Buena Raza

Three weeks ago my friend Marcos invited me out for a drink with a couple that have been life-long friends. Good folks. Good times. Enrique, the male of the species, asked me why I stay in El Salvador, why I choose it over the United States, the destination of between 50-100 Salvadorans daily (via coyotes, desert, and the "train of death").

In my short but priveledged life I've traveled to 16 countries on 2 continents and out of all the places I've been Salvadorans are, by far, the most fantastic human beings I've encountered.

Salvadorans are always impressed and mystified by this proclamation, one I make every chance I get. It tickles them that a gringa would think such a thing, a person from a place most Salvadorans think of as "the promised land."

About a year ago I was leading a meeting of farmers and their families in a remote mountain village on the eastern side on the country when a leather-skinned old man raised his hand and asked where I was from. "Well, I'm from California, " I said grinning. As if scripted, he then asked why I chose to live in El Salvador such a poor, ugly, country with so much violence.

"Because of the people..." I started and suddenly felt a knot in my throat. In front of the group I began to weep, rather uncontrollably in a very Cary Seoane kind of way. They just stared, marveling at the strange creature under the conacaste tree who couldn't talk through her tears.

It seems like such an intangible thing, you know, to love a place because of the people. So general, non specific. Friends and family ask what there is to do, to see, in El Salvador and while I rifle off the many sites to see and foods to try in the back of my mind I think "just find a campesino, sit down with them over a cup of coffee and you'll see what I mean."

During my trip home to California I met up with two girls from my Peace Corps life who are now living in San Francisco. I asked them both about how much they use their Spanish in their new lives and how they keep in tune with the Salvadoran culture. Michelle, who has been back in the States the longest said that frequently she'll overhear a conversation in Spanish that has that tell tale accent, a dash of vos and a mention of mysterious volados. Salvadorans! Michelle claims she doesn't interrupt them like she used to and ask if, in fact, they are Salvadorans. The urge to join in the conversation, to talk about Metapan, to connect with Salvadorans is still strong.

Its hard to quantify the million and one details that make Salvadorans top on my list. Perhaps its the way they took me in, unconditionally, bowl problems and all. It could be the way complete strangers wish you a "happy" day or wish you well as you leave their place of business. It could be that when asked for directions, they will tell you something, anything, even if they don't have a clue where you're talking about just to try to be helpful. Its the fried chicken and rice lunches to thank you for "remembering" them and taking time to visit their community. The way they pull out a fragile plastic chair and insist that you sit and rest your weary bones.

Perhaps many intagibles piled together in such a small country makes them, the generalities, appear tangible after all.

The Need to be Needed

Last week I was having lunch with a friend of mine during which he insisted on focusing on my recent break up. There was so much to talk about... the FMLN's presidential candidate, the upcoming Black Eyed Peas concert, pending plans to check out an unexplored beach... but no, we got to talking about the break up.

For over an hour Tomas psychoanalyzed me and the failed relationship yet he talked in circles, dancing around what I could identify as one central point. Finally, he reached across the table nearly spilling my tortilla soup in to my lap and grabbed my right hand.

"Look, you're too self-sufficient. You can do everything! What man in his (very latino) right mind would even bother with you? You're smarter than most, make more money...man, you hear a funny noise while driving and dive under your car and check it out. A man has got to feel NEEDED and you make them feel like they're in your way!"

Well, usually they are in the way. But that's besides the point. Tomas definitely hit a nerve. Ouch.

In my line of work I bump up against human need every day. There's the obvious needs- dignified dwellings, food security, adequate medical care and education. Tangible, in your face, with pretty obvious solutions. In the span of a single afternoon I can run a community diagnostic, analyze needs, do a quick feasibility study and make a rough community development plan. Carrying out that plan could take years, but people generally feel their needs are being met while the process is under way. And I, well, I get to feel needed.

As a supervisor, I am constantly addressing needs. Part of what is fascinating about my job is that I am the "point person" on all things cultural, technical and sometimes emotional in these peoples' lives. I am afforded the oppotunity daily to fill peoples needs, be if for information, a pat on the back, advice on a sticky work situation or, in most cases, the simple need to be heard.

I feel good about that.

Sometimes the buzz I get from fulfilling peoples needs can be debilitating. Last week I got a phone call at 1 am on a Monday morning from a young woman who wanted to know if I could put more minutes on her cell phone because she was running out. There are limits.

So how does all this relate to Tomas' revelation over muffaleta and tortilla soup?

In my professional life I hold all the marbles. I'm the girl with the answers. All day long I meet peoples needs. I give. And give. And give. I like giving. I'm in charge, people come to me and my opinions count. My need to be needed is well fulfilled.

As with most of our workplace habits, this spills in to my personal life where I also tend to be in control, orchestrate, and feel this immense desire to be needed. Since I spend all day fulfilling peoples needs, I continue on at home, and don't let anyone do the same for me. I want to be competent and self sufficient. My parents taught me to be independent and somehow that lesson morphed in to "don't need anyone."

Of course, I've thought about all of this before and how unhealthy it probably is in the long run but I hadn't considered that other people picked up on this horrible weakness of mine.

I guess I could just blow Tomas off as a typical latin man who wants to be in charge, a mandar, but I think that would be simplifying it too much. All humans need to be needed, that's just how we're built, and if I can't make the people around me feel like I need them then I'm ignoring what is at their very core.

Just like I derive satisfaction from caring for people at work, the people in my life feel good about caring for me. In the thick of every day life, that simple truth is incredibly difficult for me to remember.

There's a gringa in the latrine!...and other occupational hazards

Spanglish vocabulary needed to read this blog entry:
1)Campo: The "country" or rural part of El Salvador. Not to be confused with "village" which is a defined cluster of houses. Mom called my village "Bri's campo" for the first year I was down here. Isn't she cute?

2) Companeros: This word should have a tilde, but my gringo computer won't make that happen so you'll have to imagine it. Companero/a means "co worker" in this case. We'll leave the political implications of this word for a future blog entry.

3)Desvio: Literally, a junction between two or more roads. The desvio is an important concept to understand when getting/giving directions in El Salvador because no matter where you go, you'll have to turn at or pass a desvio.

4) Vaca: cow. You should have all learned that one watching Sesame Street as a kid. If your parents didn't make you watch Sesame Street, sorry for you.

5) Potrero: A line of trees used to shade livestock and form a "fenceline" around property.

Lately I've been a little nostalgic for campo life. I get this way when I'm holed up in the office for too many consecutive days for too many consecutive weeks. I long for fresh air and refried beans.

Due to the cyclical nature of my job, there are times of year when I LIVE on the road and spans of time (like now) when my routine becomes administrative in nature.

Wednesday, I took an unexpected but not uneventful trip to the campo enroute to an interinstitutional coordination meeting out East in San Francisco Gotera (google earth that bad boy and you'll see what I mean). My roomate, we'll call her Mariah (she has many nicknames)and I left in the cover of night to make our way along the Panamerican Highway picking up companeros along the way and hoping to make it to the meeting in Gotera by 8.

Not so much.

Nearing the pick up spot of the first companera, she called to say that she had dropped her phone in the latrine (again) AND the bus broke down and she wasn't able to make it out to the highway to meet us. So we went to her.

Unexpected campo visit number one.

The road from the desvio to Potrero de Joco the village where our esteemed companera lives is a long, narrow, muddy one occupied by cows and young men on horses and bicycles who herd them with varying degrees of success. Cow traffic is heavy in the morning and afternoon when the boys on bikes herd them out to pasture and then back home again. Cows are large, slow, stupid animals who do not respect ones schedule.

This crisp morning, on the unexpected visit to the campo the cow traffic jam was in full effect. Now, months before I had learned how, in the event that the boys on bikes were ineffectual, to part the sea of cows and continue on along the narrow muddy road. What one must do is stick her head out the window and bellow "VACAAAAAAAAAAAA! VACAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

I was Moses in the Red Sea of cattle and little by little, prodded by my well practiced "VACAAAAAAAA!" they parted. Imagine the delight of the of boys on bikes and they witnessed a gringa in the middle of the campo driving around in a $60,000 SUV parting her way through cow traffic.

Mariah, my co-pilot liked it so much that she decided to try it. We're all about capacity building in my organization, so I was happy to pass on my little piece of wisdom. Up the road a ways, Mariah got her chance.

"FUCKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! FUCKAAAAAAAAAAAA!" She yelled, and dutifully the cows parted ways. Apparently, they don't care if you're cussing them out or yelling their name- all cows need is the right intonation.

The second unexpected venture in to the campo occured an hour later when another companero was left by a different bus and thus could not meet us at his particular desvio. As we waited for him to emerge from the forrest on foot, I realized I'd drank an entire thermos of coffee, been on the road for 3 hours and hadn't gone to the bathroom.

I left Mariah in charge of the $60,000 gringo-mobile and searched for a nearby house where I hoped to find a friendly Salvadoran with a clean latrine. Nearly 6 years of health education told me that the possibility of finding a friendly Salvadoran was high, but a clean latrine was slim to none.

At the closest potero I came accross that smiley, friendly Salvadoran I expected. She was a woman of about 50 who carried a huge bucket of water on her head and sang loudly to the ranchera music blasting from her front porch.

"Alla esta!" she said pointing customarily with her lips as friendly Salvadorans in the campo tend to do. "Its in that adobe hut."

Confidently, I wandered past the chicken coop and blasting ranchera to the back of the property, not failing to think how strange it would be if a stranger came to my door in the US and asked to use the toilet.

It was a pit latrine with a cement "bowl" which was uncovered and swarmed by flies. Pretty much par for the course. I had to duck to get in to the structure and when I whirled around to shut the door I noticed the hinges were bare and the piece of ply wood was sunk face down in to the mud outside.

Unphased and with a thermos full of coffee itching to get out I dropped trou and did my thing thinking nothing of the fact that I was, essentially, exposed.

Mid stream, I heard leaves crunching and figured it was one of the family's mutts coming to sniff out the gringa. I hoped he was friendly.

What a heard next was an adolescent male voice screech "Hay una gringa en la letrina!"

There's a gringa in the latrine!

Oh how I miss the idyllic campo life.

Trash Talking

At the end of every Peace Corps tour there is something called a COS or "Close of Service" conference where all the surviving volunteers come together to receive presentations on post-Peace Corps life, saying goodbye and moving on. I obviously slept through those sessions.

During an exercise called "The Five Senses" (one of the more reflective of the conference) we were asked to talk about the most memorable sight, sound, smell, feel & taste we experienced in El Salvador. My "sight" was either the Jiboa Valley from the Panamerican highway or the moment when Lake Guija peeks through the rugged edges of the cement plant by-pass in Metapan. Roosters crowing was the "sound", that was everyone's sound. My favorite taste was fresco de arrayan, a strange fruit unlike anything we have in the States but is absolutely delicious on hot Salvador afternoons. I don't recall what my "feel" was, but surely mosquitos were involved.

As yes, finally, the segue... my "smell"- burning trash.

I could tell my Salvadoran experience through trash anecdotes and cull from them cross cultural and adaptation lessons. Here, I'll only tell a few.

The Comalapa international airport is a few kilometers off the Pacific Coast and roughly an hour east of the capitol city. When you walk through customs and out of the airport the heat smacks you right in the face. Upon arrival in El Salvador, Peace Corps trainees are hearded through the masses and in to a delightfully gaudy school bus whose been granted a second life as public transport in the third world.

My first hours in El Salvador were spent weaving north toward the Training Center and soaking in the sights from the window of this colorful, noisy, very smoggy bus. What is it that I remember most vividly from this ride? That's right... burning trash! There were piles of it everywhere along the highway- some of it brush scooped together, some of it plastic bottles and paper doused with kerosene. I don't believe I had ever smelled trash burning before and it was a scent, obviously, that stuck with me.



When I got to my village, it took me a while to figure out what people did with their trash. Globalization in all its wonder and mystery had brought to my little hamlet Doritos style chips, canned soda and plastic bags- things that didn't exist in Salvador pre-war years. All of that stuff had to be burned.

Remember, I was sent to be a Water & Sanitation Volunteer so it took weeks for me to drum up the courage to gather up my bags of trash and well, light it up. I set my alarm for 4:30am, before day break and snuck out to my back patio where I heaped the bags up one on top of the other. In a Starbucks Iced Coffee bottle (my last purchase on US soil) I stored kerosene purchased the previous day from Don Tono's store. A generous douse, a lit match and in moments the trash was ablaze! Oh how I wish Johnny, my little brother had been there. He's a true pyro and would have excelled shamelessly at torching my waste.

That kept on for weeks until finally my conscience couldn't take it any more and I emplored community leaders to work with me on a trash pick up service which, miraculously, is still in place today and also has a composting/organic trash component. I haven't burned a lick of trash in a good 5 years now.

Once I finished my service I moved to San Vicente, a department capital and certainly a "big city" by village standards. In San Vicente I would hang grocery bags full of trash on the front fence and the truck would come by to dutifully pick it up a couple of time a week. It was there that I learned about another trash phenomenon.

One evening after putting the trash out I could hear a rustling near the front door. Street dogs abound in Salvador so I assumed the worst- that one had ripped in to the trash and was strewing it about the street. What I opened the door to see was far worse.

I flung the door open and prepared to growl stamp and kick the animal that was ripping through my trash. An old man, probably in his seventies, with dirty white pants and top was picking through the trash for food and anything salvageable. It was weeks later that an ILO rep took me to the near by dump at 3:30pm when the municipal trucks arrive and I watched entire families do the same.

Now I live in a neighborhood called Escalon, one of the most affluent in the capital where beautiful houses are hidden behind fortress-like walls rimmed with curly barbed-wire. Trash continues to be a problem.

A few months ago, the mayor of San Salvador a leftist by the name of Violeta Menjivar couldn't find the municipal funds to continue the trash service. For 16 days, trash piled up on the wide, beautifully paved streets of Escalon and legislators, doctors, lawyers, entreprenuers and ex-pat gringos like myself had to steer their big SUVs through the massive piles lining the street.

The richies had had enough! Led by their campesina live-in maids, they took to the streets and torched the trash, just like was custom in my village. Miraculously, trash pick up resumed the next day.

The trash truck really doesn't have a schedule. It just rolls through when it does and rings a bell and you're supposed to run out and give them your trash. This works well for everyone else in Escalon who has a full time live-in maid who can listen for the bell and rush out to dispose of the family's trash.

Its a little more complicated for me seeing as I and my roomates work full time and a few nights a week we travel and don't come home at all. So our trash accumulates. In the garage. And it reeks. In the heat.

One day I finally had it and hung it from the dwarfed palm tree out front. The trash truck didn't pass that day, but the dogs, the impoverished and even the chickens dug, pecked and ripped through my trash bags full of coffee grinds, rotten huiscuil and left-over pasta.

Burning trash in heaps in the backyard appeared at that point to be a better alternative.

El Macho Mas Macho

Machismo is a topic we American women living in El Salvador NEVER get tired of. We're fascinated by it, by how its perpetuated, how we might combat it and how it effects every aspect of family, professional and social life. Machismo and the notion of all that is "macho" isn't a new fixation of mine, I certainly thought about it long before I came to live in the Savior.

The best hair cuts I ever received were from a woman named Sherry who trimmed and taimed my fro for the greater part of my adolescence. A special thanks goes out to her at this moment, because if it wasn't for her I think the teen years would have been much more painful than they actually were.

Sherry was an interesting character. In her chair I felt like an adult because she spoke to me like one. She listened to me, made me feel important and smart, but the greatest deed she did in our time together was taking an interest in my life. Part of her magic was that she also shared information about her life with me. Sherry was a lesbian, not a born-and-bred lesbian, but a woman who had been beaten and mistreated so much by men in her life that she simply decided to cut them off. And out. This part about Sherry intrigued me because up to that point in my life I understood that the gay rights movement intended to make it clear that being gay wasn't a decision, it was something you were born feeling. I believed it.

I met Sam the summer after I turned sixteen at HOT AUGUST NIGHTS in Reno when I pulled behind him on the strip in my Rangoon Red '65 Mustang Fastback. Hot. The mustang, I mean. Sam was from a town a few hours away from Fremont and it was probably the most rural place I had ever visited at that point in my life. Sam was a bit of a cowboy, drove a pick up with huge tires and a lift, and loved country music. When we began to date, I carried a picture of him in my wallet where he was hunched over a bale of hay dressed in head-to-toe denim. Hot.

Sitting in Sherry's chair one afternoon, feeling very adult and very sophisticated, I pulled out Sam's picture so she could take a gander. She squealed in delight at the man in denim. "Oh, he looks so MACHO. I've always had a soft spot for macho men!" Imagine my confusion at hearing my decidedly lesbian hair dresser fawn over my macho man. It got me thinking.

Is MACHO bad?

Growing up Seoane means growing up surrounded by all things macho. My adolescent years were spent in the garage with Dad and Johnny watching them build a kit-car Cobra, then refurbish my Mustang and then rebuild Johnny's Chevelle. I could (and still can) speak fairly intelligently about big block engines and the benefits of Flow Masters and Glass Packs. Dad patted me on the head one night when I could decipher the different codes engraved on the door tag of the Mustang. Bri-Bri knew her factory Ford paint codes.

Sports dominated our lives growing up, and not a single one went "untested." I played a little bit of everything, mostly soccer, and did pretty well at them all.
I remember clearly the day Dad told Johnny, "if you had your sister's aggression, you'd be unstoppable." I felt proud that Dad thought I was tougher than Johnny--at least that was my interpretation of the comment.

Knowing muscle cars and excelling at sports are decidedly male, or macho things, right? I mean, at least that's what society tells us. So what happens when a
girl is good at them? Is she, ahem, MACHO?

Damn straight she is. I am. I'm freakin' Macho...y que?

Recently, I've come to terms with my macho-ness. I've learned to recognize it, if not celebrate it. After all, isn't the term "alpha female" just pop culture jibberish for macho?

Here are a few cases in point.

My friend Sara was a cheerleader at the high school she attended in a suburb of Waco, TX. Yes, Waco has suburbs. Sara swears it. She kind of still is a cheerleader, at least in spirit, and when she wants to challenge someone to something she's sure to win cheerleading is usually the subject. Over a long weekend we were gossipping with a group of friends in the pool at a beach house. I'm not exactlty how the conversation started, but soon enough Sara challenged me to a "toe touch"-off and swore she could "kick my ass" at cheerleading. My answer?

"Oh yeah, I could bench press you!"

What?!?! Where the hell did THAT come from? The scary part is that I believed it, I believed that I could seriously bench press her. I said it louder, asked for wagers, and made sure all of our friends heard that not only was I going to out "toe touch" Sara, but I was going to bench press her too. Yeah, I'm a freakin' SEOANE and I was going to bench press her.

So the next day, after much trash talking my bluff was finally called and I threw a towel on to the sand and called Sara over to, well, bench press her. It was a disaster. I couldn't even SUSTAIN her, let alone bench press her. The entire affair was caught on film by my good buddy Eric who, with much excitement, shared my videod failure with me that same afternoon.

Last week a group of us celebrated Pedro's 27th birthday at a local watering whole called "Barbaro," which ironically enough is somewhat of a synonym for "macho" in Spanish. Things got a little rowdy as they usually go when these folks get together and I... well, I got macho. Before long I'm challenging folks to stupid tasks and telling them what to do. I was intense, over the top, really freaking macho. This behavior was amusing to my friends because well, I'm the most macho girl they know. It fascinates them.

My friend Eric, the one with that horribly mortifying video, told me once that if I was a guy, I'd probably be in jail. I was disturbed by this comment at first, assuming it was a commentary on my inability to control my impulses and outbursts. Mulling it over quite a bit, I hoped it was actually a compliment and that Eric, an alpha male and macho in his own right, recognized in me a strength that perhaps most women don't have. Or maybe he was just trying to say I was a bully.

So call me macho. I wear like a badge of honor. It means I'm tough, and honest, and can defend myself. Like Sherry my abused hair dresser, I recognize "macho" as a positive, not negative. I can be in favor of the macho and anti-machismo just as she was. It means that in a place like El Salvador where MACHISMO and men dominate every aspect of life I, with my macho alter ego well in tact, can carve out a little piece of respect and wave it like a flag.

And if nothing else works, I'll just freakin' bench press 'em.

Saludemos!

One-hundred and eighty- six years ago, five Central American nations "won" their independence- from Spain. One could argue that Central America, least of all El Salvador, is really free but that's another topic for another entry to be written another night when I'm not so exhausted.

This blog is about bands.

For two months leading up to el quince (pronounced: el keen-say), meaning September 15th, school bands bang their drums, baton twirlers perfect their art and well, neighbors get angry.

Now this is a big deal. This band thing. A school with a band is a status symbol for a community, so much in fact that the first week I was in the village the school director asked me if I could get some instruments donated. I remember looking around at the students receiving class under the ceiba tree and in the breezeway thinking she was out of her mind.

Back when I used to live in Apastepeque, a small pueblo up above the Jiboa valley that is so affectionately called "Apastecuba" for its political leanings, the school band practiced a block up from my house. I loved to go watch them, fascinated. Cha Cha and I (the ugly Chihuahua Dad got me from rescue in Nor Cal) would stand for hours and watch them grunt and sweat through La Camisa Negra and Celia Cruz's La Vida es un Carnaval. It amazed me that these kids had no formal musical training, couldn't read music in fact, and yet managed to pull the whole thing off.



It got me thinking about Ellen Levy and Carol Zilli. Those of you who grew up in Niles know what I'm talking about... FAME. FAME was a fine arts education course given by volunteer moms who taught us about classical music, Monet and how to cultivate and interest and understanding for the arts. I loved FAME, and I credit the program for peaking my interest in music and art (although some might claim my admiration for reggaeton and cheap handicrafts isn't exactly art appreciation).

So what's up with these kids who barely get enough instruction to be able to read and write (notice I did not say spell...)yet pick up trumpets, drums and those stand up keyboard thingies once a year and rock it out? I'm fascinated.

Most of the Americans I know who live here are slightly irritated by el quince. They think too much money is spent on flashy outfits to be worn on only one day. They think the band is too noisy and that too much time is taken out of class to practice. They think the parade lasts a little too long and that the music isn't that good. They think the girls outfits are a little slutty and way inappropriate.

All of this is true.

But I LOVE el quince. Its a country wide patriot fest. People buy Salvadoran flags and put them on their cars. The newspapers publish big flags and folks tape them on their front doors. The national anthem is played regularly on the radio. School children have to learn the pledge of allegiance, the national flower, tree, etc and how to explain what the Salvadoran coat of arms signifies. Programs are aired about the founding fathers and the Spanish invasion. Everyone talks about el quince and Salvadoran pride abounds. The bands and parades are just icing on the cake.

Recently, I was at an event where the Salvadoran national anthem was played. According to Don Atilio from my village, the Salvadoran anthem is the longest one on the planet. Believe it, Don Atilio knows such things. He watches the news.

As the trumpets swormed during the interlude, everyone stood up a little straighter and I clasped my hands behind my back in respect (as I had been told to do previously while attending a ceremony at the US Embassy). I sung my way pretty successfully through the first two stanzas, stumbled through the third and belted out the fourth. I love the Salvadoran anthem which ends with a soulful repetition of the translation "CONSAGRATE!"

Don Misael, a health promoter I coordinate with, approached me after the anthem played and everyone was seated. "Wow, you must really love it here, you know the words to the anthem. My cousin who lives in Atlanta told me the gringos don't even know their own anthem. How did you learn ours?"

I was a little befuddled by the question and the fact that Misael knew our nation's second largest shame (behind poor voter turn out). I told him that I learned the Salvadoran national anthem because I practiced it every Monday at the school I worked in the village. I wanted to learn it.

Que lindo es tener dos patrias y amarlas dos igualitos. "How nice to have two countries and love them equally," he said.

Saturday night, 7 girlfriends and I were trapped in the central park in Antigua, Guatemala trying desperately to dodge the patriots, bands and baton twirlers en route to dinner and a dive bar. The streets that border the park on all four sides were packed with school bands playing fiercely and waving Guatemalan flags. Kids with temporary tatooes of their flag and coat of arms screeched and ran around the park. Moms and Dads full of pride snapped pictures as their daughters marched by. In the middle of the smell of street food and the banging of drums I remembered what Misael had said to me the week before.

And yes, I felt lucky to have two countries and love them both equally.

The Condom as a Cultural Barometer

During my first week at Hollins College, the exclusively women's institution where I learned to love grits, sweet tea, and the Dave Matthews band, we gathered in a place called the "Rat" down a spiral staircase and under the dining hall on campus. The surroundings were dark and cave like, a place you could imagine actual rats living. We were somewhat euphoric, though, not unlike Girl Scouts their first night away at summer camp. I remember looking around at all the unknown, round faces full of wonder and mischief thinking I was involved in something clandestine and priveledged. That's what a women's college does, you know, makes you privvy to secrets and puffed up with confidence.

Someone had gathered us all there together (although I don't remember who exactly) to talk to us about keeping safe in the wild and bustling metropolis of Roanoke, Virginia and most importantly, how to properly put on a condom.

At the time, it seemed perfectly intelligent to get a bunch of 18-year old young women together during their first week of college to show them how to correctly unroll, stretch and shimmy a condom on to a cucumber. It was the first time I had ever touched a condom, although I certainly didn't admit it that night down in the Rat. Despite this being unchartered territory for me, I stomped my way to the front of the group to take my turn at the cucumber. I felt encouraged as I stood in front of my classmates and struggled awkwardly with all that lube and latex.

It was an empowering event because I believed that I was being taught something that could potentially save my life and at the very least, save me a whole lot of heartache down the road when I was ready for intimacy.



Ten years later, I'm supervising 40 community health educators and every once in a while I get the outright pleasure of doing a little community outreach myself. Recently, I planned and executed (with quite a bit of help) a 4 day HIV/AIDS workshop designed to teach local community health workers, doctors, teachers and youth about the epidemic and most importantly how to prevent it. This how I got to thinking about condoms and how they were introduced in to my life.

So a few weeks back I was training some co-workers of mine about proper condom use and essentially, how to train others about it. We used fun, participatory activities in order to disminish embarassment and discomfort among the participants. My co-workers, all of them female, Salvadoran and mothers, squirmed and squealed and giggled with all their might as a means to deter me from making them touch condoms.

El Salvador is a predominantly Catholic country, that is evidenced by its name in itself. El Salvador= The Savior. Like as in Jesus. Had you come to El Salvador without knowing what the literal translation is, I venture to say you would have figured out the Catholic part pretty quickly. In the middle of the city there is a huge round about with a statue smack dab in the middle of Jesus with his hands outstretched standing on top of the world. You'd think that the Savior thing alone could explain my co-workers' reaction to the activity I was leading.

A lo contrario.

There's this horrible social and cultural plague in El Salvador called pena. Pena means shame or embarassment. It literally holds women prisoner and requires that they toe the status quo instead of thinking critically about themselves, their lives and their reproductive health. Pena is a menace. I hate it. Its so entrenched that it afflicts my very intelligent and educated co workers.

The point of the activity was to blow up the condoms, make them in to some sort of super hero using tissue paper and permanent markers and then come up with a slogan about condom use that plays off the "condom superhero" they made. The activity requires team work, creativity and of course manipulating and touching condoms. It allows participants to familiarize themselves with them in a fun, non-threatening way. So what why all the grade school antics from my co-workers?

Yaneth had previously worked for an NGO teaching reproductive health in rural communities. She's one of the best facilitators I've ever seen and is normally a very competent and confident woman. She's married, has a child and therefore you would think should be immune from the pena plague and the threat of being thought of as cheap or promiscuous. No such luck. She was still afraid of what the other women would say if she appeared too dextrous with those silly little socks of latex.






I was disappointed watching them shrug and play stupid and toss the little silvery packets on the ground instead of confidently tearing them open and blowing up the condoms as I had instructed.

Then I remembered that night down in the bowels of the dining hall at Hollins. What was it that made me unafraid and unashamed to talk about a taboo topic and for the very first time slide that stinky tube of latex on a cucumber?

I believe what was missing from my almost-failed attempt at teaching a little HIV prevention to this group of co-workers was a comfortable, judgement free enviornment and the feeling that they were learning something that could potentially save their lives.



Renewed, I scooped up the unopened and abandoned packages off the floor and asked everyone to sit down. In my classic "Bri" pose (hands on hips, jaw tight, and volume turned way up), I firmly said:

"Look ladies. Nearly 80% of all new HIV infections come from heterosexual sexual contact. 60% of those new cases are women and it is estimated that 70% of men in a 'committed' relationship cheat. That means YOU are at risk. Now stand up, bust out those condoms and learn how to roll one on."

Quickly they stood up and got to work, tearing open those shiny packets and blowing up the rum, coconut and mint scented condoms like party balloons. They laughed and helped eachother out- I could see the embarassment and shame dissapate. Those were the prettiest condom superheros I've ever seen.

That afternoon on the drive back to the city, I scrolled through my iPod to the "Hollins Mix" Marie had given me at our class reunion last summer. Jupiter Coyote, Vertical Horizon and of course Dave Matthews played as I passed by the Chichontepeque volcano and the watermelon vendors on the side of the highway. I decided that teaching consistent, correct condom use was difficult no matter the cultural context. I began to think about how that life, my Hollins life, had prepared me for this one. This, the life set to cumbia/merengue/salsa where condoms come in tropical flavors and if even for an hour or two I can make pena disappear and help other women be brave enough to love themselves...and shimmy a condom on to a cucumber.