El Salvador Retrospective

I wrote this first part of the post and sent it to the people who organized the rally to show other people what the rally has to offer them.  Here it is without any changes:

I just wanted to put down a few thoughts about our stay in El Salvador this year and our participation in the rally. This was our first experience with an organized rally, and we ended up really enjoying it. We met truly fascinating people, and formed relationships we never imagined having. We ended up staying for eleven months.

Although our plan was to remain in El Salvador for only a couple of months, we quickly realized it was a wonderful opportunity to explore other areas of Central America. We spent a month each in Chiapas and the Yucatan, Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. We also spent time exploring El Salvador itself, which turned out to be a wonderful treat, with its own beach communities, Mayan ruins, volcanoes to climb, beautiful lakes, and most of the other attractions that Central America is famous for. The anchorage itself is located in an incredible mangrove forest area, and we spent many many hours exploring in our dinghy, observing the abundant bird life.

We were able to safely leave our boat at Santos Marina on a mooring ball for months at a time with no worries. Santos also provided wonderful woodworking, stainless steel, and other sorts of boat projects in a timely fashion for very reasonable prices.  Besides excellent services for our boat, Santos showed us around the area, and introduced us to aspects of Salvadoran life we never otherwise would have had an opportunity to experience.

The staff at the Hotel Bahia del Sol literally became like family to us. And our driver, Ernesto Martinez, provided us with reliable transportation and became a friend as well. It is hard to say goodbye to a place that has become like home.

 

That is where I ended it.  But I decided to expand on it for the blog, because this has been a really interesting year in many ways, good and bad.

 

Although we left San Diego in late November 2010, making it two years since we have been living like this, it seems like only now am I starting to look at things in anything other than a sort of crisis mode.  We were just learning the boat - we only sailed it maybe twice before we took off.   I had just left work, and was feeling even more rudderless than ever.  We went back to the US the first year for almost two months, from March to April 2011 which delayed the feeling that I no longer live there.  We last went back to the US - to San Diego and my son - in November 2011, but only for a week.  It took well over the first year to stop anticipating another crisis and to just begin to enjoy ourselves. It is still hard to figure out sometimes what is a crisis and what is merely an annoyance of some varying degree.  Part of that is (in my opinion anyway) Mike's tendency to treat everything that goes wrong with the same degree of gravity, so I am never sure what to get upset about and what is not really a big deal.  The longer I am on board, the easier it is for me to make that determination for myself.  There have been times when I was able to prevent Mike from going into full blown crisis mode by calmly pointing out that whatever it is is really not a huge problem.  Actually, that in itself is a pretty big deal.

 

I am also coming to grips with the fact that I really don't live anywhere other than where I am.  In fact, when people ask me where I am from, I have to ask a few questions to figure out what sort of  "Where are you from" is being asked.  Do they mean "Where were you before you were here?"  Do they mean "where were you born" or some other way of determining your nationality?  Do they want to know where you grew up?  Or is it where you get your mail?  I have different answers for each of those questions, so that is why I have to determine what is actually being asked. In law school, we called it determining the call of the question.  (I actually learned all about the call of the question when I worked in customer service at the court and at a health plan.  It means that you first have to figure out what the person in front of you [or on the phone] is really asking for.  Only then can you fashion any kind of a decent response.  And most people don't always ask for things clearly.  They tell you what they THINK you need to know, not what you actually need to know.)

 

The other thing is having people come and go from your life on a regular basis.  Just as you are getting to know someone, one or the other of you leaves.  Although you do keep in touch through things like email, the SSB radio and the cruisers nets, and Facebook, it isn't the same as being together on a day to day basis.  It also means that couples spend an incredible amount of time together alone.  That was especially difficult for us, I am ashamed to admit.  Truthfully, Mike and I have always had a difficult relationship in many ways.  And I did not leave my job until just before we took off.  Although I was sick of working and wanted a change, I loved my job.  It was pretty solitary, and I liked having eight hours a day to myself.  I only had to interact with my coworkers when I wanted to.  So when that changed, I was irritable, and Mike was also irritable, and it caused a lot of unpleasant moments that first year.  But bit by bit, I think we have both come to understand each other better, and have learned to understand ourselves better.  While I (of course!) think most of the problems we have had were not altogether my show, I know that I certainly at the very least have a starring role. 

 

I have also had to address and face the fact I do have problems with depression.  I felt like admitting it would be allowing myself to become a stereotype, even within my own family.  But denial won't change anything, and being depressed all the time is no fun.  So now I am trying to learn different ways to deal with it when it flares up.  I can't stop taking the medication.  And there is nothing wrong with just taking a deep breath and repeating the Serenity Prayer to myself, or some other helpful slogan like that.  (AA has millions of them.  AA needs to have a Crazy People Anonymous or something like that.  I'd go.)  I am just lucky that my prescribed antidepressant works really well, as long as I take it regularly.

 

I began to think hard about all this stuff recently when we finally got all the stuff we needed and were finally ready to take off.  Then the weather started acting up - big wind events - so we have to wait for a "weather window".  That left me with time on my hands, and also started me thinking about the last two years.   This next part of the adventures seems to me like more than just another step on the voyage - it is a start to what is in some ways a new life.  I am feeling really optimistic, adventurous, strong, and capable.  Who knows what might happen?  I can't wait. 

 

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."  (Thomas A. Edison)