My first trip to El Salvador comes in bits and pieces. I certainly remember the 6-hour flight feeling like an eternity. I also remember liking the food on the flight, but I’ll chuck that up to my inexperienced palate. The descent into the airport and subsequent landing is something I do remember; something I remember from every airplane trip. The anticipation of finally reaching the destination, watching the tiny city below grow bigger in scale as we got closer filled me with excitement. The feeling of falling was always something that scared me and excited me all at once. There is a hill on Hoover St. that a driver hits coming from Pico toward Washington that my dad always drove over when coming back from Ague’s house or when coming back from the best taco place in town, El Taurino. I always loved the sensation I got when the car stopped going uphill and rapidly descended down Hoover. The plane landing was scarier than anything else. Strange things went through my mind when I felt the first impact of the tires hitting the runway and the plane leaping off the ground a couple times. “I’m going to die,” ran through my mind. That’s a lot of stress for a 5-year-old.
While still up in the air, I looked out the window as the plane was circling the airport waiting for clearance to start the landing process, I was in awe of how green everything was. Fields and jungle as far as the eye could see. L.A. certainly looks nothing like this place. When I walked off the plane and stepped into the airport I was smacked in the face with instant heat and humidity. It is hot in El Salvador and ridiculously muggy. As a cute kid raised on a combination of an American and Salvadoran diet, the mosquitoes found me irresistible… and there are a lot of mosquitoes… a lot.
One of my uncles on my mom’s side picked us up in a microbus. He loaded us up and we took the 31 mile drive from San Luis Talpa to Soyapango, which is right next to the capital, San Salvador. The route was beautiful. I got a closeup look at all the vegetation I saw from the plane. There was lush jungle everywhere I looked. Roadside hut restaurants were strewn along the side of the highway, along with fruit stands, cows, and goats. It was like nothing a city boy like myself had ever seen.
When the scenery changed to the towns along the way, the buildings and the people were all different; the colors of the buildings were different from what I was used to, the style of the trim on them was different from anything I had previously seen in real life. I might have seen similar things in the novelas my mom watched. Every town we passed had dirt roads; only the highway was paved. Sure, there were sidewalks, but the road itself wasn’t paved. The same was true when we reached Soyapango; dirt roads. The main streets that led to the city’s main commercial areas were paved, but not the ones in residential areas.
We arrived at my grandma’s house in the neighborhood that I’ve heard my parents refer to as La Vieja Jesús, which translates to ” the old Jesus” or “the old woman Jesus” whichever makes more sense. The street the house is on has a gate at the entrance, probably a remnant of the civil war that had taken place earlier that decade and the decade precluding it. Every house had a steel screen door and all the windows were barred. Every house was made of brick and mortar and this being a country with tropical weather, every house had tin shingled roofs. The symphony that played on those roofs on rainy nights was spectacular.
When I walked into the house, my grandmother, Mama Tilde, was eating her lunch at the dining table that was situated in the living room. I was shy at first, but she urged me to go over to her. To this point I had only heard her voice over the phone and had seen pictures of her in our family albums. I walked up to her, she gave me a hug, a kiss on the cheek and asked, “¿Como estas, hijo?” (“How are you son?”)
“Bien,” I said in a timid voice (“Good”)
She had a very soft voice. She was in her late 70s, skin was a slightly reddish brown and wrinkled. Her hands had grown rough, not only from age but also from a lifetime of working with her hands. She wore a dress, the traditional dress that working-class women in El Salvador wear; at least women of her generation and women of the generation of my mom’s older sisters wore those dresses. Mama Tilde always wore an apron. She owned and ran a pupuseria for decades and the apron was her cash register, her purse, and just general area to store anything anyone else would need to carry with him at all times. And she had short curly hair; a little salt and pepper fro.
I turned to my left, coming from the hallway and out of his room was a tall kid with a face I recognized from photo albums. He was tall for a 12-year-old and lanky. He walked over with a sheepish grin on his face which accompanied the black fro he had on his head.
“Mira, ese es tú hermano Richard,” my mom told me. (“Look, that’s your brother Richard.”)
Without hesitation, I ran over to him and gave him a hug. He didn’t quite know how to react and only halfway hugged me back. I was fine with that. I now had a brother and that was pretty cool.
I didn’t meet my sister until later on that night. Once we got settled into my grandma’s room, unpacked our clothes, and set up mosquito nets over the beds, we headed to my grandma’s pupuseria where my Tía Dora (mom’s younger sister) was running the restaurant. She had a darker complexion than the rest of us, a deeper brown, closer to a darker hue of caramel. Her hair was short and curly, but not quite as curly as Mama Tilde’s or my brother’s hair. She had a mouth that just spewed profanities.
“¿Puta vos, ya llegaste?” she greeted my mom and offered all of us some pupusas. (“Fuck, you finally arrived.”)
The pupusas weren’t like anything I had tasted in my 5 years of existence. Talk about farm fresh. The pupuseria was a stand alone cinder block building, just four walls, some tables and the stove top. It was right next to the mercado where farmers of produce and livestock sold their goods; freshly butchered, freshly picked.
I’m pretty sure that the pupuseria was the place I first met my sister, but I can’t remember it happening there. The first scene I remember of my sister is at one of my uncles’ houses. It was dark out, the light was shining from the doorway of the house out onto the dirt street. She was standing outside in the glow of the light filing her nails. She looked over at me and I stopped in my tracks. Zulma was about 12 or 13 years old at the time and I remember admiring how beautiful she was. One of my female cousins, Elsi, teased me.
“¿Te gusta verdad? Si está bonita,” she said laughing (“You like her, don’t you? She’s pretty.”)
I looked away in a feeble attempt to hide my embarrassment. Zulma laughed, called me over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
Everything else about that month-long trip faded away from my memory as time passed. My birthday was celebrated, we went to Apulo to the Lago de Ilopango, played with goats at one of my uncle’s houses and listened to stories about the war.
When we came back to Los Angeles we were joined by my brother and sister. How they got to the U.S., I have no idea. The important part is that they were here and I was no longer alone.
Be careful what you wish for.
When I continue my story, I’m going to jump a couple of years. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you more about my life.
Let me say this... 