So last night it happened. I talked to Daniel. First it was through text… then we had a 2 hour plus phone conversation. 

At first, I didn’t really even process what I was going to say when we did talk on the phone. It wasn’t until Bena brought it up by asking me if I had some sort of agenda or points of conversation. 

 I really didn’t. All I could think of was 1. what really happened that night 2. what did he think it meant and 3. i don’t know. 

We ended up having a few phone conversations because a. the phone connection would cut off or b. he had to run an errand/call me back. 

the first few conversations would get kind of heisty, and there did seem to be a lot of different versions that starting coming up. but then again, it’s all a little confusing. 

the last real conversation we had was over an hour long. i feel like that one led to more understanding. we went through step by step what he remembered(or says he does) and i would add in commentary. i tried not to reveal the little i remember. 

who knows exactly how genuine he’s being, but we’ll see. he says he wants to know i’m doing okay, that he wants to be there for me. i’ll let him be there to whatever extent i feel i want him there. 

one thing though that really PISSED ME THE FUCK OFF…the detective apparently told him right away about the procedure and everything. that just doesn’t seem to me like it was respectful of my situation at all. if anything that douche has made things worse. 

So there’s more to write but I think i’ll stop here for a bit. The main reason I wrote so much right now was because I needed to just write something out. I just got off the phone with The Victim’s Compensation program - i dropped the case for that compensation program. I’m just really over all that, It’s not worth the stress. Money is just money. Main reason I seriously also dropped the case was because 1. I couldn’t even get my “best friend” to do me the favor of picking up the letter from my house, it said i had literally 10 days to return that paperwork. and also 2. because it was just getting too intense/unnecessary, my old boss contacted me saying she received a letter. Not really something I care enough to want to pursue. 

Police case etc is still there somewhere. But who knows about that. I’d rather not mess with that right now. All it is is frustration with no positives coming out of it, so I’m fine as is.

Not too long after that it was past 2 am and they were closing Cafe La Te and all the surrounding bars. 

Ruben didn’t have a ride home so he tagged along with us, actually so did another guy friend of his. 

We dropped the guy friend first, then Ruben. Something I hadn’t mentioned before was that Ruben had asked/told me earlier that “el queria hacerme el amor.” So what does Ruben say right before getting out of the car- and I mean he announced it to the group ( Irma, Ana, Miche and Mirna) ” se puede quedar angelica” or something along those lines. Yes, of course I stayed. 

Ha. Kidding. I did add him on facebook though like two days after. The world is soooo small that it turns out he’s cousins with one of my good friends from high school! random really. 

Saturday, we slept in a bit, went to el supermercado, went on this long but really nice tour the country is putting on in celebration of its bicentennial. We took a bus tour of different churches/monuments of SAn Salvador. Then we had chinese food and I text Jose Luis and Carlos- they had invited me/friends to see them play at a local bar. turns out it was for the wrap up of “el festival de las americas” not quite sure what that means, but it had something to do with human rights celebration/awareness. So after dinner we hit up La Luna, the local bar that is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary. It’s a pretty well known bar- known for celebrating various types of Salvadorean art, music etc. 

So it’s been a good two weeks probably since I last wrote in here. Part of the reason for that was either too little or too much time on my hands. 

Monica and I have continued volunteering for the Concertacion de Mujeres de Suchitoto and since a lot of the stuff they would love help with is pamphlet and poster designs, I’ve been doing some learning of InDesign and Illustrator. 

During the week, we mostly stay at home or go out for coffee and just work from home. The weekend is when we go to the city, this past weekend was the 2nd in a row. 

We usually leave Friday afternoons and come back Monday mornings. This weekend we: had sorbete(ice cream), went for pizza and beers (where we met Alex- he’s a married guy that still hangs out with the group of female friends we’ve made here). Which brings me to my first big point and issue…infidelity here is like the NORM. I mean I realize cheating goes on everywhere, but the machismo here etc is even more obvious. The man can drink, the man can smoke, the man should cheat, the man can go out at night. The woman can’t drink, the woman can’t smoke, the woman shouldn’t cheat, and she better be at home at night. So of course we receive mixed responses, some look down on us for doing the drinking and going out at night etc. Main thing about all this is just being smart about it, we are in their country/predominant culture after all. 

Friday night we also went back to that bar/lounge Leyendas. I dislike the situations where your female friends invite their male friends and expect you to mingle with them as if you’re interested at all. As if you’re there for their entertainment. Maybe I should be more social, but I feel like I’d rather socialize on my own terms with who I want( tis really how I live life though.) But whatever that’s kinda what happened. Irma, her sis, and their friends invited Alex and 2 other guys to tag along. After Leyendas we went to Cafe La Te (cafe turned dance/bar place). Of course those guys assume you’re there for being their dance partners too. The thing about me though is that I can care less and also be really awkward, so I’ll maybe dance with them for a few minutes then whenever I get a chance just turn around and dance myself away into the crowd or go outside. I did both that night. The time I went outside I found Irma (friend from the Concertacion de Mujeres) crying, she had just ended talking on the phone with her long distance boyfriend (he’s in Maryland.) She told me about how he stresses her out, and tries to continuously keep her on check. She acknowledged how wrong that was, and how the Concertacion de MUjeres etc have really opened her eyes as to the different ways women are oppressed/or psychologically harmed. We got her to calm down and decided to go look for Mirna, her best friend since grade school! 

Mirna is funny, she’s known as the druggie, as the groupie, and other names to their group of friends. So of course, what was she doing? She was outside the bar with a few guy friends smoking a joint. One of the guys was Ruben. I met him last week through them. He’s funny, but of course a bit pot head. That brings me to my second point, I probably already mentioned this but it seems like alcoholism and maybe even drugs in general are not just used here for recreation but as a way of life. Even our friend Jose Luis is said to drink 4 to 5 times a week.

Going back to Mirna and the group of guys smoking…it’s just still a bit weird for me to see fried out people. I’ve seen marijuana used on occasion by even friends, but never to this point. Anyways, I talked to Ruben for a bit. He’s really hilarious…laughs at himself too. I was there with him for a bit until Monica and her friend Johannes came looking for me. Turns out I had a visitor waiting inside…. Carlos.

So Ruben and Carlos will probably come up a few more times in my rambling. Mainly because I talk to them the most, oh and also because they are part of the first point I made earlier about infidelity. They’re both really sweet guys, but in a culture that looks down and/doesn’t really believe in the hook up culture- they find themselves as being part of the group of guys who have a girlfriend but who would also be more than open to being with someone. 

So I went back inside with Monica and Johannes. Carlos was waiting at the table they had been sitting at. Carlos and I talked for a bit then proceeded to dance a bit. Everything PG of course. He didn’t stay for too long because he had a friends party to crash. That was fine. By this point Irma and Mirna had come back in, so had the three guys smoking with Mirna. OH and not to mention their other guy friends Alex and Co. One of them asked me to dance again, and of course I did the whole dance away thing after a few minutes. I ended up going to dance with the guys that were high. They’re more out of it than anything so it was just fun to just dance. 

Ruben made a comment to me that made me regress a bit for a second, not a bad comment or anything just something I’ve heard before from that unmentionable ass. But I mean on the other hand, Ruben earlier had said some sweet things…but at this point I just don’t really know what to believe anymore. I just feel like whatever they say is for that one ultimate goal of going to bed. Whatever, at least they’re open, and really friendly guys. No pressure of anything or rude comments thus far. 

Also by this point, Monica had gone for a walk with Johannes so I was there alone with all the new ppl I’ve met in the last few weeks. 

This was my second weekend here, but my first not being in Suchitoto. Monica and I have fortunately met some really amazing women here at the Concertacion de Mujeres de Suchitoto; one of those women offered to host us in San Salvador for the weekend. How could we turn that down, especially for the first time leaving Suchitoto. In this way we could get an idea of how to get around on our own next time we go. 

Some things we did:

visited UCA, the university our new friend Irma goes to for a Masters degree in Desarrollo Local

http://www.uca.edu.sv/

Irma introduced us to her best friends Mirna and Miche. Mirna is in the same masters program as Irma. While Irma and Mirna had class Friday evening, Monica and I ventured a bit around a street next to UCA. We had some food at an Italian place, then moved over a few doors down to a place called EL Arco to get some beers. As we sat there, this really drunk 25ish year old guy ended up getting the courage to come talk to us. He introduced himself to us with two different names, switching as he pleased. It wasn’t an uncomfortable setting because he really was a funny, geeky and sarcastic type of guy. His real name turned out to be Jose Luis, 25 year old from San Salvador..un musico/economista. Jose Luis was there with a friend who was working on some drawings, he’s actually really good lol. His name is Serge. We got to know each other a bit, a lot of it was laughter because Jose Luis was pretty wasted. At times though he would put himself down…just so you can sense the type of person he is.  A while later his cousin Carlos dropped by. EL Arco is really close to the university so I guessed they go there often. We found out the guys are in a band, we exchanged numbers etc then met up again with our friend Irma to go home and get ready for the night. 

We got ready and headed out to one of their favorites spots called Las Leyendas..they said they go there for most occasions..most of their birthday celebrations even. It was a really lively and chill bar type of place and since it’s tropical weather here of course no roof. There’s a really big interest in raggae and jazz music here, something I had no idea about. While we were there some Honduran drummers started playing. The random part was that as soon as we walked through the bar to get to the back open area who do we see? yea Jose Luis, Serge and Carlos. We say hi for a bit but then go sit with the females we went with (Miche, Mirna, Irma- Monica and I). After a beer we decide to go to another nearby walkable place they like going to dance at, Cafe La Te. The place hmm is probably like a cafe type of place during the day, but at night there’s a DJ and bar. We danced the night away …till 1:30am only though because Irma and Mirna had a morning exam at the university!

On Saturday, Monica and I went out for breakfast with Irma’s mom and older sister. They are all soooooo welcoming!

After breakfast Irma’s older and now also younger sister took us to visit MARTE: http://www.marte.org.sv/  it had a really great collection/variation. 

After MARTE we went home to rest a bit, then headed out again to go see a play at the Teatro Nacional…only $3. The play turned out to be a monologue, a really intense and brilliant one though based on the missing children of the Salvadorean civil war. ah. 

So yesterday we went to observe a “jornada” aka a type of workshop for the women on the new laws coming into effect January of 2012 that will provide legal protection and care of women in El Salvador. It was again really beautiful to see so many women come out, and from different rural communities too! Some didn’t know how to read so I helped with making one of their name cards (Maria Angelica.)

Monica and I originally didn’t know what to expect as to how long the session would run. Turns out it was scheduled from 9am to 3pm. The sessions were facilitated by Irma and another lady (she has an office within the police station here.) The goal of the workshop was to get the women to realize that there are/will be more laws protecting them ie. facilitating the process of filing a police report/ the right to have political/cultural/social freedom & also the help in making the father of their children responsible in helping economically.

It was really interesting to just hear them talk about men and their own experiences. The workshops helped foster a safe place for them, and most talked about how they are going to go back to their own communities and share what they learned/discussed.

Monica and I were able to film parts of their activities and discussions. :)

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As far as today, we are spending the day working on proposals for campaigns they’ve assigned us to help out with.