But I want to be your friend!

1-29-11

I went to the internet café today, and for once, it wasn’t just to check my Facebook status or watch reruns of Glee online.  Things are finally starting to pick up for me, and I had a checklist of things to do, especially since I’m going to be gone from my community most of next week.  But no sooner had I sat down and logged onto Sharepoint, the Peace Corps El Salvador work website, than this teenage boy comes up to me and says (in halting English), “Hell-o.  How are you?  What’s your name?” 

I’m used to men here trying to speak English to me; a lot of them have lived in the United States, or have relatives there.  They’re fond of using it as a pick-up line, asking whether I can ‘tutor’ them in English.  (Proof positive that these are pick-up attempts and not genuine efforts at improving their language skills: I have never, ever, in all my time here, had a woman just walk up to me on the street and attempt to start a conversation with me in English.)  Some of them just expect me to fall into their arms because they know five words of my language, thus making them (in their minds) an excellent candidate for me to llevar (carry) back to the United States with me as my Salvadoran husband.  Honestly, the green card’s just a fringe benefit mamacita, you know I love you.

Right.

In any case, learning English is quite the “fad” in El Salvador just now, since a full one-fourth of the Salvadoran population lives in the United States.  Everyone has relatives there, and they all listen to American music and watch American movies.  Almost everyone I know here, at one point or another, has expressed interest in learning English from me.  But they don’t actually want to learn English.  What they want is for me to strap English books to their body and somehow make them learn by osmosis – have the knowledge just sink into them without any actual effort on their part.  Once they realize that it’s actually hard work to learn a language, they lose interest pretty quickly.

So, I wasn’t terribly surprised at this boy’s attempt at conversation.  A little annoyed, but not surprised.  Annoyance grew to irritation which grew to infuriation when this kid refused to take a hint and walk away.  I said hello to him, to be polite, and returned my face to the computer screen.  He asked what I was doing in the internet café, and I told him I was working.  He then asked if I was paseando (hanging out).  Seriously? 

No, I told him, I’m working.  For my job. 

Then he wanted to know what I do. 

I told him (tersely) that I’m a voluntaria with the Peace Corps. 

Then he wanted to know what the requisites were to do that. 

A lot, I said.

Then he wanted to know where he could turn in an application to work for my organization.

I told him you have to be an American citizen to be a volunteer.

Then he wanted to know if all the people in my organization were Americans.

I told him that the only Salvadorans were staff who worked in the offices in San Vicente and San Salvador.

Meanwhile, I’m still desperately trying to concentrate on the task at hand – navigating Sharepoint’s webpage, trying to find the staff contact list, so I can start writing the emails to different staff members that I needed to talk to.  But he wasn’t done yet.  After my job interrogation, he started offering trivial personal information about himself.  You know.  Just in case I was curious.  Apparently, I wasn’t demonstrating my apathy as well as I’d hoped.

After that, he went away for a few minutes, to my intense relief.  He came back, though, to ask for my email address.  Fine.  I can ignore emails, but I can’t ignore a heavyset Salvadoran shadow breathing over my shoulder while I’m trying to work.  So I gave him my email and hoped he’d go away.  But of course not.  He continued to stare over my shoulder at the computer screen, and told me that he wanted to be my friend.  Then he asked if I wanted to get coffee this Saturday. 

No, I told him, I have a compromiso (which was true, I am busy this Saturday). 

To avoid the inevitable follow-up question of “what about next Saturday?”, I told him honestly (and this is none the less true just because I was thanking my stars that it was) that this is a busy time of year for me, and that I had things I had to do for pretty much all of the weekends in February and March.  And yet he still arguing with me, saying that if I could just make a little time for a bit of cafecito and a chat…

Once I convinced him that no, I couldn’t actually spare the time for a little cup of coffee and a chat any time in the next two months or so, he asked for my phone number so we could chat on the phone.  Fine.  I can ignore phone calls as well.  God knows I’ve done that often enough, with distasteful men who through trickery, charm, or guile somehow managed to obtain my digits.  I gave him my number and finally, finally, he went away.  Not before giving me his number.  God forbid I should be struck be a sudden, desperate urge to talk to him, and have no way to make contact.

It’s now seven o’clock at night, and he has officially called me eight times since I met him this afternoon.  In case you’re wondering, that’s about once an hour.  He even sent me a text message in there somewhere, saying, “Hi, this is Walter, your new friend you talked to in the internet café.”  Just in case I should be confused, thinking it’s some other creepy Salvadoran guy whom I’ve recently given my number to that won’t stop calling me.

God, I hope this doesn’t end in me having to change my number again.  I’ve lost my cell phone three times here, and it’s hard enough for my family and friends to keep track of my contact information as it is, without throwing in number changes caused by teenage stalkers.