The past few weeks have been loco. Just plain crazy fun. For starters, if any of you guys happened to be at the local hospital in Santa Ana for the past couple days, you might have been surprised to see me. That’s right. Sick again. And pretty bad this time. Like every 30 minutes bad. Like mid-sentence apologize to whoever I'm with and run bad. But now when someone asks me have you ever sprinted from the middle of a soccer game into the woods, desperately snatching at every large leafy substance you see along the way, to have explosive diarrhea leaning up against a cow, I can say Yes, yes I have!
The good news is, I’m back on cipro and things are settling down again. My suggestion to you all if you do ever find yourself in this condition, is not to “gamble,” as it's known, and to suppress all urges to cough, sneeze, or even attempt a laugh. You will regret it. And so will the passengers on the bus next to you for the remaining hour of the trip.
Also, if any of you happened to be watching Hola, El Salvador yesterday morning, you might have been surprised to see a guy with a striking resemblance to me whitewater rafting with the Channel 12 news reporter. Yep, that was me in the Manchester United jersey and goofy helmet. Some guys in my community (who actually all live in East Boston) invited me for the day because their cousin owns a whitewater rafting company and resort 10 minutes from my community. I went expecting dinky rafts and a tranquil river and couldn't have been more wrong. It was amazing. I'd gone rafting on the Kennebec when I was 15, but this was infinitely better. Rafting through a canyon, watching the bats skim for bugs along the surface of the water, and having a big guy right behind me barking commands in Spanish at me was unreal. I can't wait to do it again... with you guys. Hint hint.
A side note: despite its short life, it sounds like the stache made quite an impression. Jewish pornographer. Disco king. All-around sketchy dude. Ha. You guys are pretty creative. No argument here. I actually was the one who couldn’t handle it in the end and mach 3’ed it off. Well, to be honest, I couldn’t handle how much everyone loved it. And not because I looked like Magnum PI or any of the dudes from tombstone. The other volunteers were clearly enjoying it in the bad way. I also hated that whenever I sat next to a mother and her daughter on the bus, the mom subtly clutched her daughter closer and watched me out of the corner of her eye. So the stache had to go. But don’t worry, it will return! Sort of like Indiana Jones, except I won’t be all wrinkly and apparently suck (haven’t seen it yet, just what I’ve heard).
Okay, back to what’s new. Last week, in addition to enjoying the consequences of eating delicious delicious street food, I convened a general assembly in my community. Sounds fancy pants but really it’s just an official sounding town meeting, the point of which was to share the results of the census that I’ve been doing. Long story short, a good amount of people showed up, and it turned into an hour-long discussion on what we wanted to see change in our community. We agreed to form a Health Committee (to organize health campaigns) and a Sports Committee (to organize tournaments and raise funds to repair the field). Perfect! I was stoked. I'll let you all know how it goes.
Another thing. I was telling Glen this a while back. Not sure if he even remembers. But it's this new feeling I’ve had lately now that I’m at my site. It’s weird. Kind of like every moment mattering.
Unlike our first couple months in San V, my life here isn’t with a “training family” or host community that I’m just passing through and practically never gonna see again. I’m here for good. So as a result, every conversation I have is super intense, and every activity changes my relationship with the person I'm with. It's pretty cool. Also, since my family here is my family, I try to spend as much time with them as possible and I don’t get a lot of down time to write and connect with everyone. That's the downside. Sorry. But that leads to the topic of visiting...
Okay, visiting. This is starting to come up a lot. Airfare from Boston to San Salvador is hovering between 700 and 800. Really, really pricey. But, airfare from Boston to Guatemala City a few hours away is a mere 350. Who knows why. My philosophy is who the hells cares why! Let’s take advantage of it!
The other day I was watching the new neighbors trim and mow and sweep and blow everything from the house that they just bought (all the plants my friend had so carefully planted) and the other neighbor, Carlos, stood by my fence, talking and he said he was going to Scarboro, or at least I thought he said that since I think I'm so good at understanding accents like in East Boston at the track...and then he said his brother died a few nights before. He'd just been talking to him and then his wife called in the middle of the night and said he was dead, heart attack, another brother, too, two years ago, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and i said, "Are you going to have yourself checked" after I'd said how sorry I was about this brother and so on and on and after I left him, I realized that he was going to El Salvador to take his brother's body back! to his mother...
ReplyDeleteAnd on to pooping in your pants which I did when I had terrible colitis...for two years of high school and on into those next years...and I remember most once day when I was walking along Avenue B and a guy tried to pick me up and all I could think was, "Can't he smell me?"
I didn't get to see the moustache...bet you were dashing..
are dashing...
you sound great...
much love,
old Melissa