Will you be mine?

It took me most of the day to realize it was Valentine’s Day. An email from my dad jolted me back to its plastic chocolate heart box existence. I think more surprising is that half of February is suddenly gone. I didn’t really seem to hear any “Dia de los Enamorados” talk today. We stayed down below in San Josecito last night and early this morning hiked up, passing the “No amarrar” sign on the way out of the casco urbano. Amarrar is Spanish for “to tie up”, as in “don’t tie your horse up to this fence”. Amar is Spanish for “to love”. Today, as on most days, I chuckled at the similarities in the two words.

I was really glad to get back up to La Unión today. Even though my bed bugs have been super hungry as of late, our water source has been cutting off every couple of days and our frequent power outages make me want to recall Gray Davis, a couple of days away feels like a couple days too many. (There should be a picture to the left of me and some of the kids playing dominoes by candle light the other night, an excellent way to pass dark power outtage hours) We hiked down late afternoon on Monday with the intention of staying down below in San Josecito (the piece of land that the Peace Community members displaced to after a police post was installed in the town center of San Jose in April of 2005) and by doing so enjoying some time with our friends and fellow international accompaniers from Peace Brigades International (PBI also accompanies the Peace Community, operating in a different kind of accompaniment model and currently spending 17 days a month in San Josecito). It was also nice to spend some time with the folks that live down there. We went to town the next morning and there got news of combat in the zone. It wasn’t happening in La Unión or San Josecito but in one of the humanitarian zones of the Peace Community a little over an hour’s hike away from San Josecito. Shots were heard and helicopters dropping shots were seen. Luckily, even though the combat happened near the school, no children were studying today and no civilians were hurt. Most troubling is that the school is the publicly designated Humanitarian Zone, or place for people in the scattered houses to head to for safety in the midst of potential combat.

I was enjoying one of my guilty town pleasures/attempt at keeping my body lactose-friendly, an ice cream cone, when my phone rang. Even though we were multi-tasking by eating ice cream at the same time we checked on flight changes for work reasons, as my phone rang and I was told what was happening an incredible guilt immediately set in. Even when I learned that the combat wasn’t happening in LU and realized that our presence would not have deterred the activity, I still realized that I was aching to get back to my home in La Unión. There has been a lot of troop movement around us lately and I simply wanted to be back to the neighbors and friends who have quickly become like family up here; caring grandmothers, crazy aunts, gossip-seeking sisters, annoying younger brothers, little children with something sticky/dirty/or slimy destined to be smeared onto your face/shirt/house.

We waited forever for the chiva to head up. This is the problem with public transportation that leaves and arrives according to amount of people present instead of fixed time schedule. We arrived just as one chiva had left and had to wait for eight more people to arrive and make up the ten people needed to ensure departure. Two hours later, we were finally headed out and as usual, climbed up to the roof of the chiva as we sped up into the hill. (this picture is of me and janice on the top of the chiva) Dust kicked up from the rapidly spinning wheels and coated me, baking into my hair and skin in the still-warm late afternoon sun. We arrived in San Josecito and quickly realized it would be difficult and perhaps dangerous to head up the mountain as night was falling and active guns were afoot. I finally found a cell phone signal and got through to some folks in LU to check in and let them know our plan. I was relieved to know that all things were calm up there.

A second night in San Josecito was filled with some visits from many of the kids and two of the consejo members. An eleven-year-old boy, who I have often greeted in our hasty comings and goings, was the first to wander in. We ended up having an unbelievable conversation. It started out by him saying that when we weren’t there, when PBI wasn’t there his mother was very scared. We continued to talk about his own fear, reflected through that of his mother, for a while. Then somehow we got to a point where I was explaining the concept of solidarity. This really quick kid of course already understood this concept to a certain degree; he just lacked a name for it. We talked about his choice not to play the popular “pistolera” game of kids in the community, It seems kids around the world, no matter what their experience of war, find branches and turn them into guns. My young friend finds this too intense in a community that has such first hand experience with the truth this child’s game reflects. This conversation was really delicate, soft-spoken and sincere. I was captive under its subtle spell until more visitors came through the door and the moment passed.

The hike up in the morning was filled with a dairy-aching stomach. (I refuse, REFUSE, to become vegan here. I don’t even really like animals so I have no real business being a vegetarian and I will not give up cheese, I will not deny my culture). When we got to the house, we dropped our stuff and I ran off to see some folks and find out what news people had. A few seconds later I was laughing with a group of women and wondering at the brazen decision of some of the men the day before to go up to an outlying community even with the heightened presence of soldiers on the path. I shared the women’s frustration at the stubborn men and easily paced myself with their somewhat nervous laughter. As I walked back to our house after exchanging some words about coffee beans and other crops with our next door neighbor, I realized that I have worked my way into being tied up here, into being in love. The similarity of these words in Spanish makes sense to me. And this is not to romanticize folks here in the community. There are problems; of course there are problems. Even people staking out a bold neutral space in the midst of a war zone make mistakes and maintain their human fallibility. But without the distractions of urban life, it is so easy to quickly find yourself tied up to those around you. So, Happy Valentine’s day - May you be as fortunate as I to be tied up to people so imperfect and inspiring.