Verdad

I'm going to be teaching a poetry class or two to kids when I go to El Salvador in November. I've just started to think about this. Suzanne tells me that no one reads books for fun there. No novels, no magazines, no newspapers. Of course she lives way up in the hills.

In the city people read. They talk politics behind closed doors. When I was talking to one woman there, a friend of S's (in the city of San Vincente) about the U.S., I said George Bush is stupido. She stared at me. You're allowed to say that?

Jim told me stupido is a bigger insult in Spanish. I should be careful. But the woman said no, no and then repeated, Bush es stupido. Bush es muy, muy stupido. And then she burst into laughter.

Verdad?