**I’m posting this from an internet cafe. I can’t upload pictures here. I’ll add pictures when I can. Also, if the text looks small in this post, zoom in and make it bigger using your web browser settings.**
Friday 12/28/07 Outside of Usulutan, El Salvador
As I was pushing my bike around a tilled field filled with soft dirt looking for a good camp spot, I spotted a man on the next field over. Dressed in stained clothing and sporting a dark tan, he was picking corn from piles of discarded corn stalks rotting in the field. At first I thought he was homeless and was trying to scrounge around for food. We made eye contact and I felt obligated to go over and explain why I was pushing my bike in circles around the field.
“Good afternoon!” I called out as I approached. The man stopped ruffling through corn stalks and stood up.
“Good afternoon.” The man looked exhausted and spoke softly.
“I’m an English teacher on a long bicycle trip. I need a place to sleep for the night. I have a tent and I have food and water. I only need a flat place for my tent. Can I sleep in this field here?”
The man looked at my bike and then back at me.
“Well, that field is not mine. This field here is mine though. You can sleep in it if you want. The building behind me is abandoned. You can set up your tent inside if you want.”
“Thank you! That would be great.”
“The entrance to this field is just off of the main road you came in on. I’ll meet you there.”
I pushed my bike back out to the road and rode to the entrance of the man’s field. When I pulled up to him, he had a smile on his face.
“Why don’t you come back to my house instead? It’s safer there and you can shower and eat. Is that OK?”
“Sure, that would be great! Thank you!”
“Oh my name is Rigoberto. What is yours?”
“Andrew. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.”
We shook hands. His hand was strong, dry, and covered in dirt.
I followed Rigoberto across the street to his property. Behind a thick iron gate was a multi-room house with electricity, running purified water, a stable with 12 cows, and a small garden that led out to another set of Rigoberto’s fields. The man who only moments before I thought might be homeless in fact lived on a beautiful spread of land that, as he later explained, provided almost all of the resources he needed to survive. Rigoberto introduced me to his family and then showed me to a nice patch of soft grass where I could set up my tent.
After I had showered and just as I was about to prepare a simple dinner of mandarin oranges, peanuts, and banana sandwiches, Rigoberto came out to my tent.
“It’s time for dinner. Please come inside.”
*****
We sat down at a table situated in a large family room. A Christmas tree stood next to the table and at the opposite end of the room were three worn couches, a dresser, and a simple entertainment set-up with a small T.V. and a boom box, the kind with the speakers that detach. Old, faded pictures with curled edges, pictures of weddings, funerals, and the visits of distant relatives, hung on the walls next to prints of the Virgin Mary. Two hammocks hung diagonally across the living room and were tied to rafters in the ceiling.
As we were eating, Rigoberto pointed down to the food on his plate.
“You see these beans here? These are from my field behind the house. And this rice is from my field next to the house. The corn used to make these tortillas is from the field you saw me in today. And this chicken used to run around my yard with his friends! But not anymore!” He paused for a moment and stared at the food on this plate. The pride he felt knowing that he literally puts food on the table for his family and guests beamed in his eyes for just a moment before he continued eating.
*****
At one point in the meal, a chicken ran into the house through an open door. Rigoberto’s wife of 40 years, Cecilia, looked up from her food and said one word. Well, one name, rather.
“Antonio.”
Antonio, the grandson of Cecilia and Rigoberto, a pudgy 10-year-old boy with teeth as white as his clean undershirt, sprang up out of his seat and started yelling at the bird, waving his hands at it and pushing it toward the door. Everyone else continued eating and didn’t even watch to see if Antonio was successful or not in scaring the bird outside. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time a chicken ran around the living room squawking and flapping its wings during dinner.
After dinner Rigoberto showed me the one family photo album in the house. The album is filled with a few 5’ x 7’ pictures from 10 or 12 different trips and special events. Pictures from each event are separated from other pictures by one blank page in the album. Most of the pictures are of Rigoberto’s three sons and their weddings. All three men live in America.
When we reached the first set of wedding prints, I spotted Cecilia but couldn’t find Rigoberto.
“Where are you in this picture?”
“I didn’t go to any of the weddings.”
I didn’t ask why—the answer was obvious. The fall harvest doesn’t wait for weddings.
Many pictures of Antonio’s father showed him without his son at his side. Antonio lives in El Salvador with Rigoberto and Cecilia while both his mother and father live in the U.S. Like so many people who are raised in Central America and move to the U.S. to work and save money, Antonio’s mother and father don’t return home to visit their family. Such visits are impossible because the parents don’t possess the proper papers.
“When will Antonio’s parents come back to El Salvador?” I asked.
Rigoberto held the album up close to his eyes so he could see the fine details of the picture of his son. He waited a moment before answering my question.
“They will return when they make enough money,” he said.
Enough money. It sounded so concrete. It sounded like a fixed amount, a specific goal that, once reached, will sound alarms and fire up the engines of the plane that will bring them home. I feared, however, that enough money might never be found. When is enough enough?
Posted in Bike trip: El Salvador
