El Salvador. Entry Five.

I live here in what many North Americans would call economic despair, yet I’m not sure I’ve ever been so comfortable. Nights I spend watching novelas with my fifteen year old sister, or reading in the hammock as my hermanito plays chibolas (marbles) on the porch my father was building the day I arrived. 
My little sister braids my hair and comes to my work in the afternoon to lead me home by the hand so I can play. 


My mother and Diana lay in the bed next to mine before bedtime and gossip about the community scandals with me. My Papa and brother like to talk to me about stories they’ve heard, and try to scare me by handing me carapachas or telling me "Mela, Lencho is coming".

Lencho is the town crazy who dresses in a Chinese fisherman’s hat, a blue sweatshirt, and tan pants every day. Also, he does not shower. 
His father used to make him…until Lencho came at him with a machete. 



There are many stories on what happened to him: his ex wife was a witch who put a curse on him, he was bit by a rabid dog and was never the same after that, his son died and he went insane. 
All I know is that he seems pretty harmless most of the time--he talks quietly, and mostly to himself. But I try to avoid him as much as possible because he spends an unnecessary amount of time staring at me, which is why the men in my family think it’s hilarious to tell me he is coming for me. 


My family.

As time sneaks away I have more and more trouble remembering the family here isn’t actually my own. 


Don’t get me wrong, I have no romantic notions of living amongst the people here forever. 
Every person I meet here will forever have a part of my heart, but yesterday I met a Scorpion near the bucket shower I bathe in—the one hidden between two slabs of tin and a small piece of blue tarp. 
And also my hair smells like sulfur. And my fingernails are the color of the dirt the kids flop over on to nap in. 
           I

I’ve always had this fantasy of Cowboys and sprawling Montana ranches. But now I’ve seen real cowboys, and they are not Robert Redford. 
 They spit discolored things on the ground, whistle at you, and kick their dogs. 
The "ranches" are full of insects and grass that makes me sneeze. 
Remind me of this if I ever speak to you of Montana.



At present, on the right side of my body from the waist down, I have fifty-three bites from varying insects. Mostly mosquitos. I remember being little and seeing the canopies the princesses in my favorite stories had over their delicate beds. 
I remember thinking that you had to be royal to be in possession of such an extravagance. 
Now I realize that not only do you not have to be rich to sleep under the protector of Disney´s leadings ladies, but that its actually the impovershed´s version of health care.  Fifty three. If anything I missed counting a few that I could not see, so this is not an exaggeration. Neither are the vast amount of cockroaches that live in my host-family’s latrine (and my family has one of the better outhouses in the community).

This morning I stepped in a green puddle of malarial swamp water. It smelled like poop and rotten fruit. Mainly because that’s what was in it. But these things, though, piece by piece and all of them together hit me forcefully today with the message that I’ve really begun to settle in.

 If you could see the way I look you would think I am miserable here. 

Ironically, my sloppy appearance is something I revel in, because to me it serves as evidence of the unforgettable time I am having.

Almost all, literally, of the clothes I brought are ripped or stained, but from climbing trees, feeding my little brother, dropping grease while cooking, chickens getting into my things. 



My hair is snarled, but seeing the country from the back of a pick-up truck and being caught in intense tropical storms make me indifferent to that. 



I am covered in scrapes. Proof of scratched mosquito bites, jungle I’ve walked through, the barbed wire fences I’ve climbed through and over while catching rabbits or roosters or whatever has escaped that day. 



My nails are dirty with residue from things I’ve planted, playing in the street with the neighborhood kids, left over sand from trips to the beach I’ve taken with the owners of hostels or the radio team.

This country, yes, is poverty ridden and corrupt, but it is also breathtakingly beautiful. It breaks your heart in a new way every day—in only a way something you have begun to love can do.