The volcano in my backyard

A few signs my Spanish is improving; I was able to talk on the phone for over an hour without any real trouble, and I can understand misspelled text messages without much effort.

I'm in the early stages of organizing a somewhat fairly large event in my site. I have been working in the school and attending meetings with just about every committee that exists as far as I can tell, and now that I am more familiar with people and resources I am going to try to organize a soccer tournament with HIV education worked in somehow. We’ll see how it goes. 

I hiked the volcano up to the peak with the guys for the first time today.

Two hours of walking, climbing, cutting back and forth through the Volcano, guessing at which paths will take us up the quickest, stopping for water and a bite to eat, and we're resting a few hundred meters below the peak. Tony pulls on a cigarette and Rueben gulps a bottle of liquor. Liquor is like Gatorade for Rueben. There's an abandoned brick house here, used by the guerilla fighters during the civil war. Many of the confusing, intersecting paths we took on the way up were made by them during the war as well.

We hang out for a bit and I get talked into taking a swig of the guaro. Nasty, just like it always was, and my throat burns a bit even after washing it down with water. Picsis takes off towards the peak and I follow. I'm anxious and ready to get there already. And I don't want anything to do with the bottle of guaro. The other guys start to get everything together but I know they will be a few minutes behind. Picsis has long hair, a girly voice, and is gay. Surprisingly, in the sexist, homophobic world that is rural El Salvador, the other guys don't give him too much crap about it. He's also done most of the hike barefoot, kicking off his rubber flip flops about a half-hour after we started. We walk for a few minutes on a fairly level path, not nearly as steep as what we'd been hiking before, but shortly the terrain changes and it is real climbing. I can see Picsis ahead when the path straightens out, but for the most part I am stepping, grabbing, and pulling myself up bit by bit in complete solitude. The paths were many on the way up to the landing, but from here up there's only one way to get to the peak without real climbing gear.

The swig of guaro I took has me in the zone and I am blazing up the mountain now, crawling on all fours without stopping to look back. I glance to the side after about 10 minutes of climbing and notice that beyond a small border of shrubs and bushes is a huge drop-off. I stop and wait for the rest of the group to come back into sight, admiring the view. I had been focused on the climb and didn't notice how close the cliff was nor how far the drop; my heart speeds up a bit even though I'm starting to catch my breath.

Picsis is far ahead now, but I can hear the other three laughing and making their way, slowly, up the climb.

¨Puro guerrero!¨ I hear Tony yell, and I see them come around a curve in the path. We talk for a minute and I take off again, grabbing plants, rocks, trees, and whatever else I can find sturdy enough to pull myself up with as the path steepens. I crawl over a big, round rock and everything flattens out again. We're at the top of the volcano, a half-circle curving around to a collection of rocks where the true peak is. We walk along the rim, a thin, rocky path bordered with no more than a couple feet of loose stones and dirt on each side before a big fall. The path has a slight incline, and we reach the rocks, side-stepping in parts, squeezing between giant stones to reach the highest point. ¨This would not be a good time for an earthquake,¨ I think to myself, focusing my gaze ahead and aboze, never looking down, never glancing back.

At the peak, my heart is racing. The climb was tough, but the view is messing with my nerves. The panorama is incredible but it always takes me a few minutes to get used to standing next to an abyss with certain death just one stumble away. I wouldn't say I'm scared of heights. I just have a mild allergy. Okay, I'm kind of scared of heights, but I can usually get control of it with a couple minutes of adjustment and a few deep breaths. A bit of fear can make things more interesting, and once my anxiety fades away my body is surging with adrenaline.

I'm on top of the world! Or at least it feels like it.