The armadillo

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The Igbo say the place where one wakes up is home.

Eyes flipped open to dawn. “My last day” I said to no one. Somehow odd to know the way to school finally only to use this knowledge once. Diagonal across the park, turn right, along the creek, past sheep foraging in the garbage. I passed the old cigar factory, one of the only two factories in the town. Three hombres still sat under the jacaranda tree with "Huelga" placards, (“on strike”). The factory had closed down several months before and they were protesting non-payment of wages. The lucky ones had received half their wages, all paid in cigars. These men simply had nothing better to do and it sort of looked like work.

It was overcast, in the sixties, what the gringos called a beautiful day because it is a break from hot and humid. Not a beautiful day to Cofradian children, who arrive at school in parkas and caps for the first day of school after vacation, bewilderment on their faces. “What? Back here? That school experiment ended at Christmas. We thought we were done.” After six weeks of family and freedom, parties at

night, getting up at noon, here they were, inside, stuffed into desks, listening to that foreign language. Nothing to do except pull Maria’s braids, trip Ramon, and pretend we know nothing. After all, “We are Los Lobitos !, terrors of Old Cofradia.” They are like a string of firecrackers themselves, randomly exploding. Some are more tightly packed and some are duds. Which ones are which depends on the day of the week. I hung out in class until lunch break. I passed up lunch at the cafeteria; I wanted one more baleada, the emblem of this journey.

As we walked toward the gate Maureen told me that BECA teachers said I was “chill,” the best report card I could have hoped. We said our goodbyes at the door in the wall of the “compound,” as I had always called this walled school. I felt sad to be leaving Cofradia because it still looked beautiful after the five days total I had spent there. If I had stayed much longer I would see its limitations and repetitions. Eventually I too would call it, like one of the other teachers, “the hangover that never ends.”

Clara recognized me with her warm smile and friendly Spanish. I could only nod enthusiastically in response, a sufficient reply. I ordered and sat on the one white plastic chair with all four legs the same length. I savored this moment in this place, an intersection of roosters and dogs, lanes filled with shouts or amplified megaphones from passing pickups announcing green bananas or purified water, little ones running errands, old men pushing wheelbarrows of coconuts, crowings and barkings, life going on just to go on because what else can one do? A niño sits next to me, clutching a worn train engine, his large black eyes silently tracking the green ballpoint writing these words, wondering about this American avatar. I sat under the sign “Se le do credito a las personas de 100 anos. Companados de sus abuelos.” = “We give credit to people 100 years old. Companions to our old ones.” The sign is both cute and touching. To me, it says we insist on honoring our humanity and compassion over business. Yet, for our own survival we can only give credit to very few in a place where most people need and deserve credit. Her baleada was so good, served with such goodness, making tortillas and balancing passion for a larger life with acceptance of this life, como agua para chocolate.

What did I learn?

Getting away from America and my language seems now more of a necessity than a vacation. Never a fan of the policies or materialism of Das Vaterland, I finally appreciate living in America. I cannot say being here is “no better, no worse.” That’s ridiculous; it is way better here. Before I thought “better” was glitter and entertainment, DVR and GPS. Now I know better: fresh water (even choice of temperature), dependable electricity (even light for reading), homes that are clean-able, safety, hope, opportunity… so much more than mere convenience.

I did not learn anything in an academic sense about Central America that could not be gained from Wikipedia in an hour. I experienced, sensed, connected. I am different now. Like the Belize taxi driver, I will “miss everything here in Cofradia,” too. Not because I want anything here, but because, for a month I was here. I shared the present moment with people. I could return Anderson’s infectious smile, Pector’s exuberant poking, Catalina’s knowing gaze. I became whoever

I am in this place, with as much or as little insight as I had in the other place. In Avatar, Jake Sully said, “Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world, and in here is the dream.” I say everywhere has its truth and everywhere is a dream. I don’t understand how I can walk over Cofradian rutted streets, which are only dusty or muddy, and at the end of the day walk into my clean dry safe climate-controlled home, open a refrigerator door with a greater variety of food than their corner pulperia (their typical small market, derived from the Spanish word for octopus). Of course I understand the technology of airplanes. I mean I don’t understand what happens inside me.

I am always struck by the enormous diversity and creativity of different cultures in the world, and yet in any, in every, local situation, most of our creative human potential is harnessed into a daily routine. Getting out of my own country, and my language, gave me perspective on my own routines. “I love my life; I love my job” now looks a model prison. I thought I was aware of my routines, but only getting out of all of them could I see how pervasive they are, how much I enjoy routine per se, but not really. Being present to another place I learned the value just being present in any place and knowing innocence. I don’t want to be stupid; I do want to be naïve.

I conclude that the only way to write a travel blog is to keep on travelling, not so much to travel again as to be a traveler, to be always starting a new life. Upon return I have been saying No, giving up responsibilities, creating space to be present. I expect that making these changes will not as hard as preserving them. I can feel the vines growing back, the veil dropping. Which brings us finally to the armadillo.

There was no actual armadillio; it is the MacGuffin in this travel blog. As popularized by Alfred Hitchcock, it is

“a plot element that catches the viewers' attention to drive the plot… The specific nature of the MacGuffin is not important to the plot as such. Anything that serves as a motivation serves its purpose.”

Maybe Carla's Honduran baleada is the MacGuffin in my ongoing story.

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Photos

Cat and Mouse Game
Two children crawl under the parachute as mice; two children are cats trying to catch them.

Road to Carla
The beginning and the end of La Strada.

Armadillo MacGuffin
The MacGuffin can sometimes be ambiguous, completely undefined, generic or left open to interpretation.

Comments

[Marcia]

Loved the fin al comments.Loved the whole thing. An undertaking well worth the effort. A kiss and a sock on the arm to you.