Glimpse - Your Stories from Abroad

The clock read 3:30 a.m., and a song was drifting past my gated window. Forcing my eyes open, I realized I was being serenaded. My Spanish, rusty as a hammer subjected to numerous El Salvadoran downpours, limited my understanding of the early-morning crooning, but it was flattering nonetheless. What enchanting young man had sent this angel of music?

Mariachi bands are an El Salvadoran tradition, used by men to court women. The next day, my host family and I came up with a surprising array of possible admirers: the village carpenter, the local physics teacher, the woodworker, the health promoter. Never did it cross our minds that the mariachi player had sent himself.

The puzzle was solved the next day when, on my way to get fresh pupusas for lunch, an older villager named Fernando introduced himself as my early-morning serenader. He carried a machete and canvas bag. “Please,” he said, “I would like to talk.” Little did he know, my lack of Spanish-language abilities and my instinctive distrust of a 55-year-old machete-toting stranger was a great recipe for a short conversation.

Fernando stationed himself outside my window once more at the oh-so-suitable hour of 3:30 a.m. Then again the next morning, and the morning after that. I managed to remove myself from the “I’m-being-pursued-by-a-55-year-old-man mindset” so I could enjoy the sounds.

Soon after, on my way to teach English at the local technical school, I was confronted by Fernando once again. Still carrying a machete and canvas bag, he greeted me with an abrasive hug and a stubble-cheeked kiss. Fernando bantered on about his obsession with me as I feigned complete language ignorance.

 “I love your eyes, your smile, your hair.”

 “I don’t understand.”

“You’re a beautiful person.”

“I don’t understand.”

 “I want to be with you.”

“I don’t understand.”

His forwardness was approaching uncomfortable levels, turning this amusing story into one that my parents would no longer want to hear. My host father made it absolutely clear to Fernando that he was not to come around anymore.

But word must have gotten out that I would be heading back home soon. At 12:30 a.m. on the night before my departure, Fernando’s heart and guitar strings poured out another song. Then, after the first song, the melancholy notes of songs two, three, four, five, and six wafted through the window, each one sung and strummed louder than the one before it.

By this point, my host father had had enough. As we opened the front door, we peered out to a most sorrowful sight. That night’s torrential downpour—a daily occurrence during El Salvador’s wet season—was dousing Fernando’s very being. The rain attacked him from all sides. It sent ribbons of water from the rim of his cowboy hat to his guitar. He was standing up to his ankles in mud.

“Fernando, you must leave. Allison is sick and she needs to get up in the early morning,” my host father said.

“I’m sick too. I’m sick with love. I’m going to die when she leaves!” Fernando replied.

“OK… one more song.”

“Please, give her this.”

Fernando handed my host father an enormous package, which had been protected from the rain by his heavy coat. The wrapping paper was a quilt of pink and blue squares, adorned with drawings of brides and flower garlands. As I gently tore the paper open, I found “Bean Man,” an illustration created from beans and corn, glued onto a piece of cardboard. The meticulous arrangement of the brown, yellow, red, gray, and white kernels must have taken hours.

I stood there, gaping at the unexpected gift, as Fernando began his last song.