one year in and none the wiser

Here's the latest piece I wrote for El Camino, the Peace Corps newsletter, which I'm now editor of. Thought you might enjoy it!
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The first time I saw a scorpion, I screamed like a little girl. I was in middle of brushing my hair, and looked into the mirror to see the creature’s evil eyes staring back at me from the top of my head, its tail poised high and ready to strike. When no one came to my rescue, I took a deep breath and made myself pull it together, laid my head on my bed and prayed to God that it would crawl off. After five minutes, it did, and I ran to get my host mom to help kill it.
The second time I saw a scorpion, I only whimpered to myself as I slowly crawled out of bed and inched away to get the venom, which I used to thoroughly douse my sleeping space until the insect was unequivocally dead, at which point I fell asleep on the couch, far away from the departed enemy.
By the third time, I reacted like a campesina. Reaching for my venom without a second though, I killed the pest before it had time to blink and then swept it outside with a broom.
As I saw my latest scorpion, it got me thinking about all the little quirks of living in El Salvador and the strangeness of getting used to things I could never have predicted. These days, my mouth waters when I smell fresh quesadilla baking in my host mother’s oven and I crave frijoles y tortillas, even if I have spaghetti in the fridge. My group has just passed our astonishing one-year mark, meaning that for the first time, perennial events are not a surprise, but a return. This time, Semana Santa is no mystery, but a recurring holiday. So this year, when they burn Judas in my community, I will understand that Judas, does not mean Jew, as I thought last year. Though those kids wearing Halloween masks, running from house to house are indeed impersonating the evil Jews who reject Christ, even if they have no idea what a Jew is. As my town slips into the bone-scorching heat of April and May, I will have the rains of invierno to look forward to, not that they offer much respite, but at least the countryside will regain its green glow.
One of the nicest things to become accustomed to is the ease with which we can slip into Spanish now. Though in many ways my Spanish is really not what it should be, my mouth can now form the words before my brain translates them. I even find myself occasionally translating back from Spanish to English when talking to other PCVs (saying the nonexistent word “capacitation” where we would have once used the word “training” is a favorite Spanish-ism of Peace Corps Volunteers). Other signs of our thorough adaptation is our instant reactions of “permiso” when trying to get by someone (even though it’s another English speaker we’re trying to pass), or instinctively putting the toilet paper in the basket (even if it’s at the Sheraton, whose plumbing can handle the extra volume).
But one of the strange things is that no matter how long I’m here, I always still look as if I walked across the border this morning. Sure, all my clothes may have been bought locally and 99% of my body mass may now be made from pupusas, but my light coloring marks me as a gringa before I can even open my mouth to say buenas to someone. And though the cobrador is just trying to be helpful when he offers to point me to my next stop, or the fruit seller is just curious where she asks me if I speak Spanish, some part of me feels frustrated that they can’t don’t think that I look even a little guanaca now.
As much as I pride myself in finally being able to prattle off the names of all the bichos in the park or the exotic fruits in the mercado, I am surprised by how much of a foreigner I still feel in my site. This isn’t to say that I don’t have friendships here or don’t feel comfortable in my role as a Peace Corps volunteer. What I mean, is that as much as I care for my site and the people, I (and I think they) will always see me as an outsider. As much as I love trying to understand and learn about their outlook on the world, I am still fundamentally starting from a far different perspective, one that is inaccessible to them. At times, this barrier seems insignificant, at other times, insurmountable. When I feel frustrated with it, I try and remind myself that this experience of being the “other,” is one of the most important lessons I will learn as a Peace Corps volunteer. By removing ourselves from our cultural comfort-zone, we can better understand where we come from. By living as the perpetual outsider, we can better understand who we are.
Every circle we traveled through, we have to readjust ourselves and our surroundings to create harmony in our lives. The challenge here is especially hard because our communities are used to emigrants, not immigrants, and our backgrounds are so divergent. But it precisely because of the difficulty of this experience that makes it so worthwhile. While I cannot share many parts of myself with my friends in site, I learn so much from them. And for now, I can at least sleep easy knowing that I can calmly kill any scorpions that cross my path.
One year in… One to go!