Pining

It's only been six hours since we took off from Guate and I'm already missing Central America. I'm sitting next to a middle-aged woman who thinks she owns the plane just by having paid for her ticket: she's reclined her seat and won't straighten it for meals, take-off or landing (despite being told to do so by the stewardess). Then there's the girl sitting in front of me who violently shoved her way past another stewardess who was distributing newspapers down the aisle. I'm sorry, but if this is how the Spanish behave, I have even more reason to push Spain further down the list of places I'd like to visit. God forbid, you'd never see this sort of thing happen in Central America.

Note: On flight bound for Madrid

***

In El Salvador - particularly big cities like San Salvador, houses are surrounded by thick, high walls (one of the factors that would lead me to almost lose my mind). Neighbourhoods in turn, are closed off by barbed wire fences, cement or concrete walls. Then there's the craze for machete- and rifle-bearing security guards - you can find one in almost every business establishment, even small ones like the nearby restaurant (not unlike Malaysia's late-night mamak restaurants) that I frequented for meals. For $10 per household per month, our neighbourhood - Residencial Santa Margarita - hired a security guard to keep watch over it (ours was not fenced in). Our guard wielded a machete but the one guarding the neighbourhood just across the road from us had a rifle.

But despite their impermeable walls (a reflection of the country's social security), Salvadorenos are quick to let you into their lives - the English-speaking ones even quicker. And they always appear at the most unexpected moment: sitting at the next table in a restaurant or standing next to you at a bus stop. I can still remember the night the security guard at the aforementioned restaurant spoke to me in English (as perfect as American English can be) of how he had grown up in the States but had been deported back to El Salvador as a teenager following some 'bad business'. And my first proper conversation in Spanish was with this woman who had brought her elderly father to Boqueron for the clean fresh air of the mountain. Wheelchair-bound, he was dying from metastatic disease and the doctor had only given him another month to live.

I've also never encountered a people so keen, so ready - almost as if anticipating - to help. They'd patiently explain the menu and help you with the order. They'd answer your questions and show you the right way, sometimes leading you to the correct place or bus. Or even give you a lift if it's on the way or up a tree to get a better view of a procession. In a few moments, we'll be landing at Heathrow (I'm writing this between Salman Rushdie's The Jaguar Smile and sleeping) and I'm not holding my breath yet for someone to help me with my heavy rucksack.

***

England welcomes me home with rain at 14°C but my heart is still in Central America.

Tobes

I'd forgotten how cold it can get here in Antigua, the start of the Guatemalan highlands. The first time I was here, I had to bring my blanket up to the rooftop where a few of us were chilling. The walls were high but the night was clear and one of the three volcanoes around Antigua loomed up in the distance before us.

Tonight, I'm up on the rooftop of another hostel with three layers on (I'm counting my vest as one layer). Fog shrouds the surrounding highlands but the walls are low and I can see the comings and going of the cobbled street below.

I'm glad I broke the backpackers' code of not visiting a place twice. Strolling down the familiar streets of Antigua, it feels different than when I did the whirlwind tour of the city. And with no time restrictions, I'm beginning to experience Antigua's charm.

The city still feels touristy with hostels a stone's throw away from each other (at times side by side) with tourist services filling the gaps in between. But now that I have the opportunity to look inside these businesses, it's absolutely interesting to see how they've customised themselves to find their own niche in the wide and varied market of tourism, be it an overpriced bookstore to a wine and cheese tasting parlour to a shisha smoking salon.

Conversely, I'm glad I honoured the philosophy of backpacking by deciding against a direct luxury bus from San Salvador to Guate. Instead, I made my way there slowly by various chicken buses with the entire weight of my rucksack on my shoulders. This gave me an extra day at El Tunco where I learnt how to surf (proof that at 24, you can still teach an old dog new tricks).

That's where I met Tobes (that's what I call him). Tobes (as in Toe-b-s as in Toby as in Tobias) and I shared a room in El Tunco. He had been paying $10 a night for his room until I arrived, after which we shared the room for $14 per night. So he had every reason to be happy, really.

But Tobes is a really cool German guy. We got on really well together somehow. We hung out together (he'd read on the hammock whilst I wrote on a table nearby or vice versa), we'd grab food together, and he even invited me to surf with him (he took the bigger waves while I the smaller).

He was going to leave the day before I did but changed his mind so that we'd travel together when I told him I was also heading to Guatemala. And the night before we left, he convinced me to join him in Antigua.

I don't think I'll ever forget the chicken bus ride along El Salvador's coastal route to the border at La Hachadura with Tobes: the occasional view of the Pacific crashing upon beaches isolated by sheer cliffs and the intermittent clucking from two chickens at the back of the bus. This crazy mash-up of classic love songs (including More Than a Woman and Sugar, Sugar) was playing, so I leaned over to Tobes and cheekily said, 'You know, with all these love songs, it's a shame we're not boyfriends.' And we had a good laugh.

He may be no boyfriend but I truly treasured his company and I wouldn't trade our time spent wondering the streets of Antigua amidst the colourful houses with an evening by myself in Guate.

$2.66

It is now 6:30 pm on Tuesday, the 13th of July and I have just returned home (having missed the stop at San Luis on the way back from Terminal de Occidente and having to follow the bus on its route back). I started with $100. Now, I only have $2.66 to last me till tomorrow when I can get more cash from the bank.

I believe I left the house at 7:30 am on Saturday the 10th and since then, I have been to La Palma, San Ignacio and El Poy in El Salvador as well as Nueva Ocotopeque, La Entrada and Copan Ruinas in Honduras.

It was just this morning I was breathing in the clean fresh air of Cerro El Pital, the highest peak in El Salvador and shaking from the cold at that altitude. Now I'm back in this furnace that is San Salvador; breathing in the fumes of its clogged up roads.

Big 'G'

No water again today - that's twice in two weeks. Possibly even more, given that I've always showered at 7:00 am and on both occasions, I showered late - today, after I'd done my laundry (for which there was still water). That's twice I've had to bathe outside at the stone basin - I had some leftover water from the washing.

***
Before we had a maid, mother used to send me to a babysitter: Mrs. Lie (most likely Lai) I think her name was. I have only this one memory of it so it must've been some time way back. As far as I can remember, we've always had a maid; but this must've been whilst I was still in kindergarten.

I always had to bathe outside. When the heat of the day gave way to the cool of the evening, her son would lead me outside to a walled-in part of the frontyard. I would undress; he would hose me down and soap me up (in a non-homoerotic way).

And then we would play this game of his (I think he came up with it): he would turn me around to face the wall with my back to him. And as I stared at the punched-out floral motifs of the white wall, he would write alphabets on my soapy back. And under the gentle evening sun, I'd have to guess if it was a "big 'G'" or a "small 'a'".

That's where the memory ends.
***

Of course, there are many interesting aspects about this memory and its significance. For one, why was I never allowed to bathe upstairs? Does it say anything about our different social status?

But what I'm most intrigued by is *why* this memory? They say we remember events that are emotionally charged but the funny thing is, I can't even conjure up the emotion that is associated with it.

So why this memory?