at the same time. An important part of my childhood, and so maybe also just an important part of childhood. I love these kids.
At any rate. Things have been going well here. We have a team of 4 (soon to be 6) volunteers. My classes at school are going well and am loving getting to know the kids there. My class "Cuentame" class with 4th and 5th graders starts next week (we'll be picking an important life event, writing about it, typing it up, illustrating it, and then binding it into a book). Living with Eva has been wonderful and we just put up a curtain on my said of the room creating more of a "room." Life, as the t-shirts say, is good!
So much to tell you all from these first three weeks, but I want to start with a story from this morning:
This morning, Ariel (another voluntaria here with me at the center!) were on call for the patinaje (skate park). So we pass out helmets, all the protective gear, and then watch the kids skate -- and every once in a while we are the audience to applaud cheer clap and gasp at whatever new trick has been learned. It was going to be a slow morning, only a few were signed up. However, none of those who had reservations came, instead we had 15 year old Alex (who changed his time from tomorrow to today) and 11 year old Cristian (who was supposed to come yesterday but we were closed). So these two basically had run of the park for two hours. After about an hour they got a little tired of just skating. So Cristian went to get a snack and came back and sat next to me and ate and told me a bit about his family while Alex kept skating. When he was done he subtly threw the bag behind him on the grass. "No, por fa," I told him, "necesitas buscar un basurero" "Ok, ok" he said and picked it up only two minutes later to do the same thing.
At this point Alex decided he wanted to join us and was sitting on the ground as well. And they decided they were ready to skate again, to "aprovechar" their last 30 minutes. "Ok, ok," I told them "pero primero Cristian, necesitamos buscar un basurero," Alex and I started to head inside, only to look back and find Cristian laying in the grass. "Muerto," said Alex, and went back to get the giggling yet trying so hard to lay still Cristian. Rough housing, we made it to the corridor were the trash can was when Cristian, pobrecito, collapsed again. Alex brought the trash can over, got the trash in, put it back and then fell down, muerto as well.
By this time, Ariel had joined us once again. Looking at her across the two "dead" boys I said "Ariel, sabes la unica remedia para los muertos?" She smiled, and in agreement, we each approached one of the boys and started tickling them like crazy. Cristian, whom I was tickling, started rolling. So I was walking being him, tickling him as he rolled into the rocks bordering the courtyard, where he lay laughing, laughing. After a bit, we switched and I tickled Alex and Ariel, Cristian. Alex would just lay there, hiding his face in his hands trying so hard to stay "dead' so we could keep playing. Every once in a while his body would just reverberate with all of the laughter he was keeping inside.
Meanwhile, Ariel and I were getting worried. Our "remedia" wasn't working -- they were still on the floor! So as a last resort we got out our water bottles and splashed the boys with a little bit of water. That combination seemed to work! (and perhaps the memory that only 15 minutes remained for skating) and we got up, found the keys to the bodega where we had already put away all of the equipment, and watched them skate for 10 more minutes at that point. At the end of skating time, as they were putting their "protectores" they asked if we could play again. We said we had to work, but to come back and we'd have another game.
It was so wonderful to see these boys just delight in the attention. There's something important, some crumb that is sitting right on the edge of my consciousness that I'm trying to grasp the words. Maybe it's along the lines of a memory from my childhood: the tickle games with my uncle, mom and dad. Just the uncontainable giggles that are sometimes unbearable, but with the touch, the laughter such a feeling of love and security are transmitted at the same time. An important part of my childhood, and so maybe also just an important part of childhood. I love these kids.
At any rate. Things have been going well here. We have a team of 4 (soon to be 6) volunteers. My classes at school are going well and am loving getting to know the kids there. My class "Cuentame" class with 4th and 5th graders starts next week (we'll be picking an important life event, writing about it, typing it up, illustrating it, and then binding it into a book). Living with Eva has been wonderful and we just put up a curtain on my said of the room creating more of a "room." Life, as the t-shirts say, is good!
10 September 2010
Tierra de las Mariposas
(The Land of Butterflies).
So. Here I am, in El Salvador, having arrived just a week ago. It's been quite the week -- I started teaching two English classes (with three more to come!) at a school across the Lake from Suchitoto. I moved in/unpacked/organized with Eva, a beautiful Salvadoran woman who also teaches at the school. I've met (and already said good bye!) to some of the other volunteers at the center. And will soon begin teaching another class at Centro Arte para la Paz. Wow -- can it really have been just a week? And at the same time: it been only a week!
I want to start by thanking you, my friends family and supporters. It is you who got me here and I cannot say enough how grateful I am. I've definitely been adapting and re-orienting this week, but feel so much at home here already, so grounded in the fact that this is what had to be.
What have I come home to? The past few days I've been thinking about my arrival and experiences here in terms of butterflies. It's very easy to think of butterflies here: they are everywhere. In fact, my first day here I took a shower with one, a small white one which held its wings open on the wall for me to admire while I washed my hair and face. They flit all around Centro Arte para la Paz, and play tag with teachers and students at the school. They keep me company on my walk between home and the Center, and from the Center back home.
The beautiful thing about butterflies, besides their glorious color and joy-giving way of flying, is that they are more than they appear. Everyone knows that a butterfly was once a caterpillar. Fat, green or brown, many legged little sluggish thing. After this, spending anywhere from a few days to months in a chrysalis and finally emerging.
El Salvador is in many way for me a butterfly. I have come just in time to see the beauty of so much work, love, care, and transformation. Two volunteers left the day after I came and spent my first day helping them finish painting their mural on one of the ramps in the skate park. --This being both the result of their work and also of Sister Peggy's in the building and construction of the skate park (which opens tomorrow!).
I am living with a beautiful Salvadoran woman named Eva who has been adding to the previously one-tiny-roomed house. It now has a beautiful tiled entrance with a fridge, stove, table and hammock! A lovely shower and toilet in it's one little building in the back, and back room behind the bedroom coming!
Suchitoto itself is beautiful, just over a lake (which has its own sad history) but is beautiful. Two days a week I take a boat with Eva and several other teachers to the school. Beyond words.
I have come home to such beautiful people, such a beautiful place. And I, too, in many ways am I butterfly right now: just finished with university and then summer camp with a non profit. Many changes and transformations have taken place over the past four years and I am so happy to be who I am, to have been so formed by the people in my life, by Georgetown. Yet, at the beginning of this new adventure, I am once again very much a caterpillar.
PS -- Here's a picture of the mural Korla (another volunteer) and I painted on Wednesday, designed by students visiting from Santa Clara University
So. Here I am, in El Salvador, having arrived just a week ago. It's been quite the week -- I started teaching two English classes (with three more to come!) at a school across the Lake from Suchitoto. I moved in/unpacked/organized with Eva, a beautiful Salvadoran woman who also teaches at the school. I've met (and already said good bye!) to some of the other volunteers at the center. And will soon begin teaching another class at Centro Arte para la Paz. Wow -- can it really have been just a week? And at the same time: it been only a week!
I want to start by thanking you, my friends family and supporters. It is you who got me here and I cannot say enough how grateful I am. I've definitely been adapting and re-orienting this week, but feel so much at home here already, so grounded in the fact that this is what had to be.
What have I come home to? The past few days I've been thinking about my arrival and experiences here in terms of butterflies. It's very easy to think of butterflies here: they are everywhere. In fact, my first day here I took a shower with one, a small white one which held its wings open on the wall for me to admire while I washed my hair and face. They flit all around Centro Arte para la Paz, and play tag with teachers and students at the school. They keep me company on my walk between home and the Center, and from the Center back home.
The beautiful thing about butterflies, besides their glorious color and joy-giving way of flying, is that they are more than they appear. Everyone knows that a butterfly was once a caterpillar. Fat, green or brown, many legged little sluggish thing. After this, spending anywhere from a few days to months in a chrysalis and finally emerging.
El Salvador is in many way for me a butterfly. I have come just in time to see the beauty of so much work, love, care, and transformation. Two volunteers left the day after I came and spent my first day helping them finish painting their mural on one of the ramps in the skate park. --This being both the result of their work and also of Sister Peggy's in the building and construction of the skate park (which opens tomorrow!).
I am living with a beautiful Salvadoran woman named Eva who has been adding to the previously one-tiny-roomed house. It now has a beautiful tiled entrance with a fridge, stove, table and hammock! A lovely shower and toilet in it's one little building in the back, and back room behind the bedroom coming!
Suchitoto itself is beautiful, just over a lake (which has its own sad history) but is beautiful. Two days a week I take a boat with Eva and several other teachers to the school. Beyond words.
I have come home to such beautiful people, such a beautiful place. And I, too, in many ways am I butterfly right now: just finished with university and then summer camp with a non profit. Many changes and transformations have taken place over the past four years and I am so happy to be who I am, to have been so formed by the people in my life, by Georgetown. Yet, at the beginning of this new adventure, I am once again very much a caterpillar.
PS -- Here's a picture of the mural Korla (another volunteer) and I painted on Wednesday, designed by students visiting from Santa Clara University
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