The real life??
So I have officially been back in the United States for 2 weeks and 5 days. It has been a tough transition back to school. I missed a week of classes (that actually wasn't that tough to miss) and had to jump back into things like my on-campus job and putting hours in at the clinic. I started off in a big way by collecting items for Gudelia and Carmen's families. That was a little tough to organize but everything came together last Wednesday and the backpacks were in El Salvador by Friday. Gudelia and Carmen picked them up this past Monday and when I called that night, the families were so excited about the things. I was really happy that they were happy and we ended up talking for about an hour. The best part was that I had wrapped up a present for Miguel for his birthday on September 18 and he begged me on the phone to let him open it. I wonder if he will be able to wait to open it. When I was 18...I don't know if I would have been able to wait.

I have also visited Hector and Jose in San Francisco. They are family members of people in Monsenor and related through marriage to Gudelia's family. They live in a room of a house that has ten other families living in it. They have three beds in the room. They all work in the city and don't earn a lot of money. They also pay about $500 a month for that room. I have a really tough time with the fact that they pay so much for that room and I am not really sure who to contact in the city. There has to be a fair housing project for immigrants, it is just whether they want to jeopardize their status in the United States to bring a claim. I went over for a visit last Sunday and had shrimp, rice and tortillas. It was a nice visit and hopefully when I come back in a couple of weeks, they will feel like going out and exploring a little of the city. I think that they feel trapped by their lives here, just like they did in El Salvador and while they don't have much money or status here in the United States, there are things to see and do that are free and they need a distraction from the hard work they face every other day of the week.

I am going to visit the sister church of the Ciudadela this Saturday and show my slides of my trip. There are so many good pictures of the family and of Monsenor and the kinder. I am happy that so many of them came out so well. I read my journal to Hazel, my house mate, last week and it brought back such vivid memories for me. It was amazing to explain some of the things that I now take for granted too. It was ironic because I was thinking about how when I first got to Gudelia's house and some things weren't explained to me...and how uncomfortable that made me. But it was the fact that it was so ordinary to them that they didn't realize they had to explain it. This is the way it was for me when I was reading to Hazel and she didn't understand it. That made me feel peaceful because it reminded me of how much I learned and how much I was a part of whatever really great thing was happening this summer.

Gudelia told me on the phone on Monday, she said, Now we can never forget you. I took this not just to mean that because I sent them gifts, that now they couldn't forget me. I took this to mean, that they had doubts whether I would write or forget them when I came back to my busy life. I had tried to reassure them that this wouldn't happen. But I could tell that they didn't believe me. Now they believe. This makes me happy.