a kid-friendly letter to kids

The following is a (long) letter that I wrote to my dear friends at the Kids Count! afterschool program at Northeast...

To all my wonderful friends at Northeast Elementary:

This letter comes to you from the hot and dusty streets of Santa Marta, Colombia. If any of
you have ever been to Mexico or even to the Caribbean on vacation, you’ll know that Central
America is quite a long flight south. Well my friend Gabby and I did go to Mexico, but after 6
weeks there we felt it was time to move on and continue on our journey. We took a flight from
Cancun all the way down here to Colombia, flying over the rest of Central America during the
middle of the night.

We arrived really really late at 2:30 in the morning and were so exhausted that we felt like
marshmallows. Luckily we were able to find a bus to the city we planned on staying in to look
for a hotel. But we arrived so early at our hotel—at 7 in the morning—that they didn’t even
have any rooms for us to stay in. We were so tired after our long journey the previous day,
from Cancun, Mexico all the way to Colombia overnight, that we just took our bags to a park
and slept on park benches for a couple of hours. Can you believe that? We were so exhausted; I
remember I could barely keep my eyes open.

We stayed at the hotel for a couple of days and enjoyed all that the city center had to offer.
Santa Marta is a very beautiful city, and incredibly old. In fact, some say that it was the very
first city built in colonial Latin America—that’s all of Central and South America combined. The
old downtown part of the city was built around the 1500s, about 500 years ago! Like the cities
you know in the United States, the downtown area has a bunch of shops and restaurants and
banks and markets, but it all looks much older than cities in the U.S. For example, a lot of the
buildings in the center are so old that the paint is peeling right off of the walls and some of the
cement of the buildings is even crumbling with old age. The city itself almost looks as if it’s
really tired, from being alive for so long.

Gabby and I soaked up the beauty of this place and enjoyed walking around and exploring
the city center. It’s so hot during the day, however, that sometimes we couldn’t even bring
ourselves to leave the hotel. Imagine the hottest day of summer last year, and then try to
imagine it even hotter! That’s how hot it is here. Sometimes the heat is so strong that you
don’t even want to move because you’ll just break out in sweat anyway. So we tried to do as
the locals do, and stayed in the shade until the afternoon. Then, after it cooled down and the
sun retreated toward the horizon, we dared to leave the hotel and ventured out into the city.

In the evening everyone comes out of hiding, where they’ve been in the shade all day long, and
floods the streets with smiles on their faces. Our hotel was only a block from the beach at the
center of town and we often went right to the beach as soon as the sun’s rays calmed down a
bit. The waterfront is a little different than you may have seen on summer vacation with your
family. It’s not as clean as many beaches in the United States and the water doesn’t sparkle the
same blue as the sky. The sand is a shade of grey and the water changes between a dark, dark
blue and even a grayish color, both of them discolored from all of the traffic of the big cargo
boats that come in and out of the town’s port daily. You might think it sounds nasty or dirty,
but for the people that live here, it’s all that they have and they enjoy it just the same.

When we went to the beach in the evening, as the sun crawled down toward the water in
the distance, we found hundreds of mothers and fathers, boys and girls, all crowded around
the small beach at the port. They all wanted to enjoy the beauty of the setting sun, the nice
evening breeze, and the cool water that wipes away all the sweat of a hard day’s work.

The beach comes alive in the afternoon: a bunch of kids and their parents splash and play
in the water. Men and women walk around with little carts selling ice cream. Old men stand
underneath umbrellas with chicken, beef, and vegetable shish kebabs sizzling on the small
portable grill in front of them. Grandmas and grandpas gather around little stone tables with a
small plastic cup of coffee in their hand and their eyes focused on the intense game of chess in
front of them. Young teenage boys run back and forth, sprinting through the crowds of resting
families, kicking an old, rugged soccer ball between them and spraying sand on anyone who
dares to come within reach. It was especially busy on the weekends, but every night that we
went over to the beach we found this scene—people of all ages, young and old, out enjoying
the sand, the water, the food, the weather, and each other’s company together.

…

On our third day there, in the center of Santa Marta, we met with a group of volunteers in a
small outdoor café to find out whether or not we wanted to work with their local organization.
We spoke with them about all the cool stuff that their organization does, and then we got a
chance to go to the school that they work in and see if we were interested in working there too.
We liked it from the first moment that we saw it and decided to stay and work with them for
a while. The next day we came back and spoke to a woman that lives near the school and she
helped us find a small house to stay in so that we wouldn’t have to take a taxi from the hotel
every day. Now it only takes us 2 minutes to walk to the school where we work.

Our house is much cheaper than staying in a hotel every night, but you might be surprised at
how simple the house is. Unlike the houses that some of you live in, our house isn’t made of
wood or red bricks but of cement. It has open windows to let the light and the breeze come in,
but there isn’t even any glass in the windows! There are bars on the windows to make sure that
no robbers try to sneak in, but they don’t keep the dust out—our floors and tables and chairs
are always covered with dust, no matter how much we try to sweep it out.

Our bathroom is different from yours too. Instead of being inside, with a sink and shower and
toilet, our bathroom is outside the house in a tiny little room made of concrete bricks. It has a
toilet, but there isn’t a light out there so we have to bring a flashlight if we go to the bathroom
in the middle of the night. The shower is much different too. Instead of what you might
imagine as a shower, with a glass door and a nozzle that spurts out nice, warm water over your
head, our shower is just another concrete room next to the toilet room, also without light. In
our shower, we have a big yellow bucket that we fill with water. Then, when we’re ready to
shower, we just use a smaller bucket and pour water over our heads and bodies to get clean.
It’s a little bit harder, but the nice cool water still feels refreshing after a long, hot day in the
sun.

We moved into our house here as soon as we could. We enjoy staying here in the
neighborhood next to the school that we’re working in—we get to be with the parents and
children all the time, see what it’s like to live like they do, and play with them whenever we
want. Now that we’re living here we have a bunch of friends! Even though a lot of people who
live in the center think that this neighborhood is dangerous, we don’t have to be afraid because
the other people that live here are so happy that we’re teaching them and their children that
they’ve told us that they will protect us and make sure nothing bad happens to us while we’re
here. We’re grateful for that, and we value their kind gestures and friendship.

…

The little village we live in is right outside the City of Santa Marta—a small barrio called Oasis.
It’s quite an interesting name because to people like us it might not seem like an oasis at all.
What do you think of when you hear the word oasis? Maybe a small, refreshing pool of water,
surrounded by tall, shady palm trees in the middle of the scorching desert. Or perhaps a safe,
peaceful, and relaxing sanctuary to hide and rest after a long journey. But barrio Oasis, at least
in the eyes of outsiders like us, is far from that.

We often head back into the city center to shop for groceries, meet friends for dinner, or enjoy
a break from the barrio. When we take the taxi home, we are dropped off on the highway in
front of the small dirt road that crosses the railroad tracks and heads into the hills where our
house is. Most taxi drivers leave us here, at the entrance to the barrio, during the daytime—
none will take us inside the barrio at night. They are all afraid that they will get robbed, or
perhaps even worse. So we get out of the taxi, walk past the burning piles of trash that so
commonly line the highway near barrios like ours, cross the old train tracks, and begin the short
walk home.

We pass by house after house, almost all made of concrete bricks like ours, and almost all
without the normal comforts that we so commonly enjoy in the United States. Only one house
in the barrio has a small yard in front of it—not even big enough to throw a ball around, but at
least it’s a yard. In fact, that yard is the only place in the barrio where you can find grass. The
rest of the ground is just hard, rolling mounds of dust and light brown dirt that flies through the
air with the first gust of wind.

While small concrete houses line the road on our right as we enter the barrio, the mountains
reach toward the sky on our left. People have built houses up there too, on the side of the
mountain. These houses are usually made of wood, with little tin roofs and doors made of
plastic or wood or whatever they could find, and the houses are sometimes no bigger than the
small Kids Count office. They teeter on the small ledges that their owners have cut into the
mountain to build the house there, looking almost as if they might get blown right off during
the first big storm.

As we continue down the dirt road into the small village we pass little stores that sell most
things that the people living here need, though they’re much smaller than you could imagine.

There’s a billiard hall where the men gather at night to play games of pool and listen to loud
music. There are tables placed outside the small houses where women sit to talk and play
games of cards in the shade. There are stray dogs that run around together, looking for some
shade and food just like people that live here. Children, just like you, run around and play with
whatever they can find. Some throw rocks, some play with sticks; others kick old, deflated balls
around between their bare, dusty feet. There’s a small soccer field here, too, where the men
and boys often play their games at night, once it has cooled down. But it, too, like the rest of
the community, is not covered with grass but is made of concrete.

The school where we teach our classes, both to the adults and to the children, is right in the
middle of all of this. The soccer field and small playground are on one side, the bumpy, winding
dirt street on the other. The school has no yard, no green grass for kids to play. There is only
concrete and the dusty, dirt road where old, dusty pieces of trash poke through the ground.

The kids who come to this small, three-room school are just like you. They are full of energy and
want to run and laugh and play all afternoon. Just like you, they are hard to calm down when
they are having so much fun with their friends. But unlike your beautiful school, these children
just have a small concrete block to call their school. Like the house that we live in, their school
has no glass windows, only openings for light and the breeze to come through. There are three
small rooms, two light bulbs that hang from the ceiling, and no bathroom at all.

But to the children that live here and come to the school, these things do not matter much.
Even though there is no air conditioning or toys to play with in the school or water fountain or
green grass to lie in after school has ended, they have a school and that’s what matters most.
A few years ago they didn’t even have a school, but now they have a place to learn. So they are
happy.

Just like the students in the school, many of the parents feel just as lucky for what the small
village offers. Even though it may sound like the exact opposite of an oasis to us, this small
town provides the people that live here with something that they often cannot find in other
parts of the country—peace. The families that live here have come from all over. Some grew
up in the area, others grew up hours away in the mountains to the south. In a country that has
been at war with its people for so many years, barrio Oasis is, in fact, quite like a pool of water
in a desert; a breath of fresh air. Among its dusty streets, and between the concrete walls of
the houses, the men and women, boys and girls that live here can live in peace.

While barrios Oasis might be the absolute opposite of what we once considered an oasis, our
lives have not seen as much struggle and strife as the people who now live here. We are lucky,
and we know that. With that in mind, we work every day to teach them as much as we can and
us much as their patience allows. We spend time with the kids and play with them and play
them songs on the guitar. We invite them to come hang out with us on our porch. And we try to
make ourselves and our house even more of an oasis in this new place that we call home.

the smell of death

4 a.m. last night
she wakes up
and molests my eyes
with her flashlight

sweat leaks
from her forehead
and sprints
down to her neck
already glistening

both gleam back at me,
mockingly
the flashlight makes its rounds

maybe
two seconds have passed
yet, at each floundering
of the light
she drags me from sleep
and shoves me
recklessly
into a mid-night,
sleep-deprived shitty mood

satisfied,
she neither yells
nor gasps
her throat leaks out
a petrified gurgle
helplessly,
all its own

the maimed cockroach twitches
its legs stab at nothing
or, perhaps
in jest
to sneak one more gag out of her

it works
she vomits obscenities
and convulses dryly
at the thought of the intruder:
that nasty little fucker
was just on my neck.

she screamed it
though it was just barely audible
over the dead silence

my job, of course,
to clean up the dying beast.
on the way to the trash can
another glares back a me
bigger, with a shell
hardened for warfare

has our whole house
come under siege?

later, we buy a can of Raid
and use it all in three minutes.
I plaster the room in poison,
careful to fill every crack
with the sweet smell of death

now they know
which house we live in
because it smells like Raid outside.

but tonight
we'll sleep straight through.
happy St. Patrick's day,
love

wastin away again in maragaritaville

Cancun was a nightmare. All that I hoped it wouldn't be and more, it is just as I had imagined. It was, without a doubt, the most American place we've been to by far. I counted five Starbucks. So there you go - now can you picture it?

In its defense, however, the beaches were absolutely spectacular. I can understand how the city manages to rake in millions every year -- there are more silly, inebriated American tourists than you could shake a stick at. We were lucky enough that we were able to avoid most of them though, while we stayed with Gabi's friend from high school. Angela was more hospitable than we could have hoped and eagerly set us free within her small studio apartment. During our three days there, we mostly hid out in the apartment during the day (avoiding both the sun and the American tourists), planned for the rest of our adventure, and took care of various errands. In case you were wondering, yes, we did manage to avoid going in both WalMart and Sam's Club during our 3 days there. Though it was tough, I'll tell you (ha. sike).

Aside from Angela and her friends, we really didn't relate to many people. Like Puerto Escondido, there was undoubtedly a different vibe between the tourists and the locals. One that I couldn't consider favorable. Alas, we had a good time on the beach in the evenings and tried to break the ice with locals when presented the opportunity. Both times we went to the beach, we went to public beaches so as to avoid paying as well as drunk Americans. It was a great decision. On our last day we ventured by bus to the 18 kilometer mark out on the mid-ocean strip of beach where all the fancy hotels, malls, and American shops are located. At playa delfines, we were thankfully surrounded by Mexicans who were enjoying the crystal blue waves and heavenly white sand as much as we were. It was an absolute blast. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos. To your fortune, however, there are surely millions of photos of Cancun online. Visit my good friend Google.

After our long, sun-smothered last day at the beach, we decided to try our luck at a free offer. In the public bus on the way to the beach in the morning, we noticed a poster advertising FREE MARGARITAS at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville with the presentation of your 50 cent bus pass. Five hours in the hot sun and brutal waves and we were practically forced to give it a shot. So we set off on foot, bus passes stuffed deep into our dripping pockets and our mouths salivating heavily with the prospect of a free margarita. And we walked. And walked. At first, with the idea of a refreshing boozy drink still fresh on our minds, we didn't really mind the 6.5 kilometer distance between the beach and our glorious destination. But after about an hour and a half of walking, the task began to seem more and more ridiculous. Alas, we stuck it out, and enjoyed every sip of our free 6oz. margarita at Mr. Buffet's notorious hangout amid blasting tunes and an enormous projection of Jimmy himself and other country greats belting their hearts out. Oh, what a day.





We said our goodbyes to Angela the next morning and set off on the next leg of the journey. Funnily enough, our cheap flight from Cancun to Colombia required that we set foot back on American soil for a few long hours. After a full day of traveling, and persistently avoiding the incredibly overpriced food in the Cancun airport, we were surprisingly delighted to find a Sbarro's at the Fort Lauderdale airport. I've never been so excited to see a Sbarro's in my life. In fact, I normally go out of my way to avoid them. Yet after nearly two months without pizza, and a whole day without food, we bought a whole pie and demolished it within minutes. It was glorious.

We've been in Colombia only a few short days, but the differences between this place and Mexico are blatant. Not only are the people different, both in appearance, manner, and custom, but there exists an entirely different vibe. We love it. The city we're currently in seems quite a bit poorer than most places we saw in Mexico, which was actually rather surprising to us, but it has a heart unlike some places we saw in Mexico as well.

Our small adventures are already numerous and we're looking forward to spending a more substantial amount of time here. We came here, to Santa Marta, to check out an organization that we got in touch with a couple of weeks ago: Fundación Mariposas Amarillas. We weren't so sure whether or not we'd actually end up working here after stopping in on a meeting yesterday, but immediately upon arriving in the small barrio outside Santa Marta where the organization does the majority of its work, we were convinced.

We went to work this morning and have decided to stay for a month. The organization works primarily with one small elementary school in a small, incredibly poor barrio outside the city limits, called Oasis. The barrio has a lot of heart and the people that we're working with are wonderful.

Most volunteers "teach" the kids in the overly-crowded three classrooms that the school provides, but we're currently helping them out with other work. We arrived early in the morning today and helped the organization's founder and manager to clean up the front of the school, dig a ditch, and hand-mix a bunch of concrete to fill in the gap for the foundation of an addition that we'll be starting tomorrow. I'm looking forward to helping out with the physical labor with which Oscar needs assistance, starting a small garden that we've talked about, and playing with the kids in the afternoon.

Another factor that kept us from signing on immediately yesterday was our lack of a place to stay -- we can no longer afford to put up in a hostel every night. To our delight, however, one of the barrio's main women-in-charge graciously helped us find a place about 200 feet from the school. We certainly won't be living in style, our new home reminds me much of the place i lived while working in Ghana, but at least we have (some) running water and electricity. There isn't really any furniture, but at least we have a small, functional electric stove and a toilet. Aside from that it's pretty much just concrete. On the plus side, between the two of us the rent is incredibly cheap -- about a dollar a day -- and we have the opportunity to get closer to the families and kids in the little village. After nursing our tired arms back to health tonight, we look forward to hopping up bright and early in the morning tomorrow to mix some more concrete and start building!

p.s. Our new abode obviously doesn't have wi-fi. I'll be a little more out of touch for a while, though I'll certainly be thinking of you all. Peace.

an excerpt from a letter

Dear [Reader],

I'm currently sitting in an old hacienda, by the Mayan name of Yaxcopoil, located down the hot, dry, rural roads of the Mexican Yucatan. It is, by far, one of the hottest places I have ever been. We've been here for a number of days, though it has seemed much longer than that. The place we are in is quite strange. An hacienda, by definition, is a "nice farm," or rather, as we would think of it, best described as a plantation. And that is exactly what this place is. Or was, I should say. It spans a great number of acres, its ancient stone barricades and ominous fortress emerging from the ground something unnatural. In its hayday, this place was a palace. They cultivated a plant called hennequen, which was then produced onsite for use in fabrics and textiles. Thousands of livestock were also tendered here, nearly all of which are now gone.

All of this work, of course, was tended to by local Yucatecan workers who were paid in nothing but food and the light clothing that blocked them from the sun's inescapable brutality. Considering the looks I get from those who live in this minute village, some resentment surely remains. How could it not? By residing here, being the only two (white) people to stay upon the hacienda premises both day and night, for a number of days, it seems as if we are but filling the shoes of those who lived here before. We are, by way of relation, taking the role of they who once owned and ran this place. Though we surely are not driving the locals to work long hours, the sun arched high above their bending backs, we do sit here and play our music, explore the premises, and eat our food as they go on working. They begin work before we rise and end long after we have retreated to our quarters for shade. They transplant and cultivate what crops the plantation still grows, tend to the few remaining cattle and horses, and generally keep the dying hacienda alive for foreign eyes. Although they are no longer what one might refer to as a "slave," they still have nothing. The town is barely a speck on a map, the houses even less. There is, quite honestly, nothing here. The sun's devastating gaze fills what gaps are left by the lack of the many pleasures we so commonly and easily enjoy.

They are, however, far from unhappy. Every soul who is bound to this land carries, without fail, an aging corpse (no doubt from long years in the field, and longer days beneath the sun) and a smile of redemption. Unlike the occupants of the village, the men who work here never hide a flickering smile. They are, genuinely, happy to see us, share what little time they can spare, and part with a handshake and a mouth spread ear-to-ear, as if to show off their metal fillings and dwindling set of teeth. Having known them for less than three full days, sun up to sun down, I would gladly entrust any of these men with my life, if not that of my youngest child. They are true men. They work hard, smile often, and show no shame, remorse, or envy for who they are and who they are not. I, on the other hand, cannot claim the same dignity. For who are we to tread so heavily on the ground that they've always called home, farther back in years than my family has called home the United States? Who are we to come here, and anywhere for that matter, as if living a vacation, while they never have the option to leave? The world they know is an oyster. It is but a 50-mile radius, as if the jealous arms of the sun have them on a leash. They can never leave.

As we've sat here, hiding from the sun, being in this place, making our fire and cooking our food, I have thought of you often. Perhaps it was first the fire that did it. For breakfast and dinner of every day we have made a fire to cook for ourselves. We are staying here for free (by way of a friend) and cannot afford the pricey meals that are normally offer to such high-paying guests. The owner is but family, at least to my aunt that is. Anyway, when building the fire, in the morning's heat and the evening's bliss, I can't help but remember doing the same alongside you -- in Vermont, the mountains of New York, and even a backyard in Ithaca. Building these fires brings back fond memories. I have, of course, also been thinking of you while just being in this place: knowing how you would enjoy the exploration, the attempts to catch up with quick-legged iguanas, and the contemplation of our being here. It is truly such an awkward presence, if I can call it that.





Although the original letter ends shortly after the previous paragraph, I can't help but write more about our time there. Miguel, the owner of Yaxcopoil and a good friend of my aunt, was incredibly gracious and gave us the unimaginable opportunity of staying at the hacienda for absolutely nothing. The property and the surrounding landscape is something marvelous. The Yucatan, though inexplicably hot and dry, is an amazing world. The hacienda property, so carefully and passionately tended too by the men who have worked there for their entire lives, is riddled with large bamboo plants, lazy iguanas, and more beautiful sounds than I could possibly hope to describe. But above all, despite the old foundation's marvelous beauty, we will by far miss its humble people the most. Within a few short days we were welcomed into the land that they have always called home, with arms spread wide open and a brilliant smile. The men who work twelve hours underneath the brutal sun are never seen without a smile, and surely never hesitated to strike up conversation and make us feel anything but comfortable; as if this was, and always had been, our home. The women, equally as kind, though slightly more tender, were gracious enough to supply us with one of the most magnificent feasts we'd had in weeks on our last night in the village. And then again in the morning. I still long for the delicious Yucatecan tamales and the mouth-watering gorditas that they made for us that morning.

During our short time there, it felt as if nearly a week or two passed. Because we were the only people residing on the plantation both day and night, we had to cultivate a fertile state of mind in which we could endlessly entertain ourselves. Luckily, in the heart of the Yucatan, it proved incredibly easy. We were aided by the presence of the many caves and underground swimming holes native to the area. We also played our instruments, wrote, explored the area on the manager's loaned tricycle, and made a short video of sorts. We currently have no way to edit the footage, but we'll figure it out in time.

[that dark shadow down there on the right is Gab, mid-dive]


[Gabby, a tricycle, the Yucatan]

In short, it was a strange week, a step backward a hundred years, an introduction and conclusion to the Yucatan, a reminder of how lucky we are, and far more than we could have asked for. Miguel, Pedro, and friends, we thank you.