A month and a half in and I am still here and going strong: some days stronger than others. At times I feel as if I am completely lost in translation, literally and figuratively. I find that people often look at me as is I am a giant cyclops with a siamese twin because much a lot of my actions do not translate culturally. To explain: I have come to the conclusion that what I love most about this culture is the desire to celebrate. There is always an excuse to have a lot of people and a lot of food in one place at the same time. Who can argue with that? However, my idea of celebration differs a little bit in certain circumstance: I do not have ¨pena,¨ I am willing to make an absolute fool of myself, but at the same time I have been socialized to ¨celebrate¨certain events in different ways. I will try to explain.

Two weeks ago my brother, Jaime, celebrated his quinseañero (15th birthday) and we had a blowout bash in the casa mia. There were seven square tables set up for all one hundred invitees to enjoy the feast that my mother and her female friends had prepared. ¨The more the merrier in a very small space¨ was the theme of the party. Soon after the eating shifts had all been fed, everyone congrated in the sala in order to listen to the loud music and get their dance on. This was the moment that I learned exactly what ¨pena¨ means. Here we are congrating in order to celebrate a birthday and everyone is sitting doing the white man tapping of the foot and snapping of the fingers because they were too embarassed to show the others their moves. It´s definately a cultural thing. Leave it to the chalita gringa to get the party started. In the middle of about sixty Salvadorans I took my unabashed self in the middle of the dance floor space and brought my white girl moves out to be seen. Blank faces and timid laughs accompanied my grace on the dance floor. Culturally I felt very removed.

The other day myself and the rest of the country celebrated el Dia de los Defuntos: the Day of the Defunct (dead). Here I am putting on my black pants and shirt in order to be appropriately dressed to venture to the cemetary. Ironically enough, black is not the color of choice to wear to a cemetary. On the contrary, bright colors and flourencents are encouraged. I love it. Although many Salvadorans have pena dancing, I learned that they have no pena expressing their love and celebration for those who have died. It is truly amazing. Although I could barely move in the cemetary because of the innudation of people, the turquoise, yellow, and pinks of the tombs against the purples, blues, reds and greens of the fake flowers helped me take my mind of of the congestion. The decoration made me realize that this is a country that knows how to revel in the lives that have come before. Utterly impressive. For much of the morning and some of the afternoon I chilled out sitting on tombs and talking about the people who had been burried aroubd us, and surprisingly it was absolutely terrific.

This is it for now but I will try to blog soon with pictures. Much love sent out to all.