I officially have a home to stay for the next year!!! The other day I moved out of the Center to my new home in La Chacara (also known as Nueva Colonia Suchitoto), which is a fifteen minute walk away. Moving here is somewhat different than in the States, although both share the action of renting a truck. I packed up my backpack and carry-on before getting ready to hop in the truck Peggy had rented. After tossing in my luggage next to construction supplies, I jumped in along with them into the back of what can roughly be described as a pick up truck. Although this form of transportation is probably not the safest, I must admit it to be one of the most enjoyable. As we ambled along the streets (perhaps going slow to give the poor gringa the illusion of extreme safety), I gloried in the beautiful day - sun, clear skies, and a bit of a breeze. And, as usually happens when I am feeling any emotion or simply going through normal everyday actions, I decided it would be an excellent time to burst into song. And who can blame me if I decided to sing a bit of a Billy Joel classic while moving to my new home? "Cuz Iiiiiiiiii'm..... MOVIN' OUT!!"
However, soon after this very relaxing ten minutes or so, Samuel (the driver) asked a very simple question that shook me from my temporary revelry:
"So.... where's your house?"
PANIC.
As most people know, I have an abysmal sense of direction. Back in San Francisco, I managed to take a bus in the complete opposite direction of my house when I could have walked there in ten minutes. As a new tour guide in college, I systematically became lost somewhere between the Arts and Sciences Building and the Engineering School.... which happen to be right across the street from each other. I have gotten myself and others lost an incalculable number of times, and woe to you if you happen to ask me directions on the street. I just may send you to Mexico. Or Canada. The whole North/South thing confuses me.
Therefore, to be asked how to get to a home I have a) visited once, b) visited at night, c) walked to and therefore taken a completely different route, and d) only gone to with other people, created a bit of my own kind of psychological horror. I envisioned long, drawn out searches for my new home that ended with either a) an unplanned trip to Nicaragua or b) Samuel finally becoming so frustrated that I would end up abandoned with my backpack on the side of some road in an unknown barrio.
I should not have worried. Samuel took one look at my slightly (or perhaps greatly) distraught face, and started laughing. "No worries, no worries," he chuckled. "Who do you live with?" When I told him that I lived with Rosa, he thought for a bit. "Ooooh!! ¡Rosa la maestra (Rosa the teacher)! Yeah, I know where she lives, it's just a couple more streets." So off we went to Rosa's (now "Rosa the teacher's") house.
And my new home is LOVELY. I live with the most wonderful woman, Rosa, who is amazingly generous and also absolutely hilarious. After we both get back from work, we spend the night in laughter - at ourselves, at life, at the absolutely ridiculous telenovelas that seem to always be on, at nothing. It is so comforting to come back to a house filled with warmth and laughter. Besides Rosa, I share the house with a couple (Cassie and Paul) who are also volunteers, and just around the corner is Rosa's best friend Eva and yet another volunteer, the wonderful Christy, my very first friend here in El Salvador.
Together, we have our own little La Chacara community, a wonderful community full of women and one man (sorry, Paul!), and a community I am excited to get to know better. So here's to all the adventures in the year ahead, and the wonderful people I will be able to share them with!
