| Honduras
Newsletter Three June 15, 2004 Dear Friends that I Love, A month passes quickly, and I'm writing to you again. Thanks, all of you, for your emails. I've received some unexpected notes in my inbox the last few days, and it's so great to hear from people. This is one of those times when I cringe to send this same email off to 100 people, especially that handful of you that I love and miss so much. I could not figure out what to share with you tonight. So much happens down here...so I decided to share an afternoon with Doña Eloise. Please remember her in your prayers. Her son called us the other day in the office to share that she is not recovering well from her surgery. Love and prayers, Lindsay The turn off for San Nicolás comes quickly. As soon as the car passes the fish breeding pond, you have to start watching for the gravel turn off. I miss it every time, but Livio never does. We turn off the highway and pull the car over. We jump out, leave the motor running, and I run around to watch Livio. "You have to flip these up," he says, twisting the four-wheel drive tabs on the tires. I squat next to Livio in the road and he points to the knobs. "It makes the truck more stable." I nod and ask questions clarifying this four wheel drive business. He's anxious for me to begin driving the pickup. "Okay," I told him earlier. "I'm ready. Teach me how to drive here, I'm from Chicago, not back country, cowboy land Honduras." He had smiled and nodded eagerly. Now he shows me everything: how to take sharp turns around the sheer sides of mountains, how to pass three buses at once, and how to flip the four-wheel drive tab on the tires. He's beginning to trust me, we're becoming friends. We climb back into the truck and rumble down the road towards San Nicolas. "Yes," I tell him, "the car is more definitely more stable." He nods, pleased. The land is flat here, it's a sort of valley bowl surrounded by pine covered mountains. We drive through towns, swerving around potholes and honking at the cows in the road. We slow down to chat with two boys herding cows in front of us, poking them with sticks to keep them moving. "How many cows 'you have?" I ask them. They kind of smile and shrug. We drive on passing kids on bicycles, women leaning against the fence talking with neighbors, and horses in the fields. We cross the river and there are more houses with adobe porches with gates to keep the pigs and chickens out. We pass corner stores that sell salty, white bricks of cheese and corn tortillas and big bottles of pop. We finally arrive and I'm left on Doña Eloise's porch to pass the afternoon. I step over the porch gate, kiss Doña Eloise's cheek, toss my bag on the floor and drop into one of the chairs. "Not on the floor, not on the floor," she immediately grabs my backpack. "Put it on the table." I smile and she passes me the copper dish of fruit she's holding in her lap. Even the air that moves in San Nicolás is peaceful. "Sit," it whispers. "Sit and visit." Three kids wander onto the porch, three of Doña Eloise's 24 grandkids. "These your kids?," I offer to Maribell. She smiles and rocks in her chair. "Sister's." The baby is learning to walk. He is amazingly fat and Doña Eloise pulls him on her lap. "My grandson," she says proudly. He screams when she tries puts him on the floor. One of Doña Eloise's sons wanders across the porch. He's home visiting from Tegucigalpa today. "Que calor," he shakes his head and wipes sweat off his face. I nod in agreement, it's hot. We talk about family. We talk about Chicago and the old house down the road and the baby. "I'm sick," Doña Eloise offers at one point. "Very sick." I look at her daughter in the rocker and she nods affirmatively. "It's here in my side," she says rubbing her stomach. "They have to cut it out." "What happened?" I ask her. "They say it's my uterus." I nod, "When?" "Tomorrow." There's a bang at the end of the porch. One of the pigs has managed to open the gate. As soon as he's in, he makes a frantic, tap-dancing beeline for the large net filled with unhusked corn in the corner. I sit in my chair, startled and Doña Eloise rasps unidentifiable, evil words towards the pig. The pig wiggles with joy in the corn. Doña Eloise springs up (shockingly fast), grabs a stick from the corner, edges over to the pig and gives him a good thwack. He squeals and flees. She settles back in her chair. "Are you scared?" I ask her a few minutes later. "Yes." "We don't understand what they're doing," her daughter says from the corner. We talk about the foreign doctors in Catacamas and the hospital. The breeze picks up. "Are you hungry, Doña Eloise asks me? Did you eat lunch?" "Yes," I lie. "No tenga pena, no tenga pena, don't worry," she insists. She knows I didn't eat lunch. I laugh and shake my head. I don't want to be any trouble. She send one of her granddaughters out to buy a liter of soda. Later I take off with her grown son, Muncho, to wander around the community. I'm riding a ten year old's bike, Muncho, a five year old's bike. I have no idea where we're going. We pass his aunt's house and the school. Muncho knows everyone, we peddle through the soccer field and around the cow pies, we run into friends. It's dusk and a storm is blowing by in the south. The sky is heavy. It wants to rain. "We need rain," Muncho says. We peddle across the a field and through the fireflies. Muncho flies across the skinny log bridge on his minibike while I, chicken-girl, tentatively scoot across. Music filters out of someone's house and a horse whinnies. I ate dinner back on Doña Eloise's porch: beans and plantains and tortillas and some seriously salty cubes of meat. I'm grateful for the day. I'm grateful to learn. I'm grateful that I need community and that I need someone to feed me beans and plantains in the evening. I am learning to depend on those I serve. I am learning sometimes to share my weakness so that I may receive. And at the close of the day, others can share their words and know they are wise. They can share their fears and know they are loved, their delicious food and know they are appreciated, their histories and know they are important, their humanness and know they are children of God. Lindsay Iglesia Cristiana Luterana de Honduras |