Leche

Feb. 6, 2007

Hi Everyone,

All here is hot, dry and dusty, and some interesting things have happened to me in the time that's passed since my last email. Yesterday, for example, was unforgettable. I went with my host brother and landlord, Josue, to lead his cows to the stream to drink. We walked there with China (my 6 year-old best friend), taking our time, talking about how crazy Josue's ex-girlfriend was (China agreed), picking baby mangoes and guamas (a huge bean-like fruit with little white edible seeds inside) along the way. Mango season isn't until March, so now the mangoes are really bitter and taste terribly, but the people here love to eat them with a little bit of chili and salt. Anyway, we led Josue's cows (and other random cows) to water and gave them old, dry corn plants to eat, then found his two horses that were waiting for us up by the stream. We mounted the horses bareback, and took off into the Salvadoran countryside, ambling along in the stifling heat. I was shirtless, in shorts and flip-flops, loving every minute of the ride. We could see the Volcano El Chingo in the distance, and rode around in the hills overlooking the sugarcane fields. During the ride, I contemplated buying a horse myself. Apparently, one can buy a horse and saddle here for $200, and have the satisfaction of a trotting into town whenever the need to use the internet café arises. But they're a lot of work, so we'll see how far this idea takes me. At one point during the ride, Josue whipped out his cell phone and made a call, trotting along as he chatted with his friend, and I imagined his doppelganger coasting along the LA freeway, talking on a similar phone, only using a different form of transportation. See? We're really not all that different.

When we got back to the family compound, I made myself some beans and eggs, cranked up The Clash on my little iPod stereo, and ate lunch on my patio overlooking my large host mom taking a bucket shower, topless as usual. Appetizing. Before I could take more than a few bites, I heard what I thought to be the tormented, deep moans of an old man in tremendous pain. I hurried to the source of the sound, and realized that it was only my neighbor, Leche the white goat, screaming in his cage. Goats, or at least the goats we have here, sound startlingly like humans. Baby goats sound like babies crying, and old goats sound like old men screaming. This goat had somehow partially ripped off his horn, and the horn was now dangling from his head, blood dripping into his eyes. My host brother Onan came running to the scene (Leche belongs to him), and as soon as he arrived, the goat escaped from the damaged cage. Once out, Leche ran around like an angry wasp, running into my house and all around the yard before we could catch it. Once Onan wrestled the goat to the ground and got it under control with his boot on its neck, he yelled, "Benja - grab the machete! We need to cut his horn off!" I wasn't prepared for this at all, but I knew that if I did it, I could tell the story later. So I grabbed the machete (which was far too big for the job), and without hesitating, sliced off Leche´s horn from his head. The goat then proceeded to wail like an old man dying a horrific death. Blood spurted out from the horn hole in a thin stream, all over my arms and legs. The poor little guy writhed around with incredible force and escaped Onan's grasp, galloping off in every direction and squirting its bloody squirt gun everywhere it went. I now have a nice coating of goat DNA on my patio. I just stood there in my dusty yard with a bloody machete in one hand and a recently severed goat's horn in the other, watching the goat self-destruct, relishing the adrenaline of de-horning a screaming animal. Onan had to catch it again and put lime (the chemical, not the fruit) in its wound "so that it'll heal" (I have my doubts). Don't worry – they tell me that the goat will be fine. I'm now drying the goat's horn on my roof, and I hope to think up some fun way to use it in the future. Any ideas?

Onan brings me to another thought: I live in the Old Testament down here. The families are huge and they all intermarry. Everyone has goats and cows, and your net worth is still measured in those terms. It's hot and dusty, like the Promised Land. And the gender roles don't seem to have changed for the last 2,000 years. My host brothers are Samuel, Nain, Onan, and Josue (and here I am, a Benjamin). In the Bible, Onan is actually the name of the first person chastised by God for touching his privates without a good reason, the one who first "spilt his seed on the ground." I sort of want to tell him that he's named after the first documented masturbator, but I'm sure he'll come across it in one of the bible study classes that he frequents.

Aside from riding horses and tormenting Leche, I've been busy doing Peace Corps-y things too. Last week, I was asked to translate at an eye clinic put on by one of the Salvadoran NGOs specializing in rural health. They bring about 20 American doctors, nurses and technicians down to perform surgeries on cataracts, crossed eyes, and pterigions (where skin grows over the pupil), and to provide rural people with badly needed eyeglasses. I spent the days translating between patient and doctor, and even had the opportunity to spend a day in the operating room, dressed in scrubs, mask and doctor-hat. I watched as patients with only local anaesthetic had their eyes cut open and operated on, trying to translate, although in the OR the patients were mostly moaning.

We were served three meals a day and were given free beer (!) at night while we hung out with the doctors and their staff. We put in 12 hour days, but they flew by, as we were all instantly gratified by the fact that people came to the clinic unable to see, and left seeing clearly that same day, whether by glasses or surgery. I have a confession to make: I didn't bother to correct people when they called me Senor Doctor and blessed me and thanked me for restoring their vision. I just let it ride. Seriously though, the eye campaign was the most fulfilling thing I've done so far in my time here, and I hope to find more opportunities like it in the future. Plus, I got to keep my scrubs, so everyone here in El Pital thinks I went away for three days and came back a doctor, which makes me even cooler in the eyes of the two little girls who constantly adorn my patio.

I celebrated my birthday on Sunday, and I finally experienced completely genuine feelings of friendship with the people that I live with here in El Pital. Before, I was always suspicious that people liked me because of my camera, or because I would buy them tamales or pupusas, or because I can do card tricks and speak English. But on Saturday night, as I was eating pupusas with my host family in the front yard, enjoying the cool evening breeze, three teens from my youth group stopped by the house. They told me that they needed me to take some pictures of some greeting cards they had made while I was gone at the eye clinic (we're still chugging away on those cards, by the way – they look great). So I agreed, and when I got to the school, all of the lights came on, and the kids from the youth group (about 30) greeted me with a huge surprise birthday party. They had decorated the classroom, brought in a stereo system, and taken the hour-long bus ride to Chalchuapa to buy cakes and soda. I was absolutely stunned. They had done all of this without adult assistance, and it no doubt required a lot of effort and planning. I thanked them profusely, cut the cake, put on my birthday hat and tie, had cake smashed in my face (tradition here), and we all danced to cumbia, salsa, merengue and reggaeton music for hours. I even did the worm, and the crowd went wild.

So things have been different for me here after that party. I finally feel like I can let down my guard a little bit and be myself. My Spanish level has improved such that I can be funny for reasons other than my bad pronunciation. Where the frequent 2 hour visiting sessions with various families used to be painfully awkward and filled with uncomfortable silences, the time flies now, and I actually enjoy myself. Lately, I find myself just being, absorbing everything here and doing as my neighbors do. I'm resisting less, and letting the people, the culture, the weather, the way of life – everything that is El Pital – seep into me.

If you're still reading, thanks for bearing with me. I feel like I've monopolized this conversation for the last few months. I haven't been a very good listener lately. How are YOU doing? Let me know, if you have the time and inclination.

Adios,

Benjamin