The fields looked like pieces of a patch-work quilt from the perspective of the deep cobalt sky, that is they would have, if one could soar over them with the perfect grace that the candle shaped herons did, their white, slender bodies cruising through the air with a long flame colored beak jutting-out in front. The fields were dark with rich soil and green rice or corn crops that seemed to smile up at you like the dark workers did as we talked and toiled hour after hour, the sun beating down on our backs threateningly. The name in Spanish for the fields where I worked was, la finca, and here in this place of sweat and beauty I lived and worked for nine months. These fields provided money and food to the adjacent orphanage nestled outside of a small town named San Juan Opico, located in the northern part of the central-American country, El Salvador. The orphanage was composed of several long cement-brick and mortar houses, painted beige and orange with a gray stripe around and bright red tile roofs; each house was surrounded by palm trees, often filled with coconuts, and mango trees, gigantic and gnarled, even great-leafed almond trees, with their many layered branches, would shoot out of the fertile slopes, like fractal patterns. And all the seven houses swept around in a great circle, following the path of the red-brick road, that surrounded on the inside, a great grassy space called, la cancha, where the boys would go out and test their skills with the idol of their generation, a white and black checkered ball.
I had come to live at the orphanage at the request of my sister who was also living and working there with her husband. Not only for this reason had I come, but also because I had been considering the idea of travel and service somewhere outside of the United States for some time, and as soon as I had graduated from high school I planned to go. That very same summer, after graduation, and after a great deal of negotiation, I found myself in a great white whale of a plane heading south, and toward a country whose language I hardly knew. Nonetheless, I was prepared to spend the better part of a year working with its people. Life changing decisions are always made too lightly yet shamefully, often never made. This is so, because the magnitude of meaning to your life invested in such a decision is incalculable, yet fear will never be the proper guide of an adventurous soul.
Touching down in a country you know will be your home for quite awhile can be a very strange and exhilarating experience. Luckily my sister and a few others were ready and waiting in a little white-gray van outside of the airport. The air was pungent with smells of bustle and smog, tobacco smoke and exhaust from trucks and buses, and people dashing here and there with suitcases set to burst any moment. They all seemed to give me a look-over, like I was a rather harmless zoo animal that had escaped from its cage. And from my cage I had sprung! Everything seemed so new and vibrant, every movement I seemed to sense and store away to later analyze and understand.
It was about an hours drive from the airport to San Juan Opico and the orphanage, which lent itself well to a fuller understanding of what life was like in this over-populated and exploited country. People were living everywhere it seemed, the landscape was hilly and surprisingly lush with an emerald shimmer coming off the trees. Wherever someone lived, something was being sold. Lined-up along the highway were shabbily covered spaces filled with coconuts or fruits, candies or cashew nuts. Every time you stopped at a light, it seemed that some young girl or boy would run up to your car window and try to sell you a newspaper or gum, and time and again you would have to tell them, "No, no puedo comprarlo ahora. Lo Siento.”, or just ignore them all together.
Within the first week of living at the orphanage I began working seven or eight hours a day with the mason, who also was one of the parents of the houses there. Everyone called him, "Abuelo", or grandfather, because that's exactly what he was to everybody. He was an older man, in his late fifties maybe, with very dark brown skin and ivory white teeth. His face was very large and long with lips that resembled a horse's in their size and limber character. The size of his face corresponded well with the extent to which his belly extended beyond his waist, yet he was not very tall, no larger than five feet in stature, giving him a gate that was somewhat more like a waddle, as he swayed to the left and then to the right with each successive step. He wore a small straw hat atop his head that looked as though it were some ancient artifact from years of sweat and sun. But in spite of his comedic appearance he was a strong man and had hands as thick and crushing as any hoof of an ox. The character to which he subscribed was often stern and calculating, yet gentle when it was needed. For the first few weeks it was just he and I working, usually in silence, partly because that was his way, and partly because I could barely say six words correctly in Spanish. Every time I would say something he would look at me with wide questioning eyes trying to decipher what I had tried to communicate, or he would simply try to correct me, either of which would usually serve to confuse me more. Our work often involved mixing concrete by hand. Mixing the sand, gravel, and concrete powder together was very hot and hard work. Usually you felt like a knife could be used to cut a block of the humid air right out of the sky and drink it in. The concrete had a very distinct smell, too, like ashes from a campfire or chalk floating up after a black board had been wiped clean. Through all of it, I felt safe with Abuelo, he was a very religious man and traditions of honor and loyalty seemed to run deep in him. When we had worked together for a few weeks, we struck a harmony, a physical bond of movement that resembled some great significance in my own mind; he accepted me and taught me about life in silence, like any grandfather would teach his own grandson.
On the days that I didn't work with Abuelo I would work in the fields, sometimes with the rougher yet good-natured field-hands; they would all tell rather lewd jokes and laugh long, showing off their sparse sets of teeth. They talked of times past; better times and worse times, about the land and how long it would be until it was time to harvest the maize or arroz. They also, wore big straw hats that only partially shielded their dark molasses skin from the looming yellow orb above that often seemed to be the source of strange ringing sounds made by cicadas as they sang.
A few times, they would tell me to go and help in the green houses that stood on the far right side of the fields all lined up in two rows like a concentration camp. There, it was shaded and cooler than in the direct sun, meaning vegetables like peppers and tomatoes were grown here. Often what I would do is weed row after row of cilantro or onion plants for hours on my aching knees in the moist dirt. While weeding, I would listen to classical music on my ipod: Rochmaninov’s concertos and symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Mozart’s sonatas and suites by Edvard Grieg. There in the grime, my fingers sore and my breathing steady it was as though I were becoming part of the earth and the music. The rhythm of my movements seemed to match the rhythm of the notes and the rhyme of growth and death. In those moments the soil became a sanctuary, and I became part of it; the earth had a beat and tempo and I could hear it washing over me. What began in that moment was a romance with the land and a sense that it would yield to me and give me peace and significance.
The work that I did there in El Salvador and the experiences I had are of inestimable meaning to me. Yet, its something so few people get the chance to really understand here at home. Pent up in our houses and cars, cubicles and cyber lives, we lose connection with the creation that surrounds us, and the people that make nature what it is. Physical work isn't something that many find meaning in anymore, or value in the way it deserves. To find this truth for myself, I had to travel several thousand miles to live with people whom I did not know, but grew to love, and return to the roots of who we are as humans. The significance of the decision I made to live in El Salvador for those nine months cannot be overestimated.