Thursday/June 26, 2003
A new vision! Marion shared his vision for the people who are living about 2 miles from the farm in a squatter's village. The name of the town is Precario - and believe me their life is precarious. Most of the families are living in temporary shelters of tin. Many no larger than 8' x 10'. This is where the other team (Ginny, Bandy, and Kayla) have been doing Vacation Bible School.
Jeb is working with Steve (another volunteer at the farm) to design a more permanent house for Sophia - a beautiful woman who appears to be in her early 20's and her three small children. Sophia's husband has abandoned her and her temporary shelter leaks the most; therefore, she was chosen for this project (by the village matriarch). Jeb is so excited - yet is appalled that he would not ever construct a shed for his lawnmower in the manner that Sophia's house will be constructed. It will be basically a tin house - just larger, with concrete floors instead of mud and hopefully, much drier. Our tools are one ladder, a few hammers, an old level, three sizes of nails and one handsaw. Nothing else. We do borrow a crudely fashioned wood lean-to-ladder - not sure how all could have got by without that! Next door a couple is working on a pole frame for their casa, but has run out of materials. They need tin for the walls and roof. It is frustrating that there is no way for us to help them.
Vacation Bible School is a hit. As soon as the team arrive the children pour out into the road - they crowd into a wooden shed and listen attentively to the Bible story and participate in the songs. They too love "Father Abraham". They enjoy the crafts, but even more, especially the adolescents, playing football with the gringos. They are quiet good at the game - rumor has it they spanked the American team - who were outfitted with real sport shoes while the locals played barefooted, or with ill fitting sandals or tennis shoes. Often a shoe would fly, but never interrupt the game. Their field is a swept off dirt lot and poles served as the goals. Several adolescent girls are copying Bandy, Kayla, and Ginny - the showed up wearing bandanas tied around their hair that afternoon.
Donna helped in the afternoon with a women's Bible study. The ladies seem to drink it in. Yet, there is so much we need to learn from them. First of all, in spite of their poverty, each yard has flowers and almost without exception everything is kept very neat and clean. They smile readily and are very friendly. The mothers are very attentive to their children, hugging and kissing them continually. They treat their children as if they were their prized possession. They seem so patient and unhurried. The children of all ages play together so well. The older ones looking out for and attending to the younger ones - not just the girls, the boys also are very interactive with the younger children. I have not witnessed this much "community" anywhere in America. Certainly our lives are complicated by too much stuff, several of us feel the desire to simplify, simplify, simplify.
Donna and I walk to the farm, dodging the ruts from cars and stepping over the open sewer runs. All that we pass greet us and would love to converse, but Donna only knows a little Spanish and I know none. We visit about the impact of this trip on us and want to come again, but also name names of you in our church who we want to be able to experience this.
We add Betty to our group and continue walking. Today it has not rained, at least not yet! About a mile past the farm we see a neatly groomed soccer field and see a large building just beyond. We think it must be a school so we turn in to look around. The landscape is gorgeous; there are several ponds that run into each other. A gentleman comes out to greet us - we are on his private property! Instead of being angry with us, he welcomes us and invites us to join his family for supper!! When we explain (thanks to Betty's Spanish) that we are expected back at the farm for supper, he invites us for Saturday, explaining that his whole family would be there. Please tell me - how many of us would respond like this to three foreigners trespassing on our property?!
After supper, and yes, even though it is tasty, rice and bean are getting a bit tiring; we travel to Quesada to shop around. Jeb, Eric and Kayla eat at a Pizza Hut and Kayla swore the first bite tasted good all the way down to her stomach! We visit the local open air market; there were so many fruits and vegetables that were alien to us. It was fun to learn about the new and different items. Several of us bought a bottle of Noni juice, the new health elixir that is suppose to help all kinds of ailments, check back with us later on that!
When we visit a local grocery store, we ran into the gentleman from our walk and learned that he owned it. We sampled through a local bakery and most had ice cream at POPS before boarding the bus for home.
Some of our crew entertain themselves well . . . I won't name names, but I am sure if you ask, you can hear plenty of stories. Also, you might find out who has the tendency to tell you how to build a watch when you have simply asked for the time . . .
We were the recipients of two gifts today - screens on our windows! Yea, maybe fewer bugs in our rooms! Second, a thicker foam mattress - it is amazing how much you appreciate something when you've done without!
Everyday we drop off laundry at "the white house". Flory spends all day, from 8 to 5, doing our laundry. (That means laundry for about 50 today) She scrubs by hand, and then has one machine that appears to rinse and spin and one dryer that gets things sorta dry. Most of the things are hung on the clothesline and sometimes get somewhat dry. In the evening everyone gathers around trying to identify their belongings, you get so tired you can hardly remember what you wore the day before.
Flory is our laundress. Her husband recently abandoned her for another woman and she is left to support three teenage sons. Each day she brings one of her sons to help her; they work hard also, but seem uncharacteristically reserved and withdrawn. Flory has a beautiful smile and long curly black hair, between the loads of laundry she spends time pouring over the scriptures. She requests prayers for her sons.
