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.
