Irrefutable Evidence for the Existence of God
March 22, 2011
Dear Friends,
Peanut butter cookies. That’s it. Theologians have struggled for centuries, but I have found the answer. We never, ever could have come up with that combination on our own. It’s true, my hands molded the damp dough, but what Hand was behind mine, making it all so, I ask you? Life is grand, good, full, miserable, crazy and sometimes quiet. There was a lot of roaring around the highlands this month, with beloved friends, Canadians passing through. The car died, and was revived, and coughs on. Projects and work unfolding in every corner, and yet the same awful face, the starving children, here, and there.
A wind of suffering passed through at the beginning of the month, people unsettled, sick, dying. Those were terrible days. Baby Nataly died two weeks ago, now, and the family continue in acute mourning. But full of love. Another young man was killed in Huehuetenango, family member of my friends. James Rodriguez, former resident of Guatemala notes: In Guatemala there are 52 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants each year, compared with 14 in Mexico and 5.4 in the US. According to UN data, more than 95% are never solved. Last week my heart failed in its cavity for a couple of days, and I spent an entire afternoon looking at pictures of Canadian daffodils.
But I know by now, that if I wait long enough, the pain will turn over, and new things will grow. And grow they are. The courtyard is overflowing with green and purple, and the boundless joy of calla lilies, shooting up. Our roof is going wild. The zucchinis have taken over, as zucchinis are wont to do, in the space of a week, yellow flowers burst out of the green, and then the fruits started, little and pale, and now they are everywhere. One box was overwhelmed, the weight of the dirt, the water, the plants, and it caved in at one end. Sunflowers, blue hubbard squash, garlic, green peas, crashed down and, well, they didn’t all die, just they’re a bit sideways. We are waiting for some magic money to appear, so that we can build the chicken coop. Maco says we should put in 12 chickens, I said three, so I think we’re getting six!
Last week water stopped flowing altogether in the house, but luckily Nico was visiting, and he and Maco squashed into the underground water tank (just like an army hidden jail! — says Maco – and I shudder, not funny), and don Lencho, who came by no doubt to talk about affairs of language and culture, was roped into the bucket brigade, and we drained the tank, and then the roof tanks of all the pea soup water. The toilets flushed thick green for the day, I refused to brush my teeth, but it all had a happy ending, and the blessing of water was restored to us, and I remembered how hard it is for so many here, dona Juana, I’ve been to her house in Santa Maria Jocopilas. Her husband went to el Norte, and never came back, and she lives in her hut, with her children. No water at all, just the river down the way.
Dona Juana and her daughter are at my door at 7:30 the next morning. Early. The workshop was scheduled for 9. But they have walked more than an hour to the road, to catch the only bus that comes this way, once a day. So I make french toast, and we all sit at the table, and they eat with quiet wonder, strange food. And the rest of the women come and the day begins. Nico, up from Quixaya, a volunteer from Montreal, is here to help us with worms . . .
So all day we do worms, and compost, and muck about, and share stories, and make piles of black wormie ooze, and then feed the garden. It has nothing to do with worms, well, it does, but it has more to do with us being together for half a day, and knitting beneath one another layers of love. Everyone is struggling somehow, I know. Herlinda comes, she has a month off, from her crazy nursing job at the hospital. She brings Selvin, one half of the set of twins — Iris is on retreat. Selvin can’t walk, or talk, or sit, or eat by himself, but we all circle around on petates on the ground. Stories, and strategies emerge. Later on we go into the kitchen table, and there we make Japanese paper cranes, and we pray for our beloveds on those islands so very far away, and unknown to us, that they may be strengthened in this their time of trial.
We share red beans and soup, and tortillas, and the women leave, carrying bags of worms, and shoots and cuttings from calla lilies, strawberries, basil, and more, and we plan to meet again next month, and do more.
So I think nap time, but before my sandals are off, the door bell rings, and people from the church in Chichi are here. We have a sign now, on our lovely blue wall outside, and I feel very official. The Chapel of the Holy Innocents. A place to remember and to heal. How lovely is your dwelling place, o Lord of Hosts, my King and my God. More talk at the table.
They leave, ah, I think, off with my sandals . . . ding, dong . . . my compadres, and my little godson, Pedrito. He doesn’t know why his parents are so sad, and he dashes up and down, and we eat the rest of my orange sugar cookies and drink coffee. My compadre says that it is an alivio, a relief for a little while, to see me, and without saying anything, what’s to be said, I hold his hand. We have ordered the cross for Nataly’s gravesite. We’ll put that in place next week. Now it is sprinkled with pine needles and white rose petals, and her oldest brother, who works in town, brings her fresh flowers when he can.
And the day is over, mostly, except for a brief incident of someone dealing with family violence, rushing through to tell me, and then off again, and then Nico and I settle down and watch movies and eat a mountain of popcorn. Tap dancing penguins save the world from overfishing. Well, that’s something I hadn’t seen before! Halelujah (even though it’s Lent)!
You can put all the ingredients together, and sometimes it makes a glory-pie . . . beauty, love, kindness, food, teaching, friendship. Saturday was a day, when Peace House glowed. And all were refreshed. Sometimes Selvin gets tired of sitting in his baby stroller, though he likes being in the courtyard under the leafing peach tree. Herlinda puts him on a blanket on the ground. I was washing the dishes from lunch. The ladies were somewhere doing something, and Nico sat with Selvin, and he started to sing: Bob Marley’s Redemption Song. The winds of joy blew threw the courtyard and how Selvin shouted and clapped!
Lucho has fallen in love with Bosco, my stuffed dog. I have a sliver in the pad of my right ring finger, making it hard to type. The trunks of cypress trees all along the entrance way to town have been doused with hallowe’en orange – the colour of the patriotic iron-fist party, they’ll probably win the elections time around, and have promised to beat Guatemala into shape. Their leader was a colonel in the Quiche during the genocide. sigh. Life thus continues.
love,
em
