The Milk Giver
She is such a special person I decided to start a page on her. Here are some notes. Some are copied from my journal.
April 18
So I saw her again today. The milk giver. The cow.
Her sister showed me what she had to memorize for school. Some bullshit about the IMF and Globalization and Neoliberism and how countries in Africa are being "marginated."
Her sister is 14.
Why are schools making 14 year old females memorize bullshit about the IMF? (The International Monetary Fund)
I asked her if she was interested in it. No. But she is going to memorize it anyhow so she can get a good grade.
The milk giver called me because she wanted me to help her win a speech contest. When I got to her house I asked her what was more important, to give a speech that she felt good about and one where she said what she really believed, or to win the speech contest.
She said to win the speech contest.
I asked why this was so important to her. She said she always wanted to win one, she said she wanted to prove she could do it, she said she wanted to win a scholarship. Later I said something to her about how she would be even more destroyed if she went to a univesity. She said, "Who said I was going to a university." I reminded her about the scholarship and she admitted it would be a a scholorship to a university.
What are we doing to the females of the world? The teenage females?
I can only say we are destroying them. We are turning them into men. Turning them into ugly adults.
Her speech is about "The national reality of Ecuador and competitivenes." I asked her if she were interested in this topic. She said no. She said her teacher assigned it. He is an adult male who used to be rebellious and has been teaching and wearing suits and ties and gold bracelets too long. He is one of the better teachers I have seen when it comes to teaching, especially teaching English. I respect in many ways. But why did he pick this topic I wonder? I don't want to ask him this question because he will feel defensive. So I won't ask him. Instead I will just write about it here. Maybe he will read this one day, maybe he won't.
I am writing this mainly for the milk giver. I have never met anyone like her before. I didn't know someone like her could exist. I am trying to keep her as beautiful as she once was. By the time I left her house, what I call the prison, (oh I was served hot milk with gold plated spoons tonight - how many prisons serve their visitors and inmates with gold plated spoons?! lol)
Anyhow, by the time I left, she told me she no longer wanted to win the speech contest and she wanted to say what she believed in.
What would happen to this beautiful creature if I had not been in her life at this moment? To remind her of what she knows inside her heart and mind?
She doesn't see her potential. But I do. She has the potential to be more than Mother Theresa. I say more because she is not so brainwashed with religious bullshit.
Such a beautiful person you rarely get to set eyes upon, let alone sit next to for several hours and share your truest beliefs and feelings.
I asked her how much she felt needed by her mother and how much she felt loved. 10 and 4. By me it was 8 and 5. I don't know why it was only five. To me, I would say I love her 9.5 so I have... no wait. I was going to say I have been doing something wrong. But maybe it is more her low self esteem. And maybe she has never really felt loved before so she barely recognizes it when she sees it. I suppose it is a combination of both. But rarely have I loved someone so unconditionally, so completely so purely. Rarely have I seen someone's potential and beauty so quickly and clearly. I saw it the first day we met. I saw it when she was doing the best she cold during the forced volunteer work. I saw it when she was angry with me and pacing back and forth speaking a mile a minute. I saw it in her first email.
It is so obvious to me. It jumps out at me. She is so alive. It is rare to meet someone who is still alive at 17.
We talked about love today. She has so much love to offer someone and many people. She is on the level of Princess Diana. When I looked at her tonight I thought she looks like a princess. She reminds me of Galina actually, someone who claims her grandmother was a Russian princess. Maybe she was, or maybe that was part of the lies.
She sent me an email the other day. She said something like, "Forgive me for being blunt, but are you still the big idiot you were ten years ago."
It took me a long time to realize that it really has been ten years since we were "married" and "divorced."
So what did her email mean? It seems she was trying to say there was some hope in her that she and I could be together again. The is still single. This surpises me. I thought she would find someone else to marry so she could have quick money. I never understood her. That was one of our problems.
Another problem was that she was raised in a place where she had to learn to lie and manipulate to get what she wants. Just like the milk giver.
What if we gave beautiful, sensitive, intelligent females freedom? What if we believed in them? What if they didn't have to lie and manipulate? What if we supported them and encouaged them to trust their own feelings?
What if someone had believed in Sarah when she was 11 and 12. Someone else besides me? What if someone had hugged her instead of hit her? What if someone listend to her instead of lecturing to her about how much Jesus loves her?
Today I invited MG to go with me to meet some other students to talk about starting a school. She sent me a text message. She wrote, "I can't, but thanks anyway." Later she told me the reason she said "I can't" was because her warden would not permit it.
So tonight before I started writing, when I was still laying in bed thinking with all the lights off at around 1 AM, I thought, "Doesn't this really mean 'I am afraid to'"?
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say, "I am afraid to"? For it wasn't as though she was not physically able to walk over to where I was meeting the other students. Or was her mother picking her up from school again and would her mother have tried to physically stop her? Remember this is the same mother, or warden, that hit her a few weeks ago.
Of course I take a risk by writing this again. The last time I wrote something critical of her mother she told me that she had changed her mind and was not going to go with me to help me. I think she wanted me to feel punished, but I am not really sure about that. It would be logical since all her life she has lived in a social system that use punishment.
There is so much I want to say about her, and to her. And so many questions I want to ask her. We could have talked for hours more.
I want to write about how I was feeling resentful just before I met her, then I started to smile and realied I was looking forward to seeing her even if she was using me to win the speech contest. And even if she made me to go her house and even if she made me wait for her. Is this love? Does love melt away resentments in a matter of seconds?
Sarah said once, "You're impossible to be mad at." Did she really love me back then? I think she did.
As much as she could for someone who was so needy.
--
I wonder if the Pope is proud of what the Catholics have done to South America. Or to Italy.
I asked MG and her sister if they were proud to be from Ecuador. They said yes. Of course they did. They have been brainwashed. I asked why. They couldn't give me any good answers. Like why is it impolite to collect papers with your left hand in Indonesia.
This is a pathetic country. This place has so many problems. And yet are they looking at their problems? Of course not. Name one country or one family or one cult that does. Or one person? Do I? Maybe, maybe not. lol.
I hope MG will call me again and ask me to help her somemore. She listened to my ideas today. Or yesterday actually now that it is after midnight.
I tried to get her to think outside the box. I said, "No one said you have to talk about economic competitiveness, did they?" She realized what I was saying. She quickly said she could talk about the quality of life here, which is shitty. lol. I said, "Ok, here is how you can start your speech: Let's face it folks, Ecuador will never be competitive as long as we have a shitty educational system." lol.
She laughed. She always laughs at my jokes. This is one reason I love her. Is this love though, or selfish need fulfillment or something?! Who cares! Not me right now! I just know we laugh together and we fight and we argue and we swear and we can cry together. I have cried but she hasn't so far. Or wait, maybe she did a little one day when she and her codependent insecure, reminds me of myself twenty years ago boyfriend were fighting. lol.
I believe in her. But I am scared. I am scared I won't get to spend enough time with her. I am scared she has already been too brainwashed. I am scared she will let her parents and friends and teachers pressure her into going to a university. Then it will probably be over between us. She won't have time to help me with my school, with an orphanage, with a home for teenage females whose wardens hit them and lock them up and rob them of love. She will be studying for tests. She will get defensive. I feel pessimistic. And sad at the thought of it. How many more people can I see die in front of my eyes like this? How many before I can't handle the pain and I do actually kill myself. She said something like she didn't believe I would really do it. But I would. Maybe I would do it partly to prove to her that I would. I want to keep her feeling. She is so emotional. Who wants her to stay that way except me?
--
Before I forget... about the MG's sister. Well a couple things. I asked her if she would vote for MG to give a speech which would please the judges or one she believed in, her sister said one she believed in. So at 14 she still knows what is important. I think at 14 MG would have also known. Maybe even at 16. But each year in school people lose more and more of the knowledge they were born with. Each year the ugly adults reward them with prizes and scholarships and grades for being like them, the more they do indeed become just as ugly.
Rewards and punishements. Such a simple system. It works so well.
So back to the sister. The sister knows that having to memorize bullshit about the IMF is a waste of her time. But who is encouraging her not to memorize it? Who is telling her to study what she is interested in or what she believes the world or Ecuador or her family or even she herself needs?
MG claims to love her sister. So I say, if you love her sister, help her get out of that school.
MG says she gets whatever she really wants. But does she really want freedom? That remains to be seen. I think she does and I am here, sent by "God", lol, to remind her of it.
I want her help so badly. I want her to go with me to see MJ and the 8 year old who was selling gum at the education department. And I want her to help me talk to the students who don't speak English and tell them about my idea for a school. I want her to help me write the flyers for it. I don't like it that she feels needed 8. I don't want to need her. But who else is there? Who else can really help me get this school started by September or October?
If I need her then I will get resentful when she is not there to help me. I have to accept that the school just won't be ready by September. It is better to do this than destroy my relationship with her and others who say they want to help, but then say they never have time.
These people are so unreliable here. And they don't even feel bad about breaking committments. Like the students today. They never apologized for skipping out on me today. As soon as they walked up I could see something was wrong. They weren't looking at me. They looked guilty. They didn't even show up until about 20 minutes late. I think they only did because one of them saw me and knew that I saw her. They made up some excuse about having to do a lot of homework. I don't buy this though. It as Friday afternoon. This is when so many of them go dancing, drinking, to the park or whatever. I wonder if they lied to their parents and said they were going to meet with me, then lied to me. People lie so much here. I have never seen so much lying. Only in Mexico did I see this much. Another country destroyed by the Catholics.
This country is so screwed up. And the teacher wants them to talk about being competitive. Give me a fucking break. How ridiculous. I could make a long list of the problems here. And if the MG is still talking to me, I will. Like how the husbands hit their wives, parents kit their kids and teens, how the parents go off to other countries, supposedly to help their families, (which reminds me of the teen I met to day with black fingernails - she doesn't even know her father, her mother is in spain.) how you can buy grades in high schools and universities, how the police are corrupt, how much crime there is, the gangs, the prostitutes, the totally stupid rules in schools, the lack of libraries. The absolutely terrible English teaching in public schools. How you have to kiss the flag to graduate. lol. I am not making this up!
You might wonder why, if it is so bad here, why I am staying here! That would be a good question. Maybe later I will try to explain. But one reason is because this is where MJ is and MG. And the one with black fingernails. And the one selling gum at the education department. And MG's sister. And the two people owned by the lawyer.
Oh, more for my list- the teenagers that go out drinking and smoking here. And the pregnant teenagers. And the illegal abortions. Yes, there is a lot to be proud of! Oh, and kicking teenagers out of school who get pregnant. That is really admirable. And stealing their private property when it doesn't fit the school rules, then throwing it away or giving it to "the poor people." And telling people they can't come inside the school or the classroom when they arrive late. Yes, all of this is very admirable. I'd say this country has a lot to offer people who are thinking about moving here. lol And let's see, what else? Maybe the imbalance between those who can afford private schools and those who can't? Or how about the polution? Like the black smoke that comes out of nearly all the two million buses here. You want to talk about the national reality, D, well, I have just given you some ideas! And how about forcing people to pray for 30 minutes a day, and not teaching them about other belief systems and not tolerating any other beliefs? And forcing them to wear uniforms?
I am sure I am forgetting a few things, but those might be a help to you! lol
BIF - the other day when I went to the cell phone shop, the little one near Almazonas, not the Bell South office where I felt like I was back in the USA talking to some robot who kept repeating the company rules to me, I saw some students from Leonidas Proano school. They wanted me to buy them a beer. They told me they didn't have any money left. One gave me twenty five cents. I bought them one. Then a few minutes later one got up and bought another. Then later I saw that they had also bought something like vodka. So they lied to me. Three times now I have had students manipulate me into giving them money for beer and alcohol. In all the countries I have been to I can't remember this ever happening even once. They offer you a drink, then you feel obligated to buy the next one. I had one sip of their first beer, but already their trick had worked on me. Then later they wanted me to buy them something else! Do I say, "You just fucking lied to me!" I just told them I had to go, and left. Three males and one female.
- I think of D again. The word love comes to mind. Then I remember the song in my mind earlier tonight: What the world needs now, is love sweet love...
--
later i started this page on her speech
Notes
Cow - one day when we were chatting she said she read what I wrote about her bringing me milk and me calling her the milk giver. She said, "So now I am a cow?" lol. She said it so quickly. Her mind works so fast. She has a beautiful mind.