La Gringa

EVERYONE in my community calls me "la gringa." Even my host mom. I mean, come on, I've been living here for 3 weeks now and I know you know my name! All the neighborhood kids refer to me as "la gringa," except for one, who reminds the other kids that I do in fact have a name, and that it's Jordan, and that it's rude to call me "la gringa." I pretty much love him. It's not that I'm offended by it, but if I have to learn the names of every one in my community (and GOD KNOWS they all look alike because they're all related in some crazy twisted way, so learning names has been next to impossible), than they can be bothered to learn one simple name...

Being white in this country kind of sucks for various reasons. Here's just a few: Pretty much every man/teenage boy I walk by whistles at me or says some inappropriate pick up line. Every homeless person within a 10 block radius in any pueblo will flock to me and ask me for a quarter. I get asked "how much did that cost" about every single one of my possessions. And everyone thinks I have thousands of dollars to throw around at them and at the community...which is definitely not the case! And I'm pretty sure I get overcharged for sodas on the buses by street vendors.

Being la gringa does come with a few perks, however. People assume I've never had most foods that they make/grow here in el salv. "You've never had a banana, have you?" or "Have you ever heard of cashews? They're delicious, here try some." Any time anyone asks me if I've ever tried something, I automatically say "no" because I know that food will be coming my way if I act enthusiastic to try it! Also, the other day I was offered the seat in the cabin of the giant truck back to the pueblo, and let me tell you how nice it was to sit comfortably in the front of the truck, rather than holding on for dear life in the back!

The women in my community also think I'm bat crazy. Here are just a few reasons why: I'm 22 and I do not have a husband and a baby. Not only do I not have a husband, but I don't even have a boyfriend back home in the states (gasp!!!) I take baths in the late afternoon. I wait for the water to boil to start cooking noodles. I don't add vegetable oil to my spaghetti noodles once they're done cooking. I only sprinkle a few shakes of salt onto my food. I drink at least one nalgene full of water a day. I don't love coffee. I wash my pots and pans after each time I cook. I can only eat one tortilla in a sitting. And finally, I eat onions. I know, CRAAAAZYYYY.

In other news, transport in and out of my community is a disaster. No one actually knows when trucks come in and out of here so I can never get a straight answer as to how I can get back into the community when I leave it. So that's going to be fun. The chicharras are finally starting to die, so it's a little more quiet around here in the evenings. My host family is still blasting music at 5:30am but I'm getting closer every day to being able to move out, so that's good. Oh! And grape is the current flavor this week for charramuscas, something that I'm very excited about.

I'm off to lay in my hammock for the next couple of hours. Miss you all!

Salu, pues.

xoxo