Sleeping with Flies

I wanted to write this blog post because my one year anniversary since being deported is coming up this week (February 26), but also I've just got a lot of thoughts. Being deported is one of the most emotional passings I've ever undergone. Perhaps, it was because I had mentally and emotionally prepared to leave and had said goodbye to everyone. Then to be denied entrance and have to return, I felt like I was being punished. I didn't reach out to many friends or family during the two weeks I had returned because I had already said my goodbyes. It was lonely, emotional, and I questioned if I should even come back.

Well, I did, and if you have kept in touch with me personally, you know very well that the journey throughout the past year has not been an easy one. I expected that there would be culture shock, along with adapting to the heat. However, nothing could have prepared me to understand the Earth more than now. In the United States, I considered myself healthy, independent, and with a good immune system. Maybe a part of this was my child-like thoughts of, "I am invincible." El Salvador has taught me very well that I'm not. Living here has taught and shown me the culture, but also how we have to learn to live in nature--not the other way around.

After sweating, sunburns, cold showers, bugs, different food, no rain, rain for six months, wind, etc. I finally feel as if I have found a balance with all of it (or at least for now). The heat no longer feels excruciating, the cool nights are such a gift, and I am in awe at the bio diversity that sustains itself here. The people may live lives that seem more "primative" to those of Western culture. However, something that we've done is trained nature to live among us--not the other way around. Our bodies were meant to undergo heat, cold, and the elements. This is not to say we don't need shelters, but oh how much closer we live to where we were meant to be all along.

Of course somedays are harder than others, but I love knowing that my body has changed to be stronger. My body is adapting and learning it's limits--and with this an appreciation of the rain when it finally comes, the heat after a cold night, the family of geicos that live in the ceiling, and the plants that grow along the sidewalk. I can't stress enough how many natural remedies grow in such open places. There's an abundance of fruit trees everywhere, "Fire plant" (a plant used in healing skin), chamoille flowers, cinnamon, and so forth.

I've learned to sleep with the flies because I understand they are not going anywhere, just as I am not. We must realize that the Earth has provided us with exactly what we need. By living closer to it and more in tune have I just now started realizing how much I needed to change.