Day 4: Usulutan

Tuesday September 1, 2009

Vocabulary:

chucho: dog (perro), also "shoo!" (as in what you say when you want a dog to go away) when said to a dog

cuche: pig (puerco)

chorro: water tap (llave)

andar: literally "to walk;" here it can mean "to have," "to have money," "to bring," "to go"--yeah, pretty much anything

Photos:

My Salvadoran Home
Bringing in the Vacas

Today I went to Usulutan, the nearest city and the capitol of the department (like a state) of the same name.  I wasn't sure about the safety issue, so I played it safe and didn't take any pictures, but I imagine I'll be back later and will take at least a couple.  The main thing of importance that I did was to buy a notebook to use instead of my cell phone for recording various things.  I organized it into six sections, made a table of contents, and numbered every page, so I'm ready for business!

The other important happening of the day is that (with lots of help from my parents) I applied for residency.  Today is the first day to apply, and it's good to apply as early as possible, so I had left them instructions, which turned out not to be entirely complete.  So my dad called me from Lexington and we spent a good half hour going over the application and then sending it off.  Now I just have to wait for the interview invitations to come pouring in : )  [Note from the future: I received my first invitation the day I returned from El Salvador, and I currently have nine (and counting...).]  Thanks Dad!

Here's my home while I'm here, Manuel's parents' house.  You can see a complete tour in one of today's photo albums.  It's where he grew up, though they also owned two nearby houses, so they had more space when all six kids were at home.

Obviously there are a lot of novel things about life here.  Even though I've visited other countries before, in some ways this is the most I've really been immersed in what daily life is like somewhere else.  In Bolivia, I was with other Americans all day, and we lived in a house that was owned by an American organization and pretty much like an American house.  In Japan, even though I lived with a Japanese family, I spent everyday with other Americans, going to classes just like I did back in Provo.  And in Dominica, my longest foreign experience by far, I was again surrounded by Americans and going to what was essentially an American school.  Here, I am the only American for miles around, no one else speaks even a little bit of English, and I am pretty much just living life with Manuel's family, the same way they do everyday (though we have done a few things that they planned specially for me, so it's still not 100% authentic).

Living here reminds me of camping in a few ways.  I feel very close to nature--trees, animals, farmland abound.  There are no flush toilets.  A lot of the cooking is done over a fire and a lot of the eating is done outside.  For some reason I always seem to have dirt under my nails, even though I take a (essentially outdoor) shower at least once a day.  There's no air conditioning.  Also, there is less privacy and more of a feeling of community than anywhere I've ever lived.  That part reminds me especially of the Arlington Ward camp-out.  Random neighbors are always crossing through our yard because it's quicker than going all the way around.  Everyone sends kids as messengers and couriers all over the place.  The main form of entertainment is stopping by someone's house and talking for an hour or so.  That this community extends to those who have been in the United States, some for many years, is obvious when people learn that I am Manuel's wife and share their memories of him as a child and when I show them the photos of people from the Hacienda that I took in California.  It's pretty cozy.

The semi-outdoor shower was a little off-putting at first, since there's also no hot water and I took my first few showers first thing in the morning, as I'm used to doing when I have to be at the hospital all day.  However, I've noticed that the morning shower thing is not that popular here.  Everyone seems to take a shower just before leaving the house instead, which might be in the afternoon or evening.  Given the heat and humidity, this makes a lot of sense, since a shower wears off pretty quickly.  Also, a cold, outdoor shower is quite a pleasant thing in the heat of the day when it's bright and sunny.

The closeness of the houses and lack of privacy extends to noise as well.  Every morning there is a cacophony of chickens clucking and roosters cock-a-doodle-doodling.  During the day, any time anyone close by plays music or watches television, we can hear it.  And some people play their music really loud.  Really early in the morning.

I've always heard that Spanish differs by country and that to really learn it well you have to just choose a dialect and go with it.  But I've never chosen a specific country, and I've never felt there was a big gap in my vocabulary because of that.  In fact, it's an advantage in New York, since I must speak Spanish with people from all over the world.  But being here, I am finally learning a specific dialect of Spanish.  There is no distinct "accent" that I have noticed, but there is a lot of different vocabulary.  The new (to me) words are mostly quite common nouns, not found in my Spanish-English dictionary, and the phoneme "ch" seems to be a favorite.  The adults understand when I use the nouns I know, and sometimes use them themselves (i.e., saying "perro" instead of "chucho"), but the kids learn the dialectal words first and use them almost exclusively.  They also use "vos" exclusively instead of "tu" (familiar "you"), and it has its own conjugation which I have yet to figure out entirely.

The verb "andar" deserves its own paragraph.   It's a somewhat common verb in the Spanish I speak, but here it's taken to a whole new level.  I already explained its use in the game of tag.  It's used quite commonly to ask whether someone is carrying cash ("Andas dinero?"="Are you walking cash?"), and the "dinero" part is usually left off, such that "Vos andas?" (literally "Do you walk?") means "Do you have cash?"  Phew.  I had all that figured out before today, and then it got taken to another level when a lady on the street in Usulutan asked me for money.  Ester jumped in and said, "Ella no anda.  Yo la ando."  This literally means "She doesn't walk.  I'm walking her."  But with our new-found understanding the first sentence means "She's not carrying cash."  And the second sentence means "I'm paying her way" or "I'm taking care of her."  Double phew!

Speaking of Spanish, it continues to amaze me that people here really really don't speak English.  I should be used to it by now, since I interact with many people everyday who aren't fluent in English, but at some subconscious level I believe English is the default setting for everyone the way it is for me.  This is especially true for children, I think because in New York all the children who speak Spanish do in fact speak English better, and also because I only spoke English when I was a child, so that must be normal.  This also makes it very cute when a very small child speaks Spanish well.  Three-year-old Jorgito (furthest to the right in the photo) arrived today from San Salvador with his parents (his mom is Manuel's cousin), Ana Ruth and Jorge, and he speaks Spanish way better than I do.  And knows it.  Today when we were walking to the pasture to bring in the cows, Ester and Ana Ruth were talking about Monica, a darling two-year-old, and how well she talks for her age (though I do speak Spanish better than she does).  After putting up with this topic of conversation for some time, Jorgito finally couldn't stand it and broke in with, "Yo hablo tambien!" ("I can talk too!").  It was so cute.

Ana Ruth is just the latest in a continuingly larger and larger group of relatives that I have met.  I'm trying to get a family tree figured out, and all the specific names.  Before I leave I am planning to sit down with Don Alfredo and make sure I have written down all of his siblings and their children plus all of Manuel's siblings and their children.  Also I'll have to go through my photos and make sure I know who everyone is.  Stay tuned for a future post in which I will introduce the family members I have met, with photos.

As I mentioned earlier (and you've seen if you've looked at today's photos), today I accompanied what turned out to be a much larger entourage than usual to bring the cows in (it's usually Luis' job, and he complains about it a lot and often Don Alfredo ends up doing it).  There are a lot of cows here, and you have to be constantly alert not to step in their poop (incidentally, they seem to all have mild diarrhea all the time, which I guess must be normal for cows, but it makes the poop even grosser).

One of my main goals while here was to take some excellent photos of the stars.  I brought both my tripods and everything.  However, there have been multiple hang-ups.  First of all, it's usually cloudy at night.  Tonight was pretty clear, so I got out my big tripod and switched to my telephoto lens and got all set up only to discover that my tripod cannot tilt far enough back to get a view of the stars.  Also, the moon is really really bright, so I can't actually see any more stars than I can in New York.  The next clear night I am going to try putting my small (and more flexible) tripod on a table to take some excellent photos of the moon.

This evening, after much uncertainty and back and forth, a decision was made that we will go to San Salvador, the capital city, tomorrow.  Ana Ruth and Jorge live there, so we're going with them.  There I will meet even more relatives, including the aunt and cousins that Manuel lived with for several years.  They're kind of his second family, a lot like Jeff and Nelly are for me.  So tomorrow we journey to the city!