The Little Town's Plaza

I remember sitting at a Plaza one day. It was in a cute little town where the main attraction of the town was a beautiful old white Christian Church. It was a place where there were many café shops, street food, lots of cute little goodies for sale, and to wrap it up, a sweet harmonious tune was whistling in everybody’s ears. But as I was fed up with shopping or walking around, I decided to do something else, and sat down at a café’s terrace and ordered a coffee. While I was sipping a cup of Salvadoran’s famous coffee, I practiced something that my dad had thought me to do whenever I was at a foreign country: people-watching. It is an important process to settle down, relax, reflect, and observe people in another culture and reflect on their culture (and myself at the same time!).

It was boys and girls playing around with a soccer ball that was barely bouncing, a group of old ladies sitting on a bench, probably chatting about their husbands, and something feminine like their hair, manicure or something like that! There was a group of teenage boys sitting on the edge of a wall working on their “mojo” with girls who were pretending to be naïve. And, finally, there was the group of men. All of them were smoking, sipping their cups of coffee, perhaps talking about their wives, sports and maybe debating political views. All seemed to be enjoying life, appreciating whatever they were doing (or not doing). Everyone seemed to be keeping an eye on everyone else; the same way policemen do during manifestation, as if they were going to report any suspicious movement. But everything was done in a harmonious, peaceful and friendly way.

It felt like people – men and women, boys and girls, and old and young - were all interconnected with each other, as if they all knew each other, as if they were just one big family with different blood. I had never felt or seen the same harmony in other third world countries that I visited I the past. They seemed to have no need of anything, living their lives simply, and filled with joy. Everyone was different, but shared something in common: they were all proud to be Salvadorans.

Sean Johnson