The warmth of presence

Well it has been a busy past couple of weeks. Although I have written a couple of reflections I have not had a chance to publish any blogs, but today I want to at least express a couple of things. It is going to be somewhat disjointed, but I hope you enjoy the following snippets.

For one, as busy as the last couple weeks have been, it has been an excellent time of growth and opportunity. We started computer and English classes two weeks ago to take advantage of the kids' vacation time. During the school year they won't have as much time to come to the Center, so almost every volunteer has either a computer class, an English class, or both. Korla for instance has computer class almost every minute of the day as far as I can tell, and also manages to lead an English conversation class. I am still giving Yoga classes twice weekly, and a few poetry students, so I have taken on biweekly English conversation and computer classes.

One of my computacion students, Rosa, has been a joy and a struggle to work with. She is only 13 years old but, as I discovered in a moment of truly horrifying reality, she is nevertheless victim to the cat-calling harassment of men two and three times her age. Well, Rosa has little confidence in her abilities as a computer student. After our third class she told me she wouldn't come anymore and vaguely indicated that it had something to do with having 'pena' (fear or shame) around the boys in the class.
I was pretty firm with her. At first the explanation for Rosa's desire to drop-out consisted only of the exclamation, "porque no!" (it's just... no!) and an embarrassed aversion of attention. I patiently insisted that we talk about whatever her predicament was in order to find out how we could make the environment feel safer. And I told her that it wasn't fair for her to drop the class since there is a whole list of students who would have taken advantage of the opportunity had it not been given to her. She was pretty disappointed I wasn't going to just let her go- at least it seemed that way to me at the time. So I asked her if she thought I was mean. She said no, and told me timidly that she'd see me next class.

Well next class came around and little miss Rosa had a present for me. She approached me shyly- actually she lured me outside the center so nobody could see the exchange- and then she gave me a stuffed, whistling gorilla wearing red sunglasses. I was touched. Rose had really appreciated my thoughtful- but firm- attention. After a conversation that must have been pretty difficult for her, and which did not convince me she was even going to come back, Rosa returned with a sincere expression of thanks.

This past weekend was full of life. Alicia's sister, cousin and friend were in town for Thanksgiving, so I visited the gang in the capital on Friday, and then we all came back to Suchitoto on Saturday. The whole weekend was fantastic. I got to play tour guide and translater, we had reflections with Alicia's praxis site in the capital, we went on a way-too-long excursion in my campo community to a river, to eat sugar cane, and to visit an indigenous cave... AND our generous visitors treated us to the nicest hotel room I have ever seen (with a fantastic view of Lake Suchitlan). Eileen, Beth, Brian, if you are readying this, I echo the words of all our Salvadoran hosts: thank you for your presence!


Yesterday Korla and I spent the morning out in El Bario picking up trash in the first-ever trash collection in El Bario. Just imagine that: it's 2010 and the funds and motivation to remove garbage from homes is just finding its way into the community. I am no expert on economy, civil war, or the contemporary climate of social progress in El Salvador, but I'd say that fact can serve as part of a powerful snapshot of where many Salvadorans stand- socially, environmentally, psychologically...

I finally received a postcard and package that my mom sent probably weeks ago. (THANK YOU MOM!). In the package was a Philadelphia Art Museum postcard with a BEAUTIFUL poem, several fancy soaps I would never buy for myself but will certainly use, and a present for my campo abuelita. This present, as I'm sure my mother intended, was the best, most life-giving part.
My mom had sent along an aquamarine pashmina scarf for Dona Carmen, thus demonstrating my mother's instinctual ability to discern (without background research as far as I can tell) just what a particular person in a particular physical and emotional space could use. And my mom enclosed a note which, much to my delight, she intended for me to translate for my abuelita.
In the note was a beautiful poem about warmth and care. It expressed gratitude to Dona Carmen for hosting me and sharing with me so much love. You should have seen abuelita... She was genuinely shocked at the gesture, which lasted only moments before she welled up with good ol' fashion Salvadoran excitement and thanks.
She threw the scarf right on with minor assistance from me, and then just kept saying, "Que chula!" (how cute!). After reading her the note from my mom she asked if I could show her a picture of my mother sometime, so instead of delaying I grabbed my family pictures from my room and showed her a couple right away. "Bien joven!" she said, "how young!".

I then asked Abuelita if she wanted to say a couple words to my mom in a video. And this is where you'll just have to witness to believe the power of abuelita's love...



Me: Decirle algunas palabras
Abuelita: hm? Y que le puedo decir alli?

Me: Es un video, usted puede decir algunas palabras para mandar a mi madre

A: Le mando miles de saludos- miles de saludos. Y que la felicito, que aqui tengo su hijo. Y es bien portado, cabal. Educado, y galan.
Me: Como usted.
A: Que la felicito digale.
...La mama verdad? es un tesoro... Y que yo estoy alegre porque aqui lo tengo. Eso. Bien bonito, va. Mire?

(my translation:)
Me: Say a few words to her
Abuelita: Hm? … How do I do that with the camera?

Me: It’s a video. You can say some words on it to send to my mother.
A: I send her my love (literally: thousands of warm greetings). And congratulations and thanks to her, for I have her son with me here. And he is well-refined. Educated and gallant.
Me: just like you…
A: Tell her that I congratulate and thank her.

A: Ahh your mother… What a treasure it is to have a mother who loves… And I’m happy because I have you here. Yes!
(admiring the scarf): how beautiful, do you see? Look?


Thank you for taking the time to share... Have a great day.