Like this:

(written from my training village in central Salvador, on the slopes of the San Vicente Volcano)

I watched la Niña Esthela split the neck of a chicken two days ago.

With her gold-rimmed smile flashing sweetly in the sun, la Esthela hauled the miss upside-down, knotted a rope around her ankle, twisted her head 720˚ clockwise, and finished her with a jerk and shy grin.  The chicken went crazy, of course, tearing loose from the line and sputtering across the patio until Niña Esthela thrust her underarm and roped her ankle again.  Still, she thrashed on for another 10 seconds, spasming against the wooden post, convulsing back into the air, flapping like a wino.  Donkey drunk on her own death.

Later, when la Niña Esthela had soaked and denuded the bird and was fisting out her innards, she found an egg inside.  There was a yolk floating in my sopa de pollo at lunch that day — the freshest I’ve ever eaten.

It’s now 4:30am as I scribble these words and the chicken’s bloodbrothers — still very much alive — have been announcing themselves for over an hour.  They quickly stir awake the neighborhood dogs, who quickly stir me from my sheets.  In forty minutes the Catholic mass bells will begin to pound; in fifty-five minutes the doves will start to coo.  By 5:50 other birds will be chiming in, and around 6:15am the dawn will break fully across my new Salvadoran pueblito.

But for now it is still black beyond my window, black with a breeze slipping in that smells of morning.  It’s my time to write, so I’ve rolled up the mosquito net and pulled out my journal.  I am happy.

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…and I am here.  I mean, truly.  I am sitting in the pre-dawn breath of a Central American hamlet I now call home.  There’s an ox towing a family up the volcano behind me and a two-year-old girl who will bless my food in Spanish before I take a bite.  More: there’s a calmness that fills me as I fall asleep at night, and a patience that’s begun to permeate my days.  I am in full-on immersion mode, and, with at least two more years in El Salvador looking back at me, am heartened by what I see.

Soon the sun will begin to fold its way through the ripples of this valley, treading softly at first — a purplish lightening of the horizon beyond my window, silhouetting the shade trees that yawn across the kindergarten’s play fields.  In a few hours these fields will shake with young laughter and mischief, but for now the motion is on this side of the school wall, in the cobblestone street, where the campesinos have begun to wind their way up the green walls of the volcano to shoo any early-rising cows from their fields of sugar cane, coffee, maíz, and banana.

These campesinos — farmworkers — are clean and proud as they walk: their button-downs tucked in, their skin freshly rinsed, their heads always covered, their machetes slung over one shoulder in tasseled leather sheaths.  The women in their lives are striking too — skirts freshly pressed, faces clever but kind, muscles strong from use.  Many of them rose long before me to start slapping out tortillas de maíz, gathering fresh fruit from their trees, or putting together some other food that they can nestle into a huacal, throw onto their head, and stroll the streets selling at dawn.

Soon I, too, will lift myself from this bed, bathing my skin before buttoning up my own shirt, tucking it into slacks, and commencing with the morning chores: sweeping and mopping the kitchen tile, washing yesterday’s laundry by hand in the pila, skinning and gutting a large papaya for breakfast.

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El Salvador.

It’s complicated, you know?  Your own gut-level feelings probably reveal the heavy-handed side of this nation, the past that’s pockmarked by colonialism, genocide, natural disasters, and civil war.

But that’s not what I see.  It’s not all that I feel from here, on the ground, in the balmy swirls of this morning.  Yes, the past is nasty here, nauseating.  Tears have come easily for me as I have listened to stories.

But the people remain.  The Salvadorans remain.  Despite the war, despite the hurricanes and landslides, despite the new perversity of gangs, despite the remittance money that is splitting towns in two, despite poverty and sickness and a national infrastructure that’s still finding its way . . . the people remain.  The families remain.

And you know, all things considered, they’re doing really well.  People here are happier than us, of course — it’s not just a saying.  And the happiness is neither shortsighted nor based on naivety.  No, it’s a nuanced decision people make every day to find things to celebrate, to spend quality time with family and friends, to not complain about their daily toils, and to be grateful — lovingly grateful — for the blessings they hold.  It is profound.

From the moment I arrived, people have been wrapping me into their lives without asking questions.  Food is for sharing.  Chairs are for offering.  Time is to be stretched out and made warm with camaraderie.

And, as sincerely as possible, I want to say this: it is an honor for me to be here.  It is an honor for me to rise each morning and find arms, homes, and hearts open to me anew.  By joining the Peace Corps I accepted this honor, accepted the opportunity to fall into this local rhythm, to learn from and love these people.  ..and — in whatever behind-the-scenes, facilitative way I can — to offer myself to their journey forward.

And so I will be paying attention — closely — and opening — slowly — to this world around me.  And I’ll be using this site to share any lyricism that wells up along the way.

If you have interest in this little nation, bless you: slap your email into the box on the right-hand column and let’s discover it together.

Regardless, you are beautiful: thank you for your respect and support.  There are many different ways to love the world.  For the next couple years, this is mine.

Pictures?  ¡Aquí!

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