On Summer Vacation

Perhaps it's because I've been a student for almost 32 years, but summer vacation is really a state of being for me. Even when I worked at Kinko's full time, summer vacation (when i wasn't working and taking classes) was this special time. You guys know what i'm talking about...
it's that feeling when you're driving down the road on a summer's evening and you feel like rolling down your window, cranking up the radio, and driving around those back roads. But summers also, always, make me nostalgic. If it hadn't been for summer nostalgia, I would have never gotten back in touch with my friends Terri and Sandy Nutgrass. Summers make me crave to recapture my youth -- for some reason that I can't quite explain. I want to be a teenager again, for a short while, with no real responsibliities -- which wasn't even my teenage reality -- right now, I'd be happy to feel carefree and not have to worry about changing a diaper, or stopping a squabble in the back seat. I'd be happy to drive alone with the the soupy air rushing through my hair, listening to music, without a thought in my head or having to listen to some inane 5 year old chatter.

It's the same as meeting someone that you really liked in college -- and didn't that almost always happen in the summer too? And how much fun it was just to sit outside on the steps and talk about anything and everything. To get to know someone new - and learn something new about yourself at the same time. I miss that -- more so in the summer than any other time of the year. it just makes me sigh - it makes me search online for old high school people -- there aren't any college people really -- i don't know - summer is a time for memories i guess -- and i suppose that's why i try to go and do with the boys in the summer -- to fight that i wish i were younger and carefree sort of mood -- and that's why i'm writing here today - because there is no one that i really want to get in touch with - to find - to write - it never works out well -- i'm not good at keeping and maintaining friendships - as attested by the sheer minute number of people who are my friends that i don't work with - and the fact that no one struggles to keep in touch with me either - i don't know what that says about me - what that means - it's just the way it is... and summer brings it out and puts it front and center --

Protests in San Salvador

The last three days of our visit to El Salvador were marred by strife. On Wednesday, there was a ¨parade¨ in town to protest the 20 to 25 cent rate hike for bus travel. It made since to me with gas prices being so high. But I can also understand that someone with only 200 per month to spend, can´t really afford to spend 20 a week on bus travel to and from work. It´s really an unwinnable situation. Anyway… during the parade, two police officers were killed. Today, Friday, the day before we leave, there is another parade. They have closed off the main roads in San Salvador so that it is impossible to come into or to leave the city unless you´re on foot. This includes the road to the airport. Now, Eliseo is pretty calm about this whole thing, telling me it´s really no big deal .. but I don’t´really believe him. Mostly because, well, it seems to me that there are a lot of armed people walking around. Here the police officers are walking around with semi-automatic weapons --- at least i´m going to call them that. Guards are hired for the stores and protect them with the same types of rifles. And you know as well as I do that every single time there is a some protest, a reason to be angry, the crazies come out of the closet and use it as an excuse to do something well crazy. But Jose and Eliseo are out walking to buy souveniors --- I expect huge thanks for that – and to go to the office (I don´t know which one) to get Isaiah´s birth certificate for Salvadoreno citizenship (you never know if he´ll be good in soccer --- maybe he can play for the Olympics that way… though it´s doubtful that El Salvador would ever get team to the Olympics). And so, I´m here, writing to help take my mind off the danger that may be out there – wearing Jose´s wedding band because it´s too dangerous to have it on in the streets today.

Something Pretty

Last night, on my way back to Eliseo´s house from El Paisnal (where Jose´s dad lives), I tried and tried to find something about El Salvador that was truly beautiful—purely beautiful --- not marred. And try as I might, even thinking back to the entire trip, there´s not one thing that is truly beautiful in this place --- even in the most picturesque locations, if you move your eyes away from the view for a second, you will be overwhelmed with the poverty, the trash of the place. I met this girl who was visiting from Las Angeles at the beach this weekend. She told me that she couldn´t believe that I had to stay in San Salvador because it was like staying in a slum. She was staying in another town --- whose name I can not pronounce, spell or really remember. But she thought it was so beautiful. She loved the provincial towns. And she told me that she was staying with a family that had two cars --- that told me that she was staying with someone who had a little money, because no one I knew in El Salvador had two cars …. But anyway… She also said the weather was beautiful. Right then, I realized that we were seeing with two very different sets of eyes. First, if the weather was anything but hot --- well she was crazy. But I suppose summers in LA are a bit different than the cool June we had in Kentucky. And I would imagine that living in LA is much different than rural Kentucky --- but I thought about what she said, and I just couldn’t, can’t find the beauty. In the back of the truck (my travelling location for the past two weeks), I´d look up at the volcanoes and mountains that surround the city and think, man they are so pretty … but then i´d lower my eyes and see the road side shack made from corrugated metal that looked as if it has been recovered from a tornado, and shake my head and feel – I don´t know, pity, sad --- I don´t know if Elijah sees the same that I do --- I hope not --- but it seems to me that life in general is so difficult. Cristabel is a teacher here, she makes 400 a month – 200 of which goes to a loan payment (she´s building a retirement house) – so that leaves 200 a month to live on for a family of 3. I can´t imagine it --- no one seems too unhappy, even the beggars are relatively polite. They might ask once or twice for money, but seem to be quite used to refusal and don´t make it a big issue – they aren´t aggressive, just hopeful. And of course, no one else seems to have any money to give them anyway … so what´s the point. But, I can´t say that anyone is unhappy. Not the same as saying there is a jolly group of people who are blissfully unaware of how difficult their life is --- but then I can only speak for Jose´s family – and you must remember that my Spanish is really quite limited.

A Prisoner in la Casa

It would appear that the protective instincts that Jose fails to show when he is at home, really come to the front when we are in El Salvador. Except to me, it doesn´t seem to be protective, but rather a belief in my general incompetence to cope with any hardship. Unlike rural Kentucky, most of the transportation in El Salvador is done by bus. With regular gas prices at 3.73, diesel at 2.73 and a bus ride across town .25 …well travelling by bus makes sense. However, Jose feels that travelling by bus would be too much of a hardship for me. So he told his entire family that I wouldn´t want to travel by bus. And he tells me that it´s too dangerous. If by dangerous he means that I may be asphyxiated by the fumes of the diesel engines that run amok among the streets in el Salvador, well then maybe. Or perhaps he means that there might be an accident … and after being on the bus when the driver decided that he didn´t want to wait in traffic and decided to back up …. Yes I said back up a big school bus sized vehicle in the middle of a busy street during a busy time of day …. Well.. I can believe that too. I´m quite sure that no where in America would a bus decide to back up in main street and get away with it. So on the days when Jose wanted to go out with Eliseo, I was essentially a prisoner of the house. Which, if you know me, isn´t anything too bad … as long as I had a fan and a book. But then there was Isaiah, who wanted someone to entertain him, or wanted someone to keep him from eating something rotten from the floor, or to keep him from falling from the 2nd story floor … quite selfish of him, I know … did he not realize that this was my vacation … I think not.

Luckily, Cristabel, my sister in law, decided one night to take me to the Plaza de Mundo. So she grabbed up Isaiah, and we walked up to the bus station, got on the bus, and were there in just a few minutes. The Plaza de Mundo is essentially a mall … nothing too extravagant. It has the hint of air conditioning, but nothing that really satisfies you desire to be cold. But thank god that Cristabel broke the bus barrier, because the next day, Jose, Elijah, Eliseo, Isaiah and I all took the bus to the souvenior shop … which is a whole different entry … Although Jose would look at me and say, we´re going to have to walk a few blocks. Which made me grumpy … but I suppose to be fair, he knows that I´m not much of a walker, despite my maiden name, and would most likely complain …