A Brief History of Anachronism

Simplicity

Let’s put it out there, first and foremost. I hate this because, it’s, like, Rudyard Kipling bullshit. “The White Man’s Burden” or some such nonsense where I’m supposed to use the words “exotic” and “strange” to describe the place I’m in. No thanks, Joseph Conrad; I’m doing just fine.

Or, maybe I could be a total jackass and misuse native words in between short, curt sentences. Ernest Hemingway all up in this bitch. My alcohol budget is significantly smaller and having neither impotence nor raging, Spanish-virgin fueled nymphomania to intersperse, the narrative might fall short.

But I grew up in a colonialist country that took what they learned about the shit side of imperialism and rebranded it “manifest destiny”, so con permiso. It is strange and exotic, though “savage” never crossed my mind. The mountains are tropical by virtue of their climate. The food is different and authentic and delicious and will wreak havoc on your digestive system in the long run. There is malaria and dysentery and other scary things to keep your mother up at night while your oceans and land masses away.

So, yes, I am an American in El Salvador. And, yes, everything is surreal. I don’t wear a fanny pack and I pronounce words properly in both languages, but I am still the “other”.  I stand on a shallow precipice between total wonder and blasé familiarity. I have been here before. I know what a papusa is and how to eat it. I’ve had nasty little sicknesses and 3^rd degree sunburns and come back here without a good reason. When others have tapped out, I remain. And yet…

We don’t do anything of merit on these trips. The kids we play with, sing with, sponsor even still live in temporary houses with dirt floors and not enough food. These kids still need to work 3 times as hard as any American to finish high school. My spending a week of my time and $350 a year will not even out the distribution of wealth.

I know this, and I feel it acutely on days like today when the ninos of Tacuba have prepared a special celebration just for us gringos. They applaud us as we walk in and sit in plastic chairs in rows of four. It’s like some kind of Heart of Darkness bullshit the way they greet us, something out of a 1940s movie where the indigenous, the aborigines laud their white victors. It’s bullshit that they think we like this imperial/orientalist spectacle. What kind of people do they think we are? My inferiority complex resounds loud and clear.

I hang my head, ashamed that I’m American, white, middle class. I don’t want power or privelege and I especially don’t want their praise. I have done nothing; I am nothing. My career aspirations are not for the common good. I have entirely selfish dreams of a little white family of professionals in New York City. I am lucky enough to pine after graduate schools and sexual gratification, and the blessing disgusts me.  I want everything I am to disappear so that all the money and resources spent, wasted on me can just pass on to these people who deserve it by the transitive property.

The kids dance and sing for us. During a rendition of “Angeles”, a little boy dressed in white with construction paper feathers on his shoulders puts his hand on my head to pray over me. This is the type of shame the worst rapist, thief, serial killer cannot experience. This is the guilt of a youth wasted in suburbia satisfying my own needs. I am shit. No, I want to one day get to the level of shit; shit was at least something useful at one point in time.

And I’ve been here four times; I know something like this is coming. What kind of insecure douchebag am I that I keep coming back for this? Can’t I just send a check and leave these poor people alone? I am a blonde-haired, blue-eyed human rights criminal by birth and I want to evaporate.

And yet, there’s a tiny portion of me, that little chunk of Id that I have left after feeling guilty all week, that finds this beautiful. These incredibly dirty kids are dressed in ancient costumes serenading complete strangers that for one reason or another they believe deserve respect. They think there’s a God up there and they are using up prayers asking for us privileged assholes to be protected and happy on our way back to the land of plenty. The tent we’re in is shoddy and beyond their means and barely covers the 25 of us, let alone the 500+ of them that are standing three looking at us. They’ve decorated the area with fresh fruit and cheap latex balloons that cost these people way more than balloons could ever be worth.  The one microphone cuts in and out due to weather interference miles away. Everyone’s hot and uncomfortable and yet the Salvadorians keep smiling. It’s absurd. If I was another person, I would deem it “quaint as fuck”.

For me, it’s bizarrely beautiful. It’s a kind of humanity that does not exist in mega-malls, in universities, in Cathedrals. It’s a grandeur lacking everything. It’s a bounty of nothing. It is people who are smelly and dirty and who actually care about the people around them-solely because they are people. In more cynical times, I would say this is all pretense, a simple way to placate the overlords and get more money out of them. I would suspect that performance studies is right , that we’re all playing roles to manipulate others.             But I think, maybe, this is real. Maybe it’s just hubris and an over-cognitive nature, but I don’t think this little boy patting my head is bluffing. And maybe I’m ignorant and he’s an unwitting agent of a larger power, but he hugs me like he means it. And maybe all my other experiences of hugging are also colored with false subjectivity, with a desire to believe love exists, but this is a familiar embrace. It is my mom after a long day; it’s Schmitty after a long time apart; it’s Father Bob when he’s proud of me; it’s my beloved when it’s time to part once again. These could all be false emotions I read in others, handicaps given to me because I’m not actually worth anyone’s pride or affection. But those are the times when I feel most sure that I know what’s going on, and a little bit that’s what this is too. I am being held by a four year old from a different culture because I am here and holdable.

Henry, a former “illegal alien” and our liason between the two worlds, tells us to notice the simplicity. After finishing our dish-washing haggling and dealing with drama at home, it’s a shock to the system. We come from a realm in which even our carbohydrates are all complex. Your comprehension of iWhatever denotes youth and status.

I’m dancing precariously close to Thoreau now; hypocritically suggesting a plainer life knowing an elaborate one awaits me after this hiatus. This all sounds fine and well until I get back to my very complicated schedule of nonsense with my very fast very caffeinated friends who will run the worlds of arts and sciences once they manage to make more than minimum wage. This cannot, will not, should not last longer than a moment and I accept that even as I think it.  But Henry speaks, in dulcet tones,

“Do not let small things run your life

Run your life with small things.”

And everything else goes away.