Letras de Regreso

December 2010

And then I stopped. There was no more writing after Argentina, at least not publicly. It is difficult to write when so fully immersed in living. And it is not until life slows, and it changes, when the details of our experiences become foggy and we find ourselves straining to remember just what it was that we lived so intensely, that we lament it was not all written down. I distinctly remember this moment in the 10th grade when my English teacher remarked about the good fortune of those who have kept a journal through which they can reference their past. A student replied that she did not see the need to write anything down, as she would remember anything worth remembering. Mr. Cahill chuckled in his knowing, with the pontifical dignity that comes with being a bald man of his age and said, “If only it were true that we could remember all the things ‘worth’ remembering.”

I am not in Argentina anymore. I am not in Honduras. I am “home” and have been for over a year now. To call my return a crash landing feels like an understatement. No home. No job. No plan. And let’s not forget the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. One can only listen to the words “these hard economic times” so many times before it begins to shake her confidence. I remember hearing about the financial collapse on CNN Español and wondering, “Can it really be that bad?” It must be the spin, the media embellishing the sorry state of the intransigent superpower that has for so long manipulated its southern neighbors; “The U.S. goes belly up” is understandably well-received news to many south of the border. But upon return, this was in fact the reality that I faced. No home. No Job. No plan. Surrounded by the ubiquitous stench of defeat that came to exist in my country. In the past year I have moved cities twice, houses four times, and I have worked three different jobs. It has taken me until now to begin to sense the return of normalcy here, in the United State of America. It has taken me until now to feel like I am standing, and I continually question my footing.

I have spent much of the past year digesting the time I spent living in my little pink cement home, covered in dust, or in mud, depending on the season. For me it was a time of such beauty, simplicity, and freedom. A time when I felt free from weight I never knew existed back home, a weight that only through its expulsion, did I become aware of its existence. I was freed from media, from consumerism, materialism, free from vanity, my self-image, to be reborn and to evolve in a completely new world.

My new life became the glorification of the mundane, accentuating the details of every action—those I had never really noticed before. I found comfort in menial tasks; sweeping the dust, the sound the broom made on the floor, and the satisfaction in watching as the tiles became white again with my strokes…or the act of washing my clothes on a concrete washboard aside the “pila”. Soaking, scrubbing, wringing, thinking. There was so much time for thinking. Time for introspection, examination of identity and of place—a kind of time that does not exist where I am from. In the absence of things, consumed with my thoughts, I found myself content.

I recognize my experience as one that has come to be cliché in a time of international travel, Peace Corps, teach abroad, international NGOs, NPOs, of cross-culturalism, and migration. I recognize that others have my stories, stories that echo redundancy in the ears of travelers. In spite of the fact that I do not feel unique in my experience, it was through this “common” experience that I learned to love the small things in a world where the “little things” really were. My time in San Marcos de Ocotepeque is unique in my personal narrative and I will remember it as a formative period in my life that has led me in my current direction.


I have posted and may continue to post some of what I wrote privately that year.

Diary Excerpts 2008-2009

10/14/2008

I have never had so much to write, while writing so little.

I just returned from El Salvador. Being on the road again, living in a perceived adventure, feels like home, so to speak. When I am moving I am not nostalgic. The things I see I could not dream.


In all honesty I feel lucky to have made it to the border alive after my near death experience on the way to la frontera. A woman named Marisol—a close neighbor in San Marcos—offered to drive me and three other teachers to the border. The El Salvadorian border is an hour away from San Marcos. The road meanders around mountains, over the summit of Guisayote. It is a series of blind corners, nearing 90 degrees. Now, I have driven on my fair share of roads in questionable conditions—I grew up on one. But I have never, in my life, been so certain that I was going to die in a car. We drove 80 miles per hour around blind mountain corners on a two-lane “highway”, swerving to avoid potholes that would take your front end off. And there are absolutely no reservations about passing on blind corners, despite oncoming traffic. As if her erratic driving was not terrifying enough, Marisol repeatedly turned around to talk to the back-seat passengers. Every time I gasped while clutching the sides of me seat as we evaded oncoming traffic while driving in the left lane (Honduras is not among the countries, in theory, that drive on the left), Marisol would throw her head back in laughter and ask if I was scared. “Well,” I thought, “only because I was hoping to see tomorrow, you madwoman!”
When we arrived at the border, we had missed the last bus, despite the speed with which we had arrived. Marisol explained our predicament to the border patrol. They offered to ask cars as they went through the checkpoint if they would carry four women into El Salvador. Within moments we were climbing into a semi-truck. The driver looked at the lot of us curiously. “All women and no man,” he said. “Aren’t you afraid?” After a moment of silence, the four of us staring up into his massive vehicle from the ground, he reasoned, “well, between the four of you you’ll be okay.”
I watched the sun fall behind the plethora of Salvadorian peaks as we rolled through them, packed in the cab of a semi that carried olive oil and toilet paper from El Salvador to Honduras.

That would be the first of many “halones” that I took in semi-trucks that year. There were many halones from various modes of transport, actually, and much more diversity among their operators. I suppose it wasn’t the soundest way to travel—or that is what I have been told contrary to my own experience. The kindness of strangers amazed me. My roadside encounters went out of their way to share their country, and to welcome me; to show me a favorite beach, to stop for coco helados because I have never tried them, or to find fresh native fruits that do not grow where I am from. They showed me the hidden treasures, speaking with great pride about all that their country had to offer. These strangers fed me, invited me into their homes, and I always made it safely to a destination. I found myself constantly, questioning if the people where I come from do this for their foreigners. Do we invite those who are not from here to share in the beauty of our country? Do we help them find their way when they are lost? Would we buy them local fruit or invite them into our homes? Would we go out of our way? I want to say yes, but the greater part of me believes it more likely that we ask them for their papers.

Dreaming of Argentina

I dreamt I was in Argentina. I have been dreaming of a return to Patagonia since I left the other side of the Andes four years ago. Like many of my dreams, all events had a startling resemblance to reality, only infinitely more surreal. Over time I often find it difficult to decipher my dreams from actuality. I don’t believe this is particularly uncommon. Sometimes I wonder if many of my childhood memories are in fact dreams plus time. It used to bother me when I would confuse pieces of my nonsensical subconscious wanderings with actual events, but not anymore. All memories are skewed recollections of what really happened anyway.

I should have written it all down the moment I woke up. That is the only way to remember. Otherwise the fleeting images fade so quickly, until there is nothing left of it at all despite how entertaining, intriguing, or bizzare. Unfortunately we do not remember any particular thing simply because it is worth remembering. Now the reverie escapes me, many important details have been forgotten with the rising sun, due to the ephemeral nature of dreams.

I met two old friends in Argentina—one a New York lawyer, and the other a professional wanderer. It felt strange to see them in such a fantastical place filled with Malbec wines, dramatic mountains, glaciers, tango, and an outstanding number of remarkably attractive people. What are the chances in reality that the three of us would meet each other here? Now everything has become a blur; a stream of random happenings and moments that run together…you know how dreams are.

I recall knowing upon my first encounter with Buenos Aires that I would have to live there one day. This city is a phenomenal fusion of color, performance, music, dancing, world-class steak and wine. Nearly every street in this city of 13 million people is lined with trees that have known it for longer than most of its residents. I wonder if such a brillant city could really exist, and if so, why I do not live there now.

Between the images of the city, I remember biking through wine country, standing stranded on an empty highway (a disagreeable situation my thumb had gotten me into), swimming in the high mountain lakes of the Andes, a Christmas with a group of international strangers in place of family, sleeping on the floor of a bus terminal, breakfast at a glacier in Patagonia, an endless ride on a peculiar, poorly maintained train from the 1960s in which going to the bathroom involved watching the tracks beneath me— hey, anything to save a peso.

Suddenly I was back in Buenos Aires. I climbed into a cab at an unpleasant morning hour and watched Eric and Ian waving goodbye; I wondered when I would see these old friends again. In reality, we all live far away and lead very separate lives in which are paths rarely cross. I sadly could not think of a time I would be seeing them in my real life. I soon felt myself in a familiar kind of hell: the Louis Armstrong International hell, the LAX hell, the Dallas Fort Worth hell. This time it cost me $400 extra to leave it. Just another international airport nightmare in the end.

DUDE

The body stays, and then the body moves on
And I’d really rather not dwell on when yours will be gone.

~Devendra Banhart

Grandpa Lewis—better known as Dude Carper—died on March 2, 2009. I was in Honduras. I practically grew up in his house, but I cannot remember the last time I saw him. The first time I came in physical contact with my family in months and years was at the funeral. I know in my culture it is quite common that we grow up, we go our own way, we leave people behind. But In all our capricious wanderings, in the deliberation of the next direction, it should be remembered that we, whoever “we” may be, only have a limited time together—a few precious ephemeral moments. And we choose with whom we will pass them.

For those who requested a copy of the letter from the funeral, here it is:

Dear Grandpa,

You are the first person I have every really known to leave me. For me, 24 years is a long time to love someone. I never told you how you were unlike any character I have ever known. You are one of those individuals whose originality inspires new vocabulary, one whose actions are worthy of their own terms. Some might call you unconventional. Those who know better will just call you Dude.

I will forever see you through the eyes of a little girl. To me you were Grandpa, who was always around, just like he was supposed to be. You were my pioneer, and my Oregon roots. You were the garden, Holly Hawks, Birchwood, projects made from trees, the fiddle and the Gee-tar; you were an unwavering comforting presence, always sipping from the same brown coffee mug.

I love your wooden inventions, Grandpa. I realize now that you must have always been thinking about your next project, keeping your eye out for the stumps that might make interesting tables. You were always thinking about the grandchildren, too. Your efforts to entertain the kids brought us the wooden crayon holder, the wooden car ramp, the wooden knife, and my personal favorite, the wooden mirror-shelf. I asked for a crescent moon with a star. You carried out my request perfectly. Did I tell you I thought it was perfect?

I remember singing with you at the Blue Mountain Fiddle Show. That was when I still felt comfortable singing in public. I sang Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors and you accompanied me on the guitar. I still remember standing there with you playing next to me. It makes me smile to think how from that day on you broke into the song whenever I came around. When you asked me to sing it again at your 80th birthday party I was 17 and aware of my lacking talent. But I sang anyway. I will sing Coat of Many Colors for you anytime, and anywhere.

I am sorry I have been gone for so long, Grandpa. I am sorry I wasn’t there to say goodbye, or to tell you how I would miss you. Rosie found a spot under a tree for you. She says that’s what you would want, and I know she is right. And I will come see you at your tree, Grandpa, just as soon as I am home again.

Love always,
Your Granddaughter Hailey

Poem About Poppies

Sometimes the things you love

about a person

are just the things you love

about another person you aren’t

supposed to love anymore.

Poppies aren’t tulips, but they grow here.

--Caroline

I travel to new places, I meet different people, and I am always searching for the ways my new encounters resemble those I have known and loved before. Why is that? Perhaps a personal issue that is not shared by others. Caroline leads me to believe otherwise. There are pines in Honduras just like those in Oregon. There are moments when I could be standing above the Grande Rhonde Valley...if it weren't for the banana leaves.

Las Golondrinas

Simply marvelous. The Flor de Caña lingered in my head this morning. At 9:00am on Sunday I knew I could go back to sleep—and should as this would be my only day to sleep past 6:00am. I was moved by the sound of rubbing steel as the pieces of the coffee press were skrewed together. Such a beautiful ruckus. I sat at my kitchen table—the only legitimate furniture in the house save a hammock—sipping consecutive cups of coffee from 9:00am-1:00pm.

I had planned to take a nature walk with Pablo. How can I describe Pablo? Perhaps a little like the Honduran version of my own father, a middle-aged single man who spends the majority of his time wandering the woods watching the birds and the trees, listening. We walked to a waterfall outside of town they call Las Golondrinas, or the swallows. Las Golondrinas was given its name for the swallows that come to roost every evening just after the sun goes down. The birds dart one after another like bombs dropping into the crevices in the rocks around the tiered pools of the waterfall. We walked there together to watch the swallows fly in at dusk. As we walked, Pablo would frequently stop to share the name and purpose of a variety of flora, and to talk about the effects of the surrounding coffee fincas on the land.

When we arrived at Las Golondrinas, we sat on a rock above the water silently as the sound of whizzing swallows filled our ears. I was standing on 19^th and Agate St. with my dad, green tea ice cream in hand when he stopped me to stare at the chimney above where we stood. A swarm of swallows circled the chimney like a dust devil until one by one they shot into the chimney. Strange. Two such disparate worlds. Dad and the swallows, Pablo and the Golondrinas. Funny how they carry me to the same place.

We watched until we could no longer see the golondrinas. Pablo handed me a can of pear nectar and some Pringles. I don’t really like Pringles or sugary nectar juice, but in that moment it was the most perfectly delicious snack. We walked back in the dark. The frogs were singing for us as we crossed the stream. This frog is endangered here. We stopped and watched them with the flashlight, their throats expanding into bubbles bigger than their heads, singing as if we were not there. Simply marvelous.

Nostalgia

nos-tal-gi-a n. [Gr nostos, a return + -ALGIA] a longing for something far away or long ago.

When I learned the word it was defined to me as homesickness. I am not sure about home, but I am certainly inclined to describe nostalgia as a sickness—one that, to my dismay, frequently afflicts me. It is like a stomach bug that causes a temporary bout of misery due to vomiting and diarrhea until it leaves your system and you feel good again. In my case, nostalgia seems to be more of a chronic disease. It comes and goes, rolls in like the tide, but I am never cured. Often it lies dormant and doesn’t disrupt me in my everyday business. Now, however, is not one of those times and I am franticly trying to rid myself of an irritating outbreak. However, by the time I finish ranting about my wave, the tide will roll out as quickly as it came, and I will have forgotten why I began writing in the first place.

I recently found myself in a tropical paradise on the Belizean coast. I have had remarkably good fortunate to say that, as a 23…wait, 24-year-old child currently earning a monthly wage of $300 US, I have enjoyed more exotic vacations than many will ever see in a lifetime (I thought of you incessantly, mother, as I lay on white sand sipping my coconut, feeling slightly guilty).

I was in the quaint little beach town of Placencia. In keeping with a prevailing theme, I arrived there mostly by accident, due to yet another series of arbitrary decisions. Again, I was pleasantly surprised by the result of my lacking premeditation. Upon arrival I thought I might be swayed to stay forever. Placencia essentially consists of a single walk (I would describe it as a sidewalk, but it is not at the side of anything) through the white sands of the Caribbean coast. Roads seem mostly unnecessary as Placencia is primarily accessed by boat. Colorful beach shanties on stilts and household businesses with annoyingly cutesy names such as The Secret Garden, Barefoot Bar, and Pickled Parrot, look out on the postcard waters of the Caribbean Sea. It is certainly a tourist destination, however there were few tourists. Each morning I watched children arrive for school by boat, unloading from the water taxis in their uniforms, while others languidly road their bicycles to school informing one another that “bell don’ raang yet.” They are all headed toward the section of beach where someone decided to build a school. No one is in a hurry.

My time in Placencia consisted primarily of sunning myself (SPF 30), swimming in the Caribbean, chasing tropical fish, and breaking open coconuts to drink with my award winning rum, 1 Barrel. I hitched a ride on a boat—drove rather—to a private island about an hour off the coast. I passed the day snorkeling (at which time I was nearly impaled by a sea urchin the size of a basketball), reading, writing, and yet again eating and drinking coconuts. The island’s care taker, Hector, a frail little man with a few missing teeth, was eager to scurry up the palms in order to find me the most perfect coconuts, which he proceeded to butcher with his machete—big knife for such a diminutive man. We then speared some lobsters for dinner. I felt like a princess, childhood dreams accomplished…“A fairy went a marketing and bought her own machete; she sweetly cuts her coconuts until the lobster’s ready”—that’s for you mom (See favorite childhood storybook A Fairy Went a Marketing). Yes, it would seem I fell asleep and awoke in quintessential paradise.

The moon was full when I returned to the mainland. I haven’t seen a moon like that since the Atacama desert, so surreally large and clear it appears to be sitting at my side, and larger still in its reflection in the sea. What a glorious moon. We sat unaccompanied and watched it hang above tide-less waters, my wine and I. Fantastically beautiful, perfectly peaceful and delicious, and yet I was ill. Struck with an unexpected bout of that retched nostalgia. I desperately wanted “home.” And I wondered how it was possible to long for the rain in a lobster filled paradise. I detest the rain, but I love lobster.

By the time I left Placencia, I could not get away fast enough. I was bored of paradise, not to mention bitten, burnt, and sweating 1 Barrel. It was time to go home. To my dismay, “home” in this case, meant San Marcos, Ocotepeque. Blast. I was in physically misery and the thought of returning to my hovel in San Marcos to clean myself with a bucket and cold, larvae infested pila water before crawling into my cot was particularly unappealing. My Honduran reality only exacerbated my episode and I spent the next two weeks in San Marcos longing for an illogical collection of pieces of the past.



I arrived back in San Marcos to be unwillingly plunged into the Honduran Christmas hoopla. Eye-sewing artificial pines adorned with brightly colored plastic, and windows sill lined with lights and tacky tinsel are in abundance. Oh the holidays. But like the rest of my experiences here, Christmas won’t be real. To my surprise, it is not the holidays that triggered my nostalgia. It’s the Ponderosas. They are just like those that line Morgan Lake Road, outside the Grande Ronde Valley. There have been moments on the mountain roads leading out of San Marcos where I could have been on that road that took me to school everyday. These moments are fleeting, however, as I am quickly brought back to Honduras by the sight of a banana tree. It is strange to see pines enlaced with bananas. Nonetheless, I find myself longing for Morgan Lake Road, and to watch dad watch the trees as he drives me up the mountain after school.

I don’t particularly miss the comforts of what some refer to as the developed world, or even for the people I love there. I am fairly certain I will see them again. Rather I am nostalgic for obscure, random, even mundane details of my unremarkable past. I miss riding to the lake in Dad’s 1965 red Toyota Landcruiser with the top off in Eastern Oregon summer. Apparently the surplus of this truck was shipped to Honduras as I have counted at least ten in the streets of San Marcos. I miss the buoy he brought back from the fishing boat in Alaska to hang as a swing from one of our apple trees. I miss mom’s garden—especially the poppies—and the way she used to get so furious that the deer would persistently eat them.

I miss Allan Bros. Coffee. Not so much the coffee, but the company I used to drink it with, and who we were at the time. I miss riding the Moab Schwinn to class at the University of Oregon…even in the rain. I desperately miss Sam Bonds Garage—more like a barn than a bar—with its microbrews in mason jars and bluegrass on Tuesdays. More than the bar, I miss the bike ride there and back to Alder Street through Eugene’s August air with the neibies.

Despite my recent outbreak of “homesickness,” I have no desire to be there today. There is no place I miss today, and there is no place that could ever be what I am longing for. Retuning anywhere would inevitably be a disappointment. I am sick for pieces of time, places in time, relationships in a time, which will never exist in quite the same way again. And so I will draw the conclusion that my particular strain of this disease is not concerned with far away so much as long ago. My affliction is knowing I will never see people in place and time again…is it possible to miss time more than people? I don’t know. I just hope that I look back on my time here in San Marcos and feel nostalgic—I am sure I will.

Just as I surmised, my symptoms have subsided and I am wondering what I have been rambling on about. I am exactly where I want to be, amidst what feels like ubiquitous adventure. I think that is all I ever really wanted anyway. Everyday is distinctly different from the last. Everyday I am learning. And there is more to come as I prepare to fly south for Argentina. I have never been so excited to be alive.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
-- On the Road Jack Kerouac

How Did I Get Here (Same as it Ever Was)?

I spend a considerable amount of time wondering how it happened that I came to find myself in the twilight zone San Marcos, Ocotopeque. How did I go from post-grad bum (the new-age trend for college graduates who quickly discover they can do very little with their recently acquired B.A.), in bum Mecca Eugene, Oregon, to teaching the third-grade in a Honduran pueblo so insignificant, discrete, unknown, and ostensibly undesirable, that it seems to barely exists. And how did this happen literally overnight? —a question I am still working through.

My arrival here was the result of a series of decisions that might be described as under analyzed, rash, ill-advised, and altogether arbitrary by a good number of rational people. I have come to realize, however, that nearly all my decisions have been made in this foolishly capricious fashion. And frankly, even the most premeditated decisions are, in fact, quite arbitrary; I cut right to the chase. I find it works surprisingly well.

I received a phone call from a complete stranger claiming to be Peace Corp volunteer who had pulled my resume out of cyber space. She was looking for teachers on the behalf of a bilingual elementary school in San Marcos de Ocotopeque, Honduras. There was an alarming lack of questioning on both ends of the line. I was exceedingly open about my under qualification. Rebecca informed me of the dire state of the Honduran education system. Apparently the 18 years I spent in a considerably less dysfunctional system (I never thought I would say that about public education in the US, particularly not mine), and a college degree qualified me for the job. Basically the conversation was as follows:

Alleged PCV with supposed authority in the matter: Do you want to move to Honduras to teach some kids?
Me: How much will it cost me?
Alleged PCV: The school will fly you here and back.
Me: Deal.
Alleged PCV: See you in three weeks.

Impetuous indeed. But let me reiterate, if you buy me a plane ticket, I will go just about anywhere.

All the questions I should have asked before leaving my country were answered upon my arrival in San Marcos. After meeting PCV Rebecca, the school master, the other teachers, and the school itself, I had a clearer understanding of the series of events and relationships that brought me here, and of my own qualifications for the job.

Green Valley Primary, or La Green, as it is often referred to here, is a small private bilingual school started by a little old lady with a relative fortune named DoÒa Olga. Olgita (little Olga, as they call her) is a 4’10”, frail woman pushing 80 years who walks with a limp and a cane and exudes elitism. She appears to be a remnant of colonial aristocracy. Ten years ago, Olgita, who doesn’t speak a word of English, decided to use a wad of her cash to open a bilingual school in San Marcos that would provide an alternative—superior of coarse—to public education in her community for her children and grandchildren.

Green Valley is the pretentious rich kid school, funded by parents who, much to Olga’s delight, believe La Green to be a superior alternative to the public schools where there are 50 children per class and the teachers are constantly on strike. I find it rather disturbing that I am factually of this “superior” institution. But considering the fourth grade teacher, a Honduran native, does not know how to round to the nearest hundred or use a comma, I suppose I am comparatively qualified. What’s more, I am not on strike every other week because the government hasn’t paid my wage in a number of months, which is the case with all the public schools. This, however, does not make me feel better about my inadequacy as a third-grade teacher. My level of education may exceed that of a number of the other teachers here, as I have mastered a third-grade skill set, but I feel an irreconcilable guilt when looking at a room full of faces that deserve Floy Schuft (expert in the field of teaching small children) and they got me. Poor things. With virtually no experience, no teaching background, no background check, I have been handed a group of children to mold. Everyday I think how I must be screwing them up. I only hope my inevitable mistakes don’t result in any long-term effects or psychological disorders.