Hi,
Wanted to note two weird coincidences:

1. Tedde, the program coordinator at CRISPAZ stopped by my community yesterday to say hi and brought books and bugspray. One of the books that she chose by chance was Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. (My roomie Sara gave me a book by June Jordan that had essays talking about Their Eyes and I have been wanting to read it but I didn´t ask for it or anything.)

So, the weird thing is that the book, taken from the CRISPAZ random people leave stuff here library, has SARA SIEBERT bought this book for... written on the inside cover. Apparently she bought the book for someone named Joyce and somehow it ended up in the CRISPAZ library and then randomly in my hands in Concepcion Batres. (For those of you that don´t know Sara Siebert she is my really good friend in Los Angeles and my roomate for like three years.)

2. The second one I have to get clearance to tell, but let me just say that it involves someone who lives in El Salvador knowing someone who now works for AFSCME at UCLA. Ooh, you want to know now don´t you. Small, small world.

So, deb update is I am still visiting projects, starting to create materials for potential interns from the states, grad students, etc. Learning alot. Marianita accidentally erased about 50 pictures from my camera which was depressing, including shots of her performing this traditional dance at a great environmental fair that OIKOS put on. Sucks, but am trying to piece together important stuff from other people and just let it go.

As time passes I am getting to know the people in my neighborhood better and learning more about what people are dealing with. Some of it I feel is better shared in private conversations, but its a great experience to be slowly becoming part of everyday life here.

I went on a day trip with my friend from OIKOS, Hector. We went to a lagoon that someday I will be able to post a picture of, and a bunch of also beautiful towns north of here up in the mountains. (Cities Allegria, Berlin and others.)

I had a profoundly insensitive moment with two of my coworkers at OIKOS, reinforcing my awareness that I am totally immature and shouldn´t be allowed to travel or try to speak other languages. My friend Hector asked me to find the lyrics online to that George Michael song that goes ¨guilty feet have got no rhythm¨ and to Lady in Red, and I thought it was so, so, so cute I started laughing hysterically and couldn´t stop. A day later I was in the field with Hector and another friend Giovanni and I asked Giovanni what music he liked. ¨Rod Stewart and Phil Collins,¨ he answered and again, I don´t know if it was like a total mental breakdown or the stress of speaking Spanish all the time but again I just became hysterical for no reason. Ok, for the reason that Phil Collins reminds me of Disney movies. I just lost it. Zero to bonehead in 2 seconds. Giovanni looked slightly crestfallen, then like puzzled and Hector shrugged and said ¨She laughed at me too.¨ I tried to apologize, saying that it was music from my childhood, that I was not a typical person, that I only listen to angry depressed folk music, etc. but I just got the like talk to the hand. I think they have forgiven me but they may just be plotting revenge of some kind.

So, what else, I have been bonding with the baby. She comes under my mosquito net now at night for a few minutes and pretends to read with me and we hang out in the hammock sometimes and pretend to play cards and call eachother pelo loco about 25,000x per day. A couple of nights ago a commercial came on TV with two people making out while rolling down a hill together. (hard to describe, picture rolling down a hill, then picture two people sucking face while doing it.) She started rolling down the floor with her creepy white haired doll like exactly replicating the commercial then jumped up to her feet like ¨aren´t I funny?¨ and she was. (Perhaps this is a potentially disturbing example of her cuteness, I apologize.)

She almost killed a baby chicken yesterday. It was horrible and hilarious at the same time. She sneaks up on them and captures the little ones. It´s so cute, she has a little strategy, pretending she´s doing something else then pouncing. Yesterday the pollito was so freaked out it wasn´t moving and she had an attack of guilt and tried to make it eat corn, like putting its mouth to the ground. finally, teary eyed she gave up and left and the pollito, realizing she was gone, walked away shaken but basically unhurt.

I have been having a great time with Reina too who is also 26 and Taty´s Mom. We go on alot of walks, etc. (oh my god this is so boring, sorry.) I am going to San Salvador on the bus this afternoon to spend the weekend in the city and attend some staff meetings for CRISPAZ. Everything is good.

Hope you are all well.
I send my love and good vibes,
deb

Today is Wednesday, June 21. Today I spent the day in the office dealing with LA stuff, jobs, grad school stuff. Details. As per usual I am freaking out about decisions but oh well.

I hope everyone is well. I am well, but extremely hot and missing my family and neices alot. I figured I should say something on the blog but am not feeling too witty.

The past two weeks I have been accompanying the guys on trips to various communities to find leaders and do evaluations of different projects. I enjoy it so much, taking the pickup into isolated communities in the mountains and having great grammatically incorrect conversations. Yesterday I went to a community called Puerto Parada that had a latrine project that is just being completed. It was one of the first times I have been in places that are that isolated, practically surrounded by blindingly green, undeveloped land. One leader was spending the day camped out by a placid lagoon fishing/farming for shrimp. The place had a strange feeling about it for me. It was beautiful and sad at the same time, isolated and completely still.

I have a rather ominous pain in my stomach today. In my mind´s eye I have vivid fantasies of little work guys in yellow hard hats carrying clipboards around organizing my bodily functions like a construction site. The little men are conscientious and sincere and they work hard. (¨nice work on that dehydration issue, Frank.¨ etc.) However, every once in awhile, Ron the foreman just can´t get his men to fall in line and frustrated throws the clipboard aside and slams his hardhat on the ground yelling profanities and storming away, temporarily giving up, overwhelmed. Thats when Deb gets dihare, diha, how the &%$" do you spell that? I give up.
I have similar fantasies about little mosquito families, though I can´t decide if they are like rabid, drooley, vampirous little beasts or more like miners with mouths to feed, moving toward the work, aka. the great white juicy sleeping beast under the mosquito net.

Anyway, my Spanish is definitely getting better (I had a whole functional conversation on the phone today) and I am getting more and more at ease with my host family. One thing I can say now for sure that is hard is that recently I have become more aware of how entrenched ideas of whiteness and beauty are (here, everywhere perhaps) and it´s heartbreaking. When I hang out with the preteen girls in my neighborhood, sometimes I am aware that they look at my clothes and my skin and on some level sometimes it hurts them because they are surrounded by ideas that white skin is prettier. (not all the time and, of course I´m not a mindreader, its just a sense.) My host sister who is 11 calls me ¨Debora Buen Rostro¨ with a sort of accusatory flourish. At first I thought it meant like Deborah the major pain in my "·/&%, but literally I guess its like Deborah good face, which I have to admit eased my mind a little.

One kid who I am really close to drew a picture of me that said pretty and a picture of her and her brother and cousin that said, the ugly ones. I felt so heartbroken. I crossed out feos and wrote in spanish, very very very very pretty. She smiled at me but I don´t know what´s in her head. A gesture like that feels so lame and insignificant but at least she knows what I think. That and I know now to be careful with her in a certain way, knowing that she has those feelings. Its so wrong, just so wrong because if you met this kid you would probably think, that kid is radiant. She´s physically gorgeous but more important she´s tough, athletic, witty, sweet, funny, all of these things. She has a sophisticated sense of humor, a beautiful smile and is really humble. What do you say? I don´t know what to say. It sucks.

I´m off. it would be nice to hear from you people.
Later homies, I send hugs and smoochies.

Deb

PS Gema if you read this can you email me? I heard a rumor that the car was giving you ---- and I wanted to ask you about it. thanks.

June 12, 2006

I have been in my new home in Concepcion Batres for a week now and things are going well. I was sick last week before coming out but it passed almost as soon as I got here which was a huge blessing.

We dropped Mariah off in her community last Tuesday and visited the literacy center and radio station where she will be interning. They did an impromptu interview with us and much to my great horror I went into the booth first. The DJ was like a one-man show, lots of energy, fast talking and I was just praying that I understood his questions. It went fine, it was a total kick actually though I´m sure I sounded like a five year old (what did you see in san salvador? Uh, churches, and the market and the UCA!!! Tell us about yourself!! Uh, my name is Deb, I´m from Iowa!! Why did you want to come to El Salvador? Uh, because its an interesting place! and pretty! etc.)

So, briefly, at the last minute my host family was changed due to an illnesss in the family and I ended up living with a family who lives very close to my office. Manuel and Marina are the parents/grandparents, Reina is their daughter, she is 26, and she has a daughter named Tatiana who is 2 and hilarious all the time. Marina II, as I call her and her brother who I think is 12 are the children of Manuel and Marina´s son who lives in North Carolina.

Their house is comparatively more comfortable than most. I have a bed and consistent electricity, fans, tv, etc. We still bathe and do our business outside, but it is a really nice environment. The family is very open and confident which allows me to just be myself. I don´t feel pressure to understand everything all the time and we are communicating well so far. At least I don´t think I have offended anyone yet. :)

Marina and I hang alot and play UNO. She´s adorable, sweet, very mature and funny. I am like her giant, white pet in a good way. About six times a day she whispers with a big smile and sparkly eyes ¨Deborah, jugamos¨ Somehow she translates between me and all the adults. We (basically the whole family and the neighborhood kids including Tati) play baseball alot and Marina II is amazing. She´ll like go for the catch against all odds of physics, her gusto totally amazes me. She just kicks ass at baseball. Recently she figured out how to cheat at UNO, so I have to watch her like a hawk. I just learned the word tramposa (like trickster, shiester) which I use to address her almost all the time now.

I have tons more to say about them but will save it for another day. I am working for OIKOS an NGO that serves a set region near El Transito and Usulutan up towards the volcano Chaparrastique. Their three main goals involve the development of active citizenship, food security and natural disaster preparedness, which is a huge issue here. Its a hybrid of urban planning and community organizing. Everyone on the staff is really charming and I´m having a great time with them. Right now I can´t do much because of my language skills. I am making presentation boards for an NGO expo/feria tomorrow with another volunteer from Belgium. My job right now is to become familiar with the communities and go from there.

I hope everyone is well. Thanks for reading. I miss all of you.

deb

5/29-5/30

Monday we had our first meeting together and we discussed our plans, expectations and anxieties regarding the program and impending life in the campo.

Most of the day was spent doing orientation stuff and at night we did a sort of reflection as a group with the whole staff. In the exercise, we split up into Salvadoreans, gringos and north americans who had lived here for a long time, and we discussed separately, then in a group what our cultural notions regarding family and community were. I think it was such a compelling subject for people that they seemed to really get into and speak even faster than usual. (perhaps this is just me.) Of what I caught, a main suggestion, of course, was the way in which Salvadorean culture largely considers a wider network of people family than in the U.S. We also discussed different ideas that young adults in the two cultures have about independence and family among other things.

Tonight with this exercise, I really struggled with and sort of accepted where my Spanish is. In the course of the discussion I was asked a simple question and I went absolutely completely blank. It was like one of those moments when your life feels like a movie. Time slows down, the camera pans around to expectant faces and my voice went completely, painfully blank. Like the nightmare of a kid about to go into a spelling bee or something, the sound of your heartbeat and/or imaginary crickets completely deafening. I am the oldest person in the SIPPIE group at 26 and today I found it hard to simply accept where I was at in terms of my ability to communicate and I just felt really angry with myself for sucking. We talked about it afterwards in our smaller group of SIPPIES and the coordinators were incredibly helpful. I remember them saying basically that sometimes the blow to the ego is a little stronger than we expect and that we have to be ¨gentle with ourselves.¨ Yeah, thats pretty much it. Amen.

So, Tuesday we visited the University de Central America, the UCA and heard a speech/talk (in English) given by Dean Brackley, a priest and professor at the University. He gave us a history of the war and the murders of the Jesuit Priests and two women staying with them in 1989. He described the murders in the context of the civil war as the ¨crime that wouldn´t go away.¨ After years of fighting, with substantial military aid from the U.S. the murders perfectly reflected the sense of impunity with which the Salvadorean military acted, helping create international pressure which ultimately contributed heavily to the peace accords in 1992. (at least this is my way simplified understanding.)

After discussing the war and the significance of the murders he also discussed the current role and philosophy of the University/church in light of today´s circumstances. At present, El Salvador is producing very little for export, and it has the most generous remittance rate of any country in the world (money being sent from relatives in the U.S.) at $1,000 per Salvadorean.
Though its poverty is not unusual the abysmal rate of social spending is.

According to Brackley, in El Salvador an estimated 2/3 of residents live in various degrees of poverty and only 1/3 of kids high school age attend, with the overall average of school years completed at 6. Part of the way in which the school and the church lives its philosophy of social justice is by providing traveling tutors to help students pass entrance exams and subsidized tuition for students for whom tuition is grossly out of reach, to ¨project the resources of the University outside the walls of campus.¨ I found this really fascinating and I kept wondering if any of the students walking by were ones who were making a journey into the city, representing their rural community, etc. and what that might be like for them.

This speech was really the first time I have been explicitly exposed to liberation theology and I just absolutely loved his approach. It wasn´t just the information he presented but the way he presented it. He was open-hearted, realistic, respectful, funny, optimistic, not heavy handed or guilting, etc. He generally described the evolution of liberation theology as a ¨church in critical dialogue with its surroundings,¨ where the ¨poor set the agenda for the church.¨ Apparently around the time of the 25th Anniversary of Romero´s death, the Pope died and the new pope, I forget his name, had publicly debunked liberation theology, or something along those lines. Brackley was inundated by reporters because he was at the UCA, the or one of the birthplaces of liberation theology, and he spoke English. He asked the reporters, ¨In your picture of the world where are the victims? Are they in the center, on the side, or not even in the frame?
When he said that the church will live or die based upon where it stands with the victims, (of ¨structural sin¨ or systematic oppression,) I thought of the current administration in the U.S. and how religious they are. I have never heard these ideas stated like that and it inspired me.

I better go to bed or at least stop speaking english.
I hope everyone is well. thanks for reading/skimming.
much love,
deb

Photos from pre-departure festivities are at debhelt.blogspot.com. Paula was helping me make this blog and it crashed but apparently those pictures were saved at this other address.

5/27- 5/28
So the night before I left I sat in bed in my room in Echo Park, sandwiched between the giant blue quilt from Guatemala that hangs on the left wall and the green mandala thing that hangs on the right wall, and thinking that the blank white wall in front of me seemed to glow with peace and possibility. I´d had my last day working at USC, and my apartment was almost completely bare and ready for its summer inhabitants. I was so excited, as coming to Latin America to participate in a program like this is something I have wanted to do since I was a little kid.

Paula came over hours before I left and helped me be brutally discerning about what to pack and to start this blog. The neighbor kids ¨helped¨ off and on all day, washing dishes and countertops with excessive amounts of soap, moving things around, actually being incredibly useful in helping me to finally get rid of the three years worth of crap I had banished to the purgatory/hell that was the trunk of my car. (For some reason giving them the clipboards, binders, random stuff etc. from organizing and school was easier than just throwing them away or giving them to the Goodwill. I cannot express how big of a triumph the car trunk thing was but I digress :). At around 9 p.m. I threw a few nagging details into a box, threw it in the closet, turned off all the lights, said a very sad goodbye to the kiddos and left for the airport.

I took the redeye from LA to San Salvador and was immediately drawn into a conversation with the man sitting next to me, me in the window seat and him in the middle seat. He told me about his family and his home in the U.S. He kept asking me in Spanish if something bad had happened to me in the U.S. and was that why I was going to El Salvador? I said no, its a program. I am a volunteer and I want to learn Spanish, etc. I didn´t want to offer too many details, nor was I able to explain further in my broken Spanish. It took me a full five minutes to realize he was wasted. He kept offering me his number for when things went wrong in El Salvador and I would need some help. Other passengers looked at me sympathetically and finally when the guy got up to go to the bathroom the angelic man in the aisle seat moved to the middle and became the new target of his chatter. After a few minutes I heard the inebriated man say to the angelic man in Spanish (I´m pretty sure he said, among other things), ¨Something really bad happened to that woman in the U.S. -and- She works for the government.¨ A couple other passengers glanced over at me, knowing full well he had asked me about 800 times why I was going to El Salvador. I shrugged and they laughed.

I got to San Salvador at 5:45 in the morning, emerging into a rather intimidating crowd of people waiting for passengers, the Sesame Street song ¨One of these things is not like the others,¨ ringing annoyingly in my head. I wandered around, getting a little angsty and finally caught the eye of a tall Salvadorean man and a young white woman in a Romero shirt, who turned out to be our wonderful coordinators Javier and Tedde. They said welcome, etc. and Javier pointed out in a very nice way that I had a huge booger in my nose (the words ¨huge¨ and ¨booger¨ were of course not used but I digress). It really was an enormous booger, and I found this pretty funny considering how my friend Paula had mocked me for packing an excessive amount of tissue and paper products, yet already in my first hour of need I was unprepared and scrounging for a napkin. Ah, la vida.

Anyway, I got my first glimpses of the country which were amazing. We drove by small towns, an area heavy with maquiladoras and mountains and in a short time we arrived in San Salvador and the CRISPAZ office. I was fascinated by everything and really enjoyed getting to know Javier and Tedde a little. The other two SIPPIES Abby and Mariah arrived later in the day and we all had pupusas together in the office to celebrate our first day of orientation.

To be continued...

Hi everyone. I have a bunch of photos to put on the blog but we haven´t been able to figure out how to get the photos into these computers. The staff are working on linking us into the CRISPAZ website. In the near future you will be able to click on my head which will have an arrow on a map of where each of us is living and which organization we are working for.

It has been a full couple of days, each one has involved about 12 hours of sightseeing and orientation. We have visited a bunch of amazing organizations, visited the Romero museum and church, visited the UCA, the Universitywhere the Jesuit priests were murdered and participated in a group at a juvenile womens´ prison among other things. Now that we are interns, we also sit in on staff meetings and are included in discussions. It was really interesting to get the overview of what the different staff members in the organization are working on and the staff is just incredibly kind and patient. I heard a wonderful speaker at the UCA who I loved. He talked about liberation theology and applied it to current issues regarding immigration and poverty in El Salvador and the U.S. Lots of stuff. I am going to write a bit on each major event when I get the photos online, but for now I just wanted to say hello.

We are still living in the office. In fact tonight we accidentally set off the security alarm, which was unbelievably loud and scared the shit out of us. I´ll be in San Salvador until Tuesday of next week, and at that point we leave for our placements in the communities. Its a nice transition. We have running water here for an hour a day, electricity and internet access, which will no longer be part of our lives after Tuesday. It has been nice to ease into the whole environment with the orientation week hearing and speaking Spanish 6-10 hours a day when soon we will be speaking all the time. I am really excited about going and meeting the family I am going to be living with. My biggest anxiety is the language, though I also live in fear of the mosquitos as I have already been devoured. My legs look like they have chicken pox. It sucks. I´m the itchiest person that has ever existed. Aside from these things though, I´m learning, I´m happy and feeling ready to go.

I hope everyone is well. I´ll be in touch soon.
Much love,
Deb