Introduction part 2

Fast Forward some years and mom decides to take is back to our home town to live with other grandma. These are the years of my youth that I remember well. Again though, I did stuff normal kids did but only in a different environment. How different you ask?

- The country is still at civil war

- It’s a third world country

- Military dudes were always walking around with their rifles which should have scared me but didn’t since it that was normal back then

- Poverty was/is horrible there

- Our town had a curfew that no one could be out on the streets after 9:00PM or you would be either arrested or caught in the cross fire while the guerilla and military were gunning each other down

- We didn’t have a consistent supply of water and electricity (because the guerilla tried sabotaging stuff) so we would go months without one or the other

- You would have to worry about gunfire outside of your home

- Earthquakes at least 3 times a year

- Having friends shot and killed

- Being afraid that if you were old enough and male, that you would get recruited by either side against your will

- etc.

My grandmother on my mom’s side is hilarious. She would tell all the neighborhood kids elaborate stories she had made up or had hear when she was younger. She did this when it was dark outside and we didn’t have “novelas” (soap operas for you whiteys) to watch due to the lack of electricity. I remember it all being really cool and mystical. She is a great story teller.

She would tell my brother and I that if we ever swallowed seeds from the fruits we ate, that we were going to have trees growing out of our stomachs. I ones swallowed a watermelon seed and I went around town asking people how to get it out because my grandmother told me that if I swallowed a seed, that a tree would grow out of my belly…people just laughed at me. She ones got me good when I didn’t bring good grades home and told me that since I got bad grades, the lord would take my sight if I watched TV or played Videogames before my grades came back up. That was the worse time of my life. I feared going to friends home because they might have a TV on or something. Needless to say, I spend a lone month or two before I finally got my grades back up and was able to watch tv and play games without my sight being taken from me.

Speaking of school, when I was in El Salvador, I went to a Catholic school. I was taught by nuns - mean ones at that. They would break Meter sticks on kids for misbehaving or not turning in their homework. I am glad to say that I never got a meter stick broken on me during my years at that Catholic school.