Valle Nuevo, Part II

I watched Felipa make tortillas. Her husband Salome had already grown and harvested the corn and this morning Felipa had boiled it and ground it into a paste. Now she took the long smooth stone and used it to pushed some of the paste thin against the rectangular stone with the curved depression. She did this several times until she had some of the paste separated. Then she took some in her hand and smacked it into the palm of her other hand and patted it in a circular motion. Then she spun it with one hand and smoothed its edges with the other until it was perfectly round and just the right thickness. She patted it twice more and flipped it onto a round iron sheet sitting over a wood fire. It was beautiful. The fluid motions were entirely natural and unselfconscious, as if she were playing a musical instrument.

She gave me a little bit of the paste and I tried to imitate her motions. I felt like a child. When did you learn to make tortillas? I asked her in Spanish. When I was little, she answered, holding her hand to the height of her waiste. Your mother taught you? Si, mi mama. She died in the war. Was it the soldiers? Si, the soldiers. She flipped my first tortilla onto the iron plate and gave me another small portion of the paste. My father too, she said. Before or after you went to Honduras? I asked. During, she said. In the Lempa River.

The Lempa River forms the border between El Salvador and Honduras in the area. In March of 1981, the soldiers came to the villages and 5,000 people fled to Honduras on foot. They were met at the river with gunfire from U.S. helicopters. 50 people died.

I didn't know what to say to Felipa, so I said nothing. Look, how beautiful, she said of my second tortilla, lightly browned. You are getting better, she said, though I saw no difference between the two. Then she smiled into the creases of her beautiful brown skin.