Third Year
Natalie Garro, 129 TESSIt’s a Wednesday.3 of my 4 classes were cancelled today,but my 7th graders did well on their spelling test, so I’m thirsty. The grandmother at the storein front of my school tells meI’ll get fat if I keep drinking so much soy milk, so I tell herI’ll be beautiful fat, too.My life herehas wrapped itself around melike the vines that creepalong my back garden wall,beautiful bloomsswelling into inedible fruitbefore someone pulls them down again. I know this life is temporary. Sometimes I imagine putting down roots here, watching my neighbors grow old. I imagine carrying their baskets back from the market, reading to my students’ kids when they bring them by my houseto meet Teacher Natalie. I imagine the whole village dancing at my wedding,or maybe shrugging as the grandmothers askwhy I never got married, didn’t I want kids? In these visions, I offer my usual response: I have 300 kids already. Sometimes I use the dating prospects here as my excuse for whyI’ll leave someday. My host mom asks me oftenwhy I plan to leave if I’m happy here. And I guess I’ve been asking myself that same questionwith increased frequencythe last few months. I don’t really have a satisfying answer yet. The temple music wakes me at 4:30AM. I smile and roll over, the familiar tones echoing through my dreamsuntil my alarms chimes, 5:30AM, before the sun’s risen, and I can already hear my neighbors sliding back the rusted metal of their gates. Tractors trundle down the side of the road,and roosters screech,and I hit snooze as I pull the blankets up to blockthe crisp breeze of the fan. I squeal at the frosty nip of the water, each bucket-full sends a little shiver into my toes. My neighbors bring me a bag of boiled corn, their dog greets me with a wagging tail, and I know most days I am coated in a sticky layer of sweat;but I also swear, nothing makes iced coconut water taste better, or watermelon fresh sliced from the back of the fridge. For a good long while, I couldn’t remember who I was. I still can’t remember. And I suppose there’s freedom in deciding, whoever I am nowis happy enough to find herselfso wrapped up in the folds of her life here, she writes nothing but letters back homefor months without realizingmany of the knots in her stomach have shaken loose.Many of the knots have shaken loose.There is freedom here. And love. And maybe my time here is temporary,but my life here is not. And maybe goodbye will arrive one day,but I’m glad I don’t have to think about that yet. I have time. I don’t have to think about that yet.
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