The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

Or,

I get dysentery, I shave my head, Sophie dies and I get published

Actually it was a stomach flu that left me bed ridden and, on the Day of the Dead, I rose from the catacomb and, like Thriller, danced with the Dead, 3 times, before fainting back into what I thought was perminant sleep. Ja-mone! Hee-hee!

Okay, for Halloween I went as my program director, complete with a shaved head and face, pictures soon to come. I am now growing a beard and wearing a black Kappa baseball cap. It's a bet, I'll explain later.

Sophie is now dead, so I don't know when I'll get the chance to get my pictures and literally works off of her, more to come on that later.

I got two of my submissions publish in the El Camino, our general Peace Corps magazine (actually, everyone gets published, but this was a 1st for me so I was excited), the following are my submission.

Scrutape Shares a Site Visit & Site Residence Experience

Site Visit: Didn’t They Get The Memo?

I arrived at my site in the early afternoon. Covered in soot after the 2-hour bus ride, the strain of the bus’s engine still echoed in my mind as by some mechanical marvel the metal death trap completed its ascent to the apex of this undocumented mountain. I stepped off the bus with a hesitation one experiences after on coming fear. As if somehow gravity were made heavier, I slowly, with much force but little return, made my way toward the alcaldia, my breathing panting weary anticipation. Already I didn’t like it: it was a city covered in a blanket of dirt, a thin film, like mold that collects on a small puddle. I made my way inside the alcaldia, it looked like a war torn building, the kind you expect to see in period pieces, war documentaries (didn’t they get the memo? The wars over). I heard cries of people screaming in the background…I was assured, with tight smiles that the screams were of people working.
They put me in an air-conditioned office and served me a meal. They left me, in that box, that cage for some time, perhaps as a last rite before I too was next to be the one to scream. It was then that I questioned my place here in Peace Corps. I wanted to leave, at that moment I received a call from my best friend in the states and quickly I threatened to jump on the next bus and hide with my extended family in Mexico for two years…no one would be the wiser. I tried my best to keep my composure, but the screams would not let me think clearly…

Site residence: Jeux D’Enfants (Love Me If You Dare)

The mass of destruction that laid in the wake of what I thought was the continuation of the war was actually construction. They are currently in the process of rebuilding the alcaldia, some of the roads, and cleaning up the town. When I finally opened my eyes I noticed there were also three cyber café’s, a neveria, and a Casa de la Cultura. Recently, I had the opportunity to meet the resident poet, an amazing man with the face of a pigmy Caesar Chavez and a wide gaping smile. His work deals with complex and significant issues such as solitude, love and political dissatisfaction…I know we will become good friends. World Vision is also here and there is a Clinical Psychologist that comes once a month to my site (Psych is my background in case you all forgot).
I no longer want to renounce Peace Corps and hide in Mexico, no longer see my site as a crumbling painting left in the sun and abused by the elements. In these cracked and weathered strips I find poetry, in what I thought was desolation, civilization, and slowly but surly I realized the importance of keeping an open mind on this journey, because things don’t always turn out as they initially seem.

And to think, I wanted to key Brian's (my Program Director) car in rage…but I probably still will do it, but as a Close of Service prank, just because.

Your Affectionate Volunteer,

Scrutape

2nd Entry

The Transformation of Antoní Pablax

In light of what is,
That perpendicular persuasion,
That hungry need
That burrows through into the
Depths and clenches your stomach
Like the talons of a Phoenix.

Burned in a pyre,
What Norse king died on this night?
As you too are flung into the calm blue sea.

Washed and held in equilibrium,
The flames that scurry from the touch of the sea,
Her hands, gently floating you off,
Off, off, upon a darkly plane.

And in-between,
A supposition implied,
Through a gray haze
Sloughing like a fog over the sands of a City far off,
What opaque secrets does it hold?
In the black sands littered with white diamonds,
That glisten, in the light of the new day.