email numero 1

well...the connection is down in fronteras again. fronteras is the town i have the fortune and misfortune to visit once, or, if i decide to spend the extra money and another night in a bar with bad music, twice a week. fronteras=borders. yes, this is a border between worlds. it is a border for retired american yahties and the thirld world...old american sailors who come here and throw beer bottles in the river and marry young school girls, maybe one, maybe tow, maybe three, so the story goes. that is what the traveling jewelery maker told me last wednesday as i ate a chicken salad at the dutch woman´s cafe. that was before i fell ill again with amoebic dysentery and spent three days in bed...sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. sharp pains from inflamed intestines. prayers for my liver and my brain...please do not spread...stay in the intestines until the medicine works. yes, i was on another border for a while.

it will come. yes, it will. this week, i will take my week off. it may be monday, it may be wednesday, but it is time. the students will take their exams next week and i will relieve my self. i am glad i decided to stay for these extra two weeks even though i am doubtful about whom i have really helped to pass the exams (except for boris). how do you prepare someone for a badly designed test with rote memorization as the ideal of education? how, in a short time, can you tease adolescents into opening their mind to grasp the concept behind the action when their minds are trained to follow the rules the teacher gave them? to really prepare them for thinking, how much time is needed? if you can believe it, one of the questions on the fourth grade test is: what country do we live in? so i ran around asking every child in casa guatemala what country we live in. just to partake in the silly seriousness of exam preparation. yes, it is pitiful. a sad case of bad education. and yet, i find myself teaching their summer school, which is winter school. sixteen students, fifth and sixth graders ranging from eleven to sixteen years of age. in the morning we will read together (still trying to think of books and where i will need to travel to purchase a class set of novels) do a bit of real world math (any ideas rick?) and then, in the afternoon, we will work on the farm together. but this won´t start until the middle of november. all this...way into february. i get excited and a bit frightened imagining the challenge, but i must say...i need a week off to recharge. thankfully, i will have two, separate week long breaks before this madness begins.

the place i find myself is a black-hole of creative energy. i keep thinking of the monk who spent hours,days, possibly months sifting and sorting beans and testified that in the midst of the repetition, in the midst of the boredom, a creative force was born. i keep believing in that possibility with in the compound called casa guatemala. i read and journal quite a bit, but one needs other forms of expression. have been wanting to paint and sew...would like to have a room of my own. would like to be able to pick up a news paper or watch a documentary. would like a cold beer in the steamy afternoon.

last night two of the older boys came and asked permission to go with seño bella to kill rats. sure, but tell me a little bit about the experience first...last night they had killed 36, the night before 17. five of them go to the chicken coop armed with sticks and bop rats until it is 7:30 or 8:00, bed time. they can´t use poison with the chickens and child labor is the only way to keep the rat population down and the egg business alive, and not to mention our plates blessed with some meat once in a while.

on sunday, i found the source of the smell beside my bed: a mildewed backpack with moldy clothes. i am still getting used to the lifestyle tricks, like hanging everything on nails! when it takes two days to dry clothes that still end up smelling dank, i sigh and often think of my friend jess who lived in zimbabwe and had to iron her clothes after hanging them to dry. one day, in a rush, she decided not to heed the warning and she regretted it for a while. you see, there are bugs in zimbabwe that bury their eggs in wet clothes and if not burnt with an iron, hatch in your underarms causing quite the irritation. i think of that, say a prayer of gratitude, and mind a bit less the dank smell, since we all smell sweet together.

what do i like best? conversations through candle light. the other night emi and i talked until we almost couldn´t see each other, finally lit a candle, and continued over tea and noodles. it reminded me of the evening talks with monica when we would finally realize that it was dark and we better either turn on a light or just go walking to find something to eat.

i like that i am slowing down and going deeper into myself. i write about my relationship with coffee, my clothes, the way i breath while a little bored while little oliver is reading ma-ma-me-a-ma. it isn´t the type of writing one shares with others, but the type of thoughts one must have to understand one´s own holdings and letting goes. i appreciate the subtleties I am sensing.

i like that i can sit here and drink a beer, look outside the wall that is no wall and see darkness. one street with one line of stores that are closing now, and then, the night, pure night.

i hope i can send this, and i hope you all appreciate my communication despite it being addressed to many.

your letters help me continue. you can´t imagine the smiles they bring, especially after a night of stolen water bottles and translating between disgruntled volunteers.

ok..there is a connection, i must try to send...