And today… was as delicious and beautiful as this cupcake I’m eating. Ah…. Well? I’m one of them. I don’t know when it happened, but they let me into their world. Of course, it was easy to enter the world of the children (as opposed to the more cautious and reserved women), but I think at first I was just another Americana. We went to the gym with the kids this morning, and later to the beach with the small American group. By the time we went to the beach with the other Americans, I wasn’t “with” the Americans—I was with them. Even the women warmed up so much. I’m not sure they quite sure they understood or trusted me at first, but when we were at the beach, they treated me like one of them. In the back of the truck, sitting and talking, at the beach looking for shells and talking with the Americans, buying bracelets, everything. With the kids and the women, I have a connection now. Wow. It’s a great feeling… amazing. They trust me and enjoy me.
Tonight at dinner, they wanted me to pray in English. I helped serve, and offered to help with the dishes, but of course they wouldn’t have it. Class went well also. I can talk to the kids better, and the women talk to me more too. First friend among the women? Christian, a sweet young mother with three equally sweet children, with her talking and smiling and not-too-shabby attempts at conversing in English. Then there’s the quieter, older Elena, always offering me more food (with a silent, hospitable grin I could never reject), shampoo, whatever. But I get smiles from all the women now.
Some of the older girls
Tonight I walked out to “the tree” with Isba and the kids, her students. I goofed off with the kids and talked with Isba. She began to tell me more about herself (in both of our mixes of English and Spanish). When she was around my age, she said, she was a “gang banger” and a rebel. She’s about 20 or 21 now. She was married, but her husband died when she was 4 months pregnant with her daughter, now about 4 years old. Her mother gained custody of her daughter, though Isba hopes one day to have full custody. Sad about her husband’s death (they must have been quite young, too!) but she said in a way, it’s for the good, because if he had not died she would not have come here and met the Lord. Isba has a boyfriend now—a good guy, she says, but not a Christian. From what I could gather, he has a lot of pain and anger in his heart about God, because his mom has cancer. “It’s difficult,” she says. Isba wants to be a teacher of young children, and hopes to continue teaching at Casa Esperanza even when she no longer lives here and is able to finish her schooling.
It was dark when we got back, and I watched part of Spiderman 3 in Spanish with some of the women and kids before deciding to go to bed. I walked back to the trailer through the kitchen and said buenas noches. Later, I went back to retrieve my own personal toilet paper roll (it’s sorta rationed, so the kids won’t waste) from the kitchen bathroom where I showered. Christian and some of the other women were in the kitchen making cupcakes for tomorrow. Oh man, I have been smelling those cupcakes cooking for two days (and if there’s one thing I miss in a foreign country, it’s American desserts, even the Betty Crocker boxed cakes) and they’re fresh out of the oven! Maybe I’ll take one tomorrow if there’s enough. “ah, muchos postres, que deliciosa!” I commented.
“Yes,” answered Christian, “for the American group tomorrow.”
“Buenas noches,” I said, “hasta mañana!” I begin to walk around the corner, but I hear her call “Hermana!” (sister).
“Yes?”
“Would you like a postre?”
“Me? Sure—it’s ok?”
“Sí, sí, take one, go ahead, Hermana.” I chose one with a funny misshapen top and asked one of the teenage girls, Michel, “Que pasó?” (“What happened?”) She smiled back shyly.
“Muchas gracias,” I told Christian, “buenas noches!”
“Buenas noches, Hermana.”
No frosting… but oh, it was the most heavenly cupcake I’ve ever tasted.
No comments:
Post a Comment