(Moments, 4)
I'm sitting at a red plastic picnic table outside a gas station, after having arrived early for my medical appointment at the office around the corner. I have an Eduardo Galeano book before me, but it's closed. My cell phone is out, but it's off. I'm staring into the distance, mulling over things.
A thin man with a bulky square backpack approaches me. His smile is light. "Buenos días," he says. "You look bored." I stay silent, so he explains, "I sell coffee, you see, and here I have styrofoam cups and hot fresh coffee in my backpack, and I was wondering if you want some."
Two evenings ago, I facilitated a discussion on machismo, or sexism El Salvador-style, for visiting U.S. college kids. Here, as in most places in the world, sexism sprouts like weeds through the cracks of many aspects of daily life: in the workplace and the home, at school, on the sidewalk. When an unknown man approaches a woman, his first question is often, "Do you have a husband?" Then, having pried you open that far, he'll likely spring head-first into a pool of questions about whatever details of your private life he'd like to know. A man on the bus last week called me ungracious for refusing to give him my name and address-- which he wanted, of course, after ensuring that I didn't already have a Salvadoran husband.
"You've got to know that you can't trust unknown men here," I told those students. "Don't worry about being nice. You've got to be safe."
Today, this young guy is pouring me a cup of that precious steaming stuff. He says, "You just looked so young and so bored. I felt like I could trust you and thought you might need some coffee."
I smile. Thank you. He walks on with his day.
What I had been mulling over before he showed was where on earth I could find some coffee.
-- 24 Feb 2010
Ingrid y los patojos
Hace 7 horas
