Letter to my Brother and a Class full of Kids--Revised:

(Correspondence Match)

“Beep Beep” said the bag all decorated for a 15 year old girls birthday party; a cartoon girl with a pink puffy dress; Quinceñera; Fiesta Rosa.  Large pink bow attached to the bag to match.  And inside?  What was inside beeping; giving itself away?  Well, what more could a young pubescent Salvadoran girl want than a plastic clock lamp with a big pink plastic hear, flashing yellow light bulb behind; clear, pink, white plastic flowers, gold plastic trim?

She really didn’t have to be so embarrassed that the bag was beeping.  It was no secret what was inside.  (I’d been to a Fiesta Rosa before.  The girl gets like 15 of those clock lamp flashy things.)  She was bent over near some bushes prying open the staples that the store keeper had ever so neatly stapled into the top of the bag to keep what was inside a mystery.  She was cursing him for not taking the batteries back out after testing it out for them.

I was there when they picked it out.  “Que bonita!,” she said to her daughter, “Bonita, verdad,” turning to her husband.  To my surprise, everyone sincerely agree, admiring the plastic work of art.  I saw the store keeper testing it out from the corner of my eye, the family ooing and awing, while I hunted for a more practical and at the same time original gift.   I didn’t like anything I saw.  So, I settled on a cheap photo album consoling myself with the thought, or question, that, in the law of economics, doesn’t the supply usually try to meet the demand?  I mean, doesn’t the store sell what the people like; what they ask for?  I concluded that it wasn’t my birthday and however unbelievable it was, I accepted that she would like the gift. 

I guess I still couldn’t really accept it, because as we paid I asked Telma “ Isn’t she going to receive about 10 or those watch clock lamp thingies?”  She says “Well, yes, but that’s just what you give for a Fiesta Rosa.”  Fine. Whatever.  What a stupid stupid custom, I stubbornly think to myself.  I would rather receiver a bowl of beans or a block of salty cheese than even one of those gifts.

 Then, I thought of my own culture, all the senseless spending: Precious Moment collectibles, Elvis Presley plates, stuffed animals, chandeliers, Christmas nativity decorations, diamond rings; things that serve no useful purpose but to look pretty, flashy, show off the money, maybe hold some sort of sentiment.  While the plastic clock lamps seemed like McDonald toys to me, they actually are a show of senseless spending the same as any one of the items mentioned above.  Because, here, they don’t come free with a meal you buy. They cost money.  Maybe only $2-4, but when you make $5 a day, that’s a lot.  Enough to say “Look.  I bought everything I need and, hey, I had some left over.”  And they really like the things; think they’re pretty; proudly display them.  Sometimes people give these things to me as gifts or souvenirs for some event: wedding, birthday, funeral, 9 years dead.  People are to take one and end up taking 20, shoving them in bags, under t-shirts, pushing a couple my way.  I think “What am I supposed to do with it?”  It’s supposed to carry some sentimental value, of course.  But I hate it.  I hate looking at it.  I hate knowing that someone actually took some time to make it, that it is made of useful material that could have been used to make something more useful, and energy that could have been spared and used in planting a corn field or cooking a stew. 

I could go on, but I choose not to.  I choose only to send you an example; a “recuerdo” from a Fiesta Rosa I attended back in February.  It’s been sitting in the corner of my room for about nine months now.  Some people have 20 of these displayed, collected, hoarded in drawers of their houses; these or things similar, bigger with lights, buttons and sounds. 

Do with it what you like.  You may have the indifference to already, or someday, throw it away.  You may think that it is funny.   You may actually, being the youngsters that you are, like the thing.  Some of you may argue over who gets to hold it first.   It may sit some where as a reminder of frivolous human consumption and waste.  When you see it, you may remember that everything is made of something, that nothing is “trash” even if it is not useful to us in its present form; even if we, personally, do not find it beautiful.  You may think of this and choose to take it apart, recycle the recyclables and use the other parts in some project.  Perhaps you may, in it, find some sentimental value, want to keep it in a drawer or on a shelf, look at it and think of a young Salvadoran girl and her special birthday party.  Maybe someone will play with it at recess, write a journal topic on it and pass it on to someone else as a lesson or as a joke.  Or maybe…

Oh, who know what you will do?  But, at least now, spending, I’m not sure, $10-12 on shipping, gasoline it takes to get to you, card board box to put it in, the burden is no longer mine.

Enjoy Youngin´s

Shannon Nicole Wilson