But sometimes I'm not really sure who I am here.
I love El Salvador, I love Peace Corps, I love my community and my work...
But sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in my own head a lot. Despite the time I spend with my fellow ahuachapanecans and the occasional meet-ups with PC friends, I feel like I have lost touch with pre-corps Jessica and the inner gringa.
That's the point though, isn't it? Break down cultural norms, challenge yourself, blah blah blah.
The thing is that maybe I've gone too far, I've gone campo, I've gone soft.
Being here in El Salvador has forced me into making compromises and sacrifices... Force me to take bucket baths every morning, to pour water into my toilet, to have filthy feet... Whatever. I dig that stuff. Just give me the ability to tell grodie boys to eff off when they make lame comments on the street, to go out in the evenings without my neighbors playing 21 questions, and to go running at will so that everyone in my town would stop telling me I'm getting fat every five seconds.
At what point do I get to say "hey, let me do my gringa thing. Let me tell you boys to go to hell, that I'm going to walk the three meters to the market, and if you force me to eat your tortillas, and make me uncomfortable when I run, you can't always be saying I'm getting gordita.
I need to tell people when they're shredding my self esteem, and making me self conscious. Of course it's a cultural difference. They aren't trying to destroy me with their over protective vigilence and compliments on my salvo-squishy middle. But It's all too much, man.
In other news, I'm in San Salvador for the night after a PAC meeting, so I'm missing a fiesta rosa in my community.
I'm not going to the aventura concert, or anywhere else, tonight. Too poor, too uninteresed in hangoverland.
Heading back to site tomorrow... Aye dios.
I need a pick me up. I need to get control of mi vida
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