So… when boredom or curiosity or both have taken over me here, I’ve searched for different candidates to answer the Proust, translating as best I can. And the responses… in general, are drearily revealing.
MARIBEL (my ex- although I don’t really consider her ex-, host mom);
What is the quality you most like in a woman? -That’s she’s nice.
What is the quality you most like in a man? -That he’s nice.
What do you most value in your friends? -That they’re nice.
What is your current state of mind? -What?
What is it that you most dislike? -When people are mean.
YESICA (sister)
Which words or phrases do you most overuse? -“Who knows?”
If you could change one thing about yourself
what would it be? -Who knows?
When and where were you happiest? -I don’t know.
Who is your favorite hero of fiction? -Ummmmm, Analia? (From the telenovela ¨El Rostro de Analia” (Analia’s Face))
SULMA (other sister)
What is your most treasured possession? -My family.
What are your favorite names? -Sulma, Maribel, and Yesica. I like Laura too.
If you could change one thing about yourself
what would it be? -Ummmm. Better clothes.
What talent would you most like to have? -Moler (which is boiling and grinding corn and then molding it into tortillas, all the adult women do it here).
JOSE (dude that works construction sometimes and has been chasing me since we met. I entertained the idea for a split second… and then came to my senses…)
What is the quality you most like in a woman? -(With a suggestive look) Blonde hair and blue eyes.
What is the quality you most like in a man? -…Huh?? (I then explained that it doesn’t have to be physical) Oh… uh, that he’s cool to hang out with.
Giving this questionnaire here I think sheds light on a recurring theme that I’ve noticed during my service. I’ve written about it before, in so many words… and it certainly has its pros and cons. There undoubtedly is a more confined way of thinking here. It at times, keeps things simple, unsentimental, direct and lucid. But it often leaves you with a sense of longing.
Education here is pretty awful, that’s obvious. I mean, I am impressed that we even have a school out here with teachers who come regularly. Still, the school is in need of quite a lot of improvements, both physical: new classrooms, fixed latrines, better text books, and intangible: it’s lacking something in the curriculum… the way they teach. I suppose my site isn’t special, this is a country-wide deal. But in Los Cims, I see firsthand the limits in education, and I can easily see where the cognitive constraints come from.
One of the most common methods in teaching here is repetition…. repetition… repetition... it’s one of the most common methods to teach. In art class, they give out graph paper with a figure in the upper left corner, and the assignment is that they copy that figure exactly 9 more times using the graph to guide. In English class, they teach a new vocabulary by having the kids say the word 50 times, and then write it 50 times.. “apple, apple, apple.” When teaching both kids and adults how to read, they give them journals where they devote entire pages to one letter, repeating it hundreds of times. Education here seems to be chiefly memorization and regurgitation, which limits thinking to very rigid parameters.
Remember the world map mural I did (check out the entry entitled “Picking Up” (November) if not)? I still love that we did it, and am happy that it’s there. But its process honestly depressed me, to see how uneducated people are here about geography. They had absolutely no concept of how big the world is, how small El Salvador is, or where the United States is (which I found ironic since 30% of Salvadorans live in the US). Again, I know a lot of Americans are terrible at geography (YouTube “Americans are not stupid” and you’ll see what I mean). I remember a girl in my high school who thought that Italy was the capital of France (my dear friends, do you remember to whom I refer?). But what’s more disheartening is: they don’t care that they don’t know. There’s no real sense of discovery or exploration. I mean really Sulma, of all the talents in all the world, you’d like to know how to make tortillas?!? We put numbers on the countries that correspond to a list at its side… so you have to look up to find which country is which. When we first finished… I would excitedly quiz people: “Where’s France… where’s India…. where’s Egypt?” The list is organized by continent… but since people have no idea what a continent is… they would easily get discouraged and/or bored with searching. So… the mural’s there, something pretty to look at, but not much more.
The lack of geographical knowledge flows over into other aspects. Salvadorans call all Asian people “china” (pronounced “cheena”). We have a few Asian volunteers here, and I’m sure this drives them nuts. I remember showing my family here pictures of Danny and Casey’s wedding. “There she is, that’s my brother’s wife, Casey.” “La china?” “Oh, no. She’s actually American. Her parents are originally Korean, which is also in Asia, but is not China.” They then experienced the biggest cognitive dissonance I’ve ever witnessed… and now refer to Casey as my “brother’s woman”.
The geographic ignorance is just an example. But I feel it reveals that kind of simplicity of thinking, the quick limitations that hinder deeper understanding. There’s very little nurturing for childlike wonder, very few outlets to let a kid’s imagination run wild. Creativity is not rewarded both in and out of the classroom. Sulma’s fairly artistic. But I’ve noticed that many of her drawings are the same thing. A girl’s face…. usually a Disney princess…. memorize and regurgitate…
The rigidity of imagination here is evident at an early age, and is reinforced and re-shown in many other structures. Remember pena…. embarrassment or shame? I mean… no wonder people are so afraid to try something different or spontaneous… they’re so used to following the lines. I wish John Mayer had a Spanish album: They love to tell you stay inside the lines… but something’s better on the other side. No indeed, thinking here remains quite stuck within the box… and there’s very little thinking outside of it.
But before I get too pessimistic, I would like to acknowledge some of the advantages of the box. Let’s go back to geography. Many if not most of the people here have never been further than Gotera, which is the nearest “city” (population 8,000) at the mountain’s base. It’s where I go for shopping and for internet (from where I’m publishing this post). Virtually, their world consists of a space of about 25 miles or so… that’s it. When I tell people I’m coming back from San Salvador, I might as well say I’ve been to Timbuktu for how far it seems. Many people here realize that they’ll never have the opportunity to leave, so what’s the point of knowing what they’re missing? They may as well make the best of their lives here and be happy with that. Which, it seems, many of them are. I wouldn’t say that they’re ecstatically blissful or anything, but they do seem to be satisfied with less.
Disagree with me if you will, but, in America, I feel that there’s more of an anxiety in regards to finding satisfaction. We’re always searching for perfection. Looking for that perfect mate, asking those nagging questions: what’s the meaning of this, what’s my purpose… my passion, am I experiencing as much as I can?!? Woody Allen could never make it here... no one here would ever say: “I would never want to be part of a club that would have someone like me for a member.” The box can keep things simple. What’s important for a person is very clear. It’s no wonder that Sulma didn’t blink when she said her most treasured possession was her family. Or that Mari easily divides behavior into either nice, or mean. Or that Yesica doesn’t lay awake at nights wondering what she should change about herself to become a better person. They don’t put outrageous expectations on life: the million things I have to do before I die… countries to visit, foods to eat, films to see. Nor do they on other people. I felt implicitly accepted from the get go. I never felt that I had to prove myself before they welcomed me. Making friends here is the easiest thing, you just go over to someone’s home and bam, they’re delighted. They make the best with what they have, and don’t really long for much more. There is certainly value in that…. I see that. And yet-
Those dreams that will never be realized… that thwarting of hope. I suppose, if a person here has those high hopes, devotes their life to fulfilling them, and then doesn’t make it, they must have a pretty bleak look on life here. There are a couple of people here in pretty frustrating situations. My friend Daysi has completed high school (a rare achievement for Los Cims), and has trained skills. But they’re of no use here on this rustic mountain. There are no outlets for them to be accomplished. She would have to move to a nearby city to make use of her professional abilities, an option that she does not have the resources for right now. The school here teaches till ninth grade… but most students drop out after sixth. With fair reasoning: by sixth grade they’ve learned how to read and can start working in the fields, so what’s the point of staying in school if they’ll just be doing the same thing after they’re done? But there’s something so morose in that situation too. It’s the deterioration of hope, the killing of dreams, that they could do something better. Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
It’s May here (as I write, not as I publish), and with May has come the “winter,” the wet season. What’s nice is that it’s much cooler, and that the land here turns bright green unbelievably fast; it’s beautiful. But, of all the winter months, May is one of the wettest, which has its cons. The dirt roads turn to mud, in which trucks get stuck all the time. This past weekend the storm turned Los Cims into a murky puddle, but no danger folks, I´m fine. Traveling becomes very difficult, by truck or by foot. I am constantly dirty from the knee down… and it’s almost impossible to get your clothes to dry. Also… with the sudden surge of rain, millions of insects hatch and that means trouble. They call it “Mal Mayo” for all the sicknesses people get. I’ve gotten sick three since May 1st. There are plenty of things I’ll miss about El Salvador, but vomit and diarrhea will never make that list.
From my previous blog... here´s some pictures of Sandra at the camp I took her to.
We made fake diplomas signifying their completion of the camp... doesn´t Sandra look ecstatic!
Here she is doing a skit. You can tell by the clothes how much more modern the other chicas are.
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