Vamos Tod@s

I went to El Salvador last week!

I was only there for 7 full days, but my goodness, what a packed 7 days! Full of travels, thoughts, emotions, joys... et cetera

[Background: I first went to El Salvador with my brother in May 2007 when he went back to visit people he had gotten to know while studying and living there. I then returned from January-May 2009 as a student with the Casa de la Solidaridad program. I was only able to return this past week while living on a JV stipend b/c of the deal that if you successfully recruit 3 people to study there, the program will pay for a round trip ticket back.]

To begin at the beginning-

I arrived in San Salvador Saturday, February 12, and made it to the Casa's where I lived when I was studying there at around midnight (so I guess technically 2/13). And the humidity that greeted me at the airport was a welcome change from the desert, I'm pretty sure I could feel the cells in my body coming to life after being dried out in the desert for 6/7 months.

Salvador, the cab driver who works frequently for the Casa and Casa students, picked me up at the airport (after patiently waiting the 2 hours my plane was delayed). As we were driving back, through the windy night, he said, "Bienvenidas a tu El Salvador"... and I felt a little like I was coming home. It feels kind of like once he let me off, the week turned in fast forward.

I visited so many people I love, met so many wonderful people, and experienced such a cycle of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3's that it was a little overwhelming at times.

(Those days reference Annie Dillard's "Holy the Firm" and to hugely paraphrase/summarize: Day 1 is a honeymoon period, you feel alive and the world feels full of opportunity; day 2 is when you come in touch with your suffering and the suffering of those around you, your heart breaks; day 3 is when you find some reconciliation, a way to live forward in hope that acknowledges the suffering, but also all that is beyond and more than that)

I went to the beach and played in the water for hours. I stumbled over forgotten Spanish. I got a little sunburned. I went to Cedro, the marginalized community I spent time in as a student. I took cold showers. I was welcomed into the Casa houses by students studying there now. I visited my friends' home. I reflected with friends. I bused to Suchitoto and glimpsed the world some friends are living today. I attended a friend's yoga class. I ate pupusas. I ate mangos. I got covered in dry season dust. I drank a fresa y pina licuado. I engaged in conversation, silence, laughter. I was refreshed--being the presence of people I have missed so much this year, and catching up.

Some of the trip was bittersweet... especially in Cedro, recognizing that community is no longer where I am, some of the magic felt evaporated. Not only has my Spanish gotten worse (especially so at the beginning of my week before I broke into a little bit more), but I realized that after not being able to talk with people for two years, there is a gap that one night spent cannot fully overcome. And yet that day of struggling with my Spanish, with timidness, and being able to share it with a good friend, was rejuvenating in many ways.

I was also at moments, overwhelmed by all that the people I know there are doing. Overwhelmed by their strength and courage. In Spanish, the word "pena" roughly translates to a fear of being known. The closest English equivalent is "shyness", but pena says more than that. Being in El Salvador with so many people living on their edge, living fully in the face of the world, reminded me of what I decided as a student-- I want to better live and love without pena.

Though my week may have at moments felt like an emotional roller coaster, as Annie Dillard says (again, from Holy the Firm)

We do need reminding, not of what God can do, but of what he cannot do, or will not, which is to catch time in its free fall and stick a nickel’s worth of sense into our days. And we need reminding of what time can do, must only do; churn out enormity at random and beat it, with God’s blessing, into our heads: that we are created, created, sojourners in a land we did not make, a land with no meaning of itself and no meaning we can make for it alone. Who are we to demand explanations of God? (And what monsters of perfection should we be if we did not?) We forget ourselves, picnicking; we forget where we are. There is no such thing as a freak accident. “God is at home,” says Meister Eckhart, "We are in the far country."

We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all. We sleep to time’s hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of light uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it’s time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it’s time to break our necks for home.

More than anything I am grateful to have had this past week.

[Stay tuned for an entertaining photo shoot of Alicia and I trying for a Salvadoran smile (aka a straight face)]

The Month of January (in a nutshell)

Hello! It's been a while since I posted anything about my own life, so here goes:

I got my nose pierced! (I'll post a picture of that eventually)

I went to Baltimore for the alumni + seniors Bull and Oyster roast and fell in love with that city all over again; my heart felt at rest. It was an incredible weekend--by the end of just Friday my cheeks hurt because I had been smiling so much--that completely turned on its head my plans for staying in Tucson next year.

[Ginny and I before B&O]

My housemate Jen and I began doing the exercise dvd series p90x... feel free to laugh, we sure do :)

I went to California for re-orientation and really appreciated the opportunity to reflect on the year, think about the future, stare at the ocean, listen to incredible speakers [including Fr. Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries in LA!], sit in the grass, and enjoy the company of other JV's. [nb. ocean and grass are a rarity in the desert, hence my renewed love]

One "highlight" from the weekend: after Fr. Greg's talk, I went with my housemate Jeff to ask him about the line between being naive and between being jaded. His response was this (or rather my less eloquent notes on his response): People cannot take advantage of you if you give them the advantage. When people are jaded, their assumption is that people are bad. The assumption that people are good does not make you naive.

[Yes, that is Kelly on her Casa blanket with Mark's philosophy reader in her lap... January 2011... not 2009]

I decided to and did apply for a second year of JVC, hoping to be in the Baltimore/DC area (for the second round, so I won't know anything for a good bit)

I laid outside in the January sun and read many books.

I got on the waiting list for a work/trade program at a local yoga studio, so that for cleaning the studio 1 hr/week I will get 3 free classes... I'm really loving yoga :)

I layered up for Tucson's cold wave-- record breaking temperatures (as low as 8 one night!) that caused pipes to burst all over the city. Let me tell you, living in a place that is designed to keep you cool in the summer does not lend itself easily to keeping warm in the winter.

I go to El Salvador tomorrow, and... to say the least, I cannot wait!

On Wednesday, after going to Casa Mariposa for dinner and a documentary, I wrote this in my journal:

Being in such a beautiful community, the company of such incredible people, speaking with a man just released from a detention center, driving through the streets that feel like my own, thinking of the men I know sleeping in them, I was tangibly aware that my heart will be broken when I leave this place and these people. How am I so lucky to feel so much love? How am I so lucky to be given renewed hope everyday?

[Photo from my morning bike ride to work]