Back blog - 11/14

I never got a chance to post this... and now, it looks like Kendi's mother can't get the visa stuff worked out... I watch him become more sullen each day... and wonder at the way expectation and disapointments effect our lives... and the lives we never even have a chance to have. Oh... and Lucy is all better.




WHAT PHOTOS CAN NEVER CAPTURE

After a quick trip down to the clinic in Rio Veijo this morning, confirmed that our miserable little Lucy does indeed again have an ear infection and is headed for pneumonia, Jude and I left her in the care of her capable and far more patient father and headed off for an adventure. Usually, I would have put off any scheduled activity to hold and nebulize my ailing daughter, but alas – immigration waits for no one and lost memories can never be regained.

Shortly after arriving here, one of our dearest little friends tried his best - through language barrier upon language barrier - to explain that – he lives with his aunt – his mother lives in Spain – he hasn't seen her in 3 years – she is coming to get him sometime and take him to Barcelona. I have gotten more bits and pieces of the story from his two aunts who have become close friends, but no one seems to be quiet sure --- if it is going to happen, when, the legalities involved, how permanent it is, and what will happen to the rest of the 12 people who she supports here in Urraco, if and when her children move to Europe. Perhaps they will have to sell their land, perhaps move to SP and get a factory job, maybe wait for their ticket to Europe... maybe... “we'll see when Doris gets here... we'll see what she says... we'll see” – and that happens Tuesday.

But the one thing I know is that if our 12 year old little river swimming, soccer playing, tree climbing, squash planting, lying, laughing Kendi gets on a plane for another world. There is no return ticket. End of life one. Game over.
And until I came into the circle of this family and the tensions involving imminent “upward” immigration I had never given a second thought to the lost memories of the immigrants searching for a “better life.” They don't usually come with an iphoto cache. No way to explain the exotic fruits of which they are accustomed, or a tutorial from which to demonstrate how they spent vast amounts of time beating out their corn or carefully drying their beans. If they can even find someone who is willing to listen.
And so, to know that our vivacious unstoppable Kendi will be “surviving” in the jungles of Barcelona, saddens me in a way I never would have expected. Because he and his family do not survive here – they thrive. His aunt cooks delicious meals every day, having not gone to the grocery store in 3 years. He is as accustomed to catching fish by hand and walking jungle paths in the dark as an New Yorker is accustomed to hailing a cab. How long will he be stuck in survival mode? How much will it transform his character? Only God knows. I know I have been in survival mode for one year – and it has changed me – in ways I will never be able to explain.
But I know, that if I take a few photos, let him take a few photos, maybe in 10 years when he has been fully “in-technicated” - he'll be able to open his lap top and show his fiance, “My home – this is me where I thrived.”
At least he'll have soccer in Barcelona – and now he'll have a photo cache... even if it cannot capture 'home.'






I am particularly fond of this photo Kendi shot of me trying out Tita's new outhouse... They'll put up the walls just as soon as they get the money for wood.



Exodus 23:9
Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.

Ya me voy ahorita!

My passion for this phrase began after waiting 3 hours for a haircut that was then interrupted by a perm. I played it over and over in my head. How could I have so badly miss translated a phrase that I was sure meant “Yes, I am already coming to you right now, this minute!” ? Three hours and a perm – maybe that woman had said I need a perm “ahorita” with a different silence on the H or roll of her R! I must solve this mystery – but no.
Instead I wait until 10 for milk that was coming “ahorita” at 8. I wait for my friend to babysit so I can teach classes. She said she was coming “ahorita” - but that meant after she washed her laundry (and I think we have clarified that takes more than pushing a button). Kids say “ya, me voy” - “I am already on my way” - when they haven't bathed or eaten... in fact no one has hauled in the wood, to start the fire, to cook the meal. If they have to say, “I am coming right now” - it means they are not because they are in the middle of something.... and every something here takes awhile. It is like they don't understand that things take time. Actually it is like they don't understand that there is time. Like, “right now” - is different than “later.” I am the only type A person for 2 hours in any direction so I am the only one ever or frustrated it seems. Apparently, parties are starting “ahorita” when someone still has to drive a half an hour to get a speaker system and load it on your motorcycle, and parades start when you drive a half an hour in the other direction to get the marching band – that by the way - has to hitch a ride, and we only get about 12 cars a day up here. Church is always starting “ahorita” - much later. That is ok with everyone.
Today, when I went to buy eggs from my neighbor, she said she didn't have any right now, but they were coming “ahorita.” So we chatted for a bit and then things fell silent. I began to wonder if we were waiting for her husband to bring them from the chickens in the other field, or her daughter to gather them after breakfast, or maybe her mother was bringing them from her house, as I knew she sometimes does. I was wondering what his ahorita was going to look like. I was actually planning on doing something with those eggs today... for breakfast rather than dinner. So I finally broke down and ask. “When exactly will the eggs come?” “Ahorita” --- a few more minutes... and then I asked how they would get there. She looked at me like I was an idiot, and then explained that we were waiting for the chickens, there in her front yard to lay them – that is where eggs come from gringa. Of course, I was the idiot here – it wasn't like we had anything better to do then sit around and wait for the chickens to lay there eggs!
Time is not worth money here. There are no jobs, no other options, if you don't get done today what you were planning on doing – tomorrow's schedule looks exactly the same – and you cannot hurry the chickens.
So, I still don't understand what the phrase means, but I have decided I am going leave, “ya me voy ahorita.” It is two weeks away but I think it is appropriate. Normal time is over. The packing has begun, the forward thinking is in full swing, email and plans for the future and recap of the last year is taking more and more time each day.
So, to the people of Urraco - “ya me voy Ahorita.”
The rains have begun, making swimming dates and church schedules unreliable at best, and at worst, each time could very well be our last. “Ya me voy ahorita.”
I am cleaning out the fridge, and eating mountains of leftovers and pastelies. No more time for baking cookies for the kids and cooking classes with friends. “Ya me voy ahorita.”
No more time for watching movies and shelling cacoa with visitors. “Ya me voy ahorita.”
No more time to learn Spanish and devote every waking moment to the impossible task of understanding Honduras. “Ya me voy ahorita.”
It is apprapo... though I know not what it means. But I need to quit writing and make dinner “ahorita”.... because Jarod said he'd be home “ahorita”.... but just a forewarning to those to whom we come – “right now” means nothing to us anymore.


a group of the kids after a special music class in the library


a group of the kids durign a special photography class given by GUARUMA at the library


Jude "carrying" a sack of coffee

It's been a busy week :)


Oh yeah... and we aren't that organized anymore either. Therefore I cannot upload our Thanksgiving pictures which include everything from the butchering of the chicken, digging of the sweet potatoes, wheelchair races, and coconut chopping.

Final proof that I am my mother

It is the baggage limits - I tell you. We don't want to do it, but the airlines made us. How on earth are we to bring each of you a souvenir in bags that weigh under 75 lbs? Who gets bags of fresh roasted coffee? Who gets homemade chocolate? Who gets the dozen slingshots the boys are busy making? Who gets the bags my neighbor sewed when she was desperate for money? Those of you who have written us? Those who have prayed for us? Those who have donated to the village and library? I am telling you, there is no 75 lb solution – and no way to give you all that we want. SO.... we are going to have a party.

I know it is the most miserable time of year to do so, and I know those of you from a distance won't be able to come. I know that we won't have time to sit down and chat about your lives – about the details we really want to hear. But maybe if we do this one big thing, we can share just a little bit of the year we have had with you – and we can show you how much you have meant to us – and maybe you can go home with some REALLY cool stuff. So you are invited:

Monday, December 14th
High Plains Church Basement

7:00 p.m. Showing of our video presentation - Q&A
7:30 p.m. Giving of a massive amount of door prizes
7:45 p.m. Sampling of Honduran yummies and chatting

If you cannot come but would like to be included please email us your name and address (and at least a few sentences about your year... it's not too much to ask) – we'll include you in the door prizes and will mail you our year end DVD.

Children welcome and PLEASE invite whoever you think would be interested and RSVP to 785-625-6220 by Dec 11 if you know you'll be making it. And NO MOM we aren't sending out invitations, decorating, or taking out a newspaper add (but you can call your whole address book if you want).

Finally - Our life here is crazy beautiful as ever. I don't want to write about leaving in two weeks because I don't want to think about leaving in two weeks. But it is probably good thing we are, because a few months here and we would be fully Honduran. I am making my own tortillas and when Lucy was sick last week I resorted to the folk remedy of chicken fat mixed with menthal and kerosine. It worked she's all better - plus 5 new teeth - don't nock it til you try it... never mind that she was totally flamable for a few nights. So no good Honduran blog.... you'll get your fill of Honduran info hopeful the night of the 14th.

The seeds

I have had a crop of sweet corn produce ears no larger than my little finger. Sweet Potatoes no bigger than my thumb. I have watched packets of carrot seeds be carried away by ants and 8 successive plantings of tomatoes wilt before my eyes. 4 packs of peas have produced 8 pea pods and a dozen children have been disappointed by their first taste of a hard bitter radish that they planted.

Five months – no eggplants, no sizable onions, miniature squash, and rotten melons. Packs of seeds generously donated from foreign friends, and planted by me with the best of intentions. All the while I have watched wild yams grow the size of trees, oranges, avocados, and mangos fall off trees faster than we can give them away, pineapple tops sprout on kitchen counters, green beans grow taller then Lucy, cucumbers take over my refrigerator, and the dead sticks I place in my garden for space markers sprout to life in two days.

I have learned the word “carne de perro” - which means “meat of a dog” - or “you can't kill it.” “No serve” - it won't work - and “pega bien” - it will stick good – are some of the most common phrases in my vocabulary. I have received age old wisdom about planting according to the phase of the moon, intermixed with such boggas advice as, “That tomato died because too many women on their period walked by,” to the point that some days I can't tell the difference. The variables in rain, heat, quality of soil, age of seeds, pests, fungus, and pestering animals would take a lifetime to master. But my neighbors don't have a lifetime to experiment – if what they plant doesn't grow – they don't eat. So they plant corn, rice, and beans. And the soil depletes and they burn off some more forest, and their diet is unbalanced and they never know the difference. They don't own the land so they won't plant fruit trees to invest in their future. They have never eaten some foods like okra and New Zealand spinach that grow like gang busters so they by 1 limp bags of chips and frozen koolade.

Isaiah 17:10-11 Why? Because you have turned from the God who can save you.
You have forgotten the Rock who can hide you.
So you may plant the finest grapevines and import the most expensive seedlings.
They may sprout on the day you set them out; yes, they may blossom on the very morning you plant them, but you will never pick any grapes from them.
Your only harvest will be a load of grief and unrelieved pain.

And I ran across Isaiah. Verses filled with gardening imagery. Verses ringing true about plants and humans. Nothing can grow without His grace and wisdom. The best of all foreign seeds wilt without His blessing. All the work and labor to produce what we WANT is in vain in the face of his ordering the universe to the contrary. And so we plant in our lives what we think we want. What we see someone else has – that looks so good- that grows so well for them. And then we toil to see it produce nothing – to leave us empty and wanting. The foreign seed has failed us because we looked to it for provision instead of to the one who created the climate of our lives within which we sow. We never ask Him what he would have us plant in the garden of our lives.

Isaiah 28:24-29
When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually?
Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil?
When he has leveled the surface,
does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin?
Does he not plant wheat in its place, [d]
barley in its plot, [e]
and spelt in its field?
His God instructs him
and teaches him the right way.
Caraway is not threshed with a sledge,
nor is a cartwheel rolled over cummin;
caraway is beaten out with a rod,
and cummin with a stick.
Grain must be ground to make bread;
so one does not go on threshing it forever.
Though he drives the wheels of his threshing cart over it,
his horses do not grind it.
All this also comes from the LORD Almighty,
wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom.

And Isaiah again speaks of our lives as seeds. That we may take comfort that the one who created us knows where we will grow and how we must be handled. How often I have thought my soil too dry or my threshing too hard – but He alone knew that I would rot with moisture and remain useless unless cleaned. He made us exactly the way we are, to inhabit a different climate than our neighbor... and we spend so much time as cucumbers wishing we were lettuce. Do I think that the soil that he plants me in next will be worse for me than the soils of Urraco? From the greenhouse to a garden I go.

But do I regret these plantings? These failures? Not one seed. I have gained more wisdom than food, and my little friends and I have learned more lessons in tenacity. I have shared the few things that have worked with neighbors, and they have shared with me. We have laughed at failures and eaten new and different meals together. And I have heard that there is a cherry tomato in the jungle that grows like a weed. I will find it, I will transplant it before I am transplanted in his perfect timing.


Walking through the gardens to our house:


PLaying in the sugar cane and yucca..... please note the little gun Jude has holstered in his pants. *sigh*



Speaking of seeds..... they don't fall far from the tree

Lucy

Jarod