Jacob Kreimer | The Salvador
October 7Walking around the streets of Santa Marta, my rural host village in El Salvador, it was hard to miss the big groups of kids playing around the street. Packs of five-to-13-year-olds walk around, mess with each other's clothes, play with empty bottles and not-quite-inflated soccer balls, laugh and shout like they're having the time of their lives. It is not until you have spent more time getting to know their names, where they live and who their parents are that it eventually occurs to you: Those two are sisters and cousins with that one, whose aunt is the godmother of the one with long hair whose one brother is the compañero (similar to a husband but without the marriage ceremony) of the curly-haired one's half-sister because they both eat lunch at the same grandmother's house down the street, who lives with his aunt because his mother doesn't live here anymore. Slowly, more facts come out about who is related to whom until you figure out an enormous web of family relations. Your cousin isn't just your relative … he's also your best friend. After all, you have been hanging out with each other every day since, well, forever.
