Each morning a little light seeping through the wooden slats of the windows, the rustling of people outside my doors, such a slight separation between my space and the rest of the world. Bare feet on the cracked cement floor, already a light layer of dust since yesterday’s sweeping, I stand in the middle of the front room for a moment before opening my house, letting in the light and the day. What I want is the air, the reality of life outside, but this is also an invitation to enter – an open door means men pausing in the doorway, children coming in uninvited, people passing by and yelling out my name, often gone before I can even see who called.
I am glad for the visits when I know and like my visitors; I am glad to be a part of the community. Some just gaze at my pictures on the fridge and ask about my life, curious about my friends and family. Some are too bold, looking through my things on the table, asking to borrow or keep things: peanut butter, lip-gloss, my camera… I tell them they’re being rude: “Pero tu entras en casa ajena y pidas cosas asi?!” But you just come into someone else’s house and ask for things like that?! They laugh, sometimes bashful, often not. I like that I’ve reached a point of comfort here to tell it like it is, without worrying about offending someone. They aren’t offended. It’s all about delivery. And the best way to keep my sanity with all the crazy situations I end up in is to be as bold as everyone else…
At night, men sit outside Neno’s colmado across the street from my house, slow Mexican music falling and rising from a truck’s speakers. If I leave the door open, I have more visitors. The activity multiplies, motorcycles roaring past, kids running and yelling, the men raising their voices over a card game or dominos. They used to really annoy me out there, talking about politics, women, the tobacco crop, whatever, and watching when I leave my house, when I come back, when someone else visits me. Sometimes it still drives me a little crazy, the feeling of being watched, but now that I’m friendly with everyone and they’ve become familiar neighbors, it usually just makes me feel safe. All that activity on my street, people always sitting there, a light bulb always on (whether or not we have electricity, because the colmado has a generator)… It’s like having my own personal watchmen. Things work out well.
Returning to Tabara after three weeks away was actually quite nice. I was greeted like a long lost relative: hug attacks from friends, everyone on the street telling me how they’d missed me, asking how my family is doing in the United States, updating me on the gossip… I got right back into the swing of things, and now that the adult literacy program has ended, I’m free to start other projects. So far I’ve started a girl’s empowerment youth group and am getting things organized to begin a reading program for elementary school kids outside of school. I’m still working with some of the adults too, just not running all over the community like a crazy person trying to get 100 people to learn to read. Also, Tabara Arriba got a new priest in November who is ready to get to work on development projects, and is supportive of my education work. The last priest was supposed to be my project partner… that didn’t work out, as he didn’t seem to care to do any work or support me at all. So this is an exciting new development. I have no religious agenda, but if the church is the only community organization doing anything for the community, more power to them!
I’m feeling good about 2012.
