Journal entry and more

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who posts on my blog. It means a lot to me that people back in the states care about me and are interested in what I am doing here. They really give me fuel for the fire.
This weekend we are going to our praxis sites for the entire weekend. I'm kinda nervous, but also really excited. On Saturday we're just going to play lots of futbol and hangout with kids. Two things I can do pretty well, teach English and speak Spanish, that's another story. Below is a journal entry I wrote for a class. I just thought I would share it.
Everyone stay warm and you are missed and loved.

Wow, what an intense few weeks. I have been turned upside down. I have often stopped in the past few weeks to find my body throbbing and my soul crying out at the uncertainty of it all. Before I left the states I felt like I had sufficiently prepared myself for the four month immersion I was to undertake. I had heard the stories, seen the pictures, experienced changed people, but know I know I really had no idea what was coming.

My first day at Tepecoyo was hard. I went alone because Amber was sick. I was immediately placed in front of a class of about 18 students and had to introduce myself. I have a moderate grasp of the Spanish language but I found myself freezing and saying the most elementary sentences. Everyone spoke so quickly and all I could say was “más despacio, por favor.” I left with a headache and physically exhausted by the day’s end. I could not stop thinking that this was going to be the same thing twice a week for the next four months. I almost cried. Two days later Amber joined me, and I still left the day screaming on the inside and with my head throbbing. And I still can not figure this place out. Will I ever?

It was the little stuff that got to me first—how can they go to the bathroom there every single day, or let mangy dogs linger at their feet, or let the flies buzz insensately over everything? The initial shock of the poverty and my inability to understand the context and communicate with my hosts made the first week very unnerving and scary.

The first week has passed, and now the second and I now feel more comfortable with my role at Tepecoyo. I still do not understand everything that is said to me or the complexity of the social, economic, and political structures which have created this poverty. However, I have started to just relax. I needed to get past the initial shock of my surroundings, to realize who I was meeting and to allow relationships to take root. I remember now what Fr. Dan Hartnett said before I left about not going into a community with an agenda, but going in to experience and learn. As much as I tried to do that right away I don’t think I was very successful. All I wanted to do was jump in and start fighting the system. I am smart; I can do so much. Why can I not do something to change this?

The kids to whom we have been teaching English are amazing. I wish more kids in the US would appreciate their education as much as these kids. More like, I wish I appreciated my education as much as these kids. They are so polite and enthused about learning. We have so much fun singing songs and learning new vocabulary. Many of them have much pena but I have found that big smiles and silly faces can break down most barriers and often speak louder than any of my broken Spanish words.

I think more than anything I have been left with more questions than answers. For example, what is the relationship between the community and the police? On Monday we were walking through the community making home visits and there was a police truck sitting on the side of the road. I asked Neilson what he thought about the police, and when I did his voice lowered and said that he did not trust them and that they are mostly all crooks. Another question I have is about public services. I do not understand how they get water or electricity. On Friday we are getting the internet for the computer classroom. This is so exciting but also an utter paradox because they still have an outhouse that would make the average American gag.

The past week I have been thinking a lot about our sociology class and about “language games.” On the one hand I am trying to understand the context and the reality of Tepecoyo and life in the campo, but am I really. We are still talking in different languages. I do not understand the reality after only two weeks, and I do not if I will have after my experience. Can we really ever enter into another’s reality, or are we always stuck playing our own language game? I really want to enter into this new reality but at the same time I cannot escape the context which I am coming, and honestly I would not want to escape it. It is who I am. That’s a scary thought. Maybe I will never be able to escape my context long enough to enter into the context of another. But, are not both contexts ultimately tied up together? Is that not what Solidaridad is all about?

In political science we have been starting to talk about the political structures in Latin America which have perpetuated and exacerbated poverty here. One thing that has struck me is the use of political exclusion to maintain a power structure which fuels poverty. However, in the case of Tepecoyo this political isolation may have been the source of inspiration for productive grassroots organizing and community building. The local community relations here are amazing. There is so much confianza in each other and really good work has been done and continues to evolve to better the life of the community. Perhaps these unjust political structures have in some way direct correlation with the establishment of grassroots community organizing.