June 11, 2007

O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.

William Shakespeare, Henry VI

Osvaldo

Osvaldo is short and flat footed. He is old, but he still works hard. He walks with a swagger, leaned over a little, with a tendency to veer off to the left.

Although he had been a Catholic all of his life, Osvaldo converted to the Seventh-day Adventist church a few years back, and moved from Lima to the jungle after his family rejected both him and his new religion.

Now he lives near us, and some of his belongings are stored in the caretaker's house. The caretaker is long gone, but his label remains. As does his trash in the yard.

Osvaldo makes his living selling sugar cane juice at the little stand by the road. His entire business consists of four tall glasses, a sugar cane press that is cranked by hand, a dirty styrofoam box for ice, and a little old wooden crate where he keeps his change. I call his stand The Honey Hut, because he sometimes sells honey in recycled soda bottles as well.

One day last week he invited Carly and I into The Honey Hut for a drink. He mixed up a concoction of sugar cane juice and fresh orange juice, then poured for us with a flourish. We had a nice talk with we sipped. The conversation was easier to get down than the drink.

Today Osvaldo told a story about me in church. The discussion in Sabbath school was about Biblical health principles. When we got to the principle of drinking water, Hermano Osvaldo stood up to make his comment.

"Sometimes I have health problems and I talk to Hermana Ani [me], because she is a nurse. One day I had a very bad headache and wanted some medicine," he paused, letting this sink in, "But Hermana Ani told me to drink water. She said, 'Hermano, Drink A LOT of water.' So I did, and then, I felt better."

He grinned, "So we can see that water is good for health."

True story, poor guy. He found me, complaining of headache. "How much water have you had today?" I asked.

None. He hadn't had any. So I wouldn't give him any medicine. I told him to go drink 5 cups of water, and then three more later.

Osvaldo is one of those people I look forward to seeing in heaven. I think he'll have more teeth when I run into him there, but I wouldn't be surprised if he talked with the same endearing gummy Spanish that we know so well.

I can imagine him coming up to me with an outstretched hand, smiling so hard his eyes disappear.

"Hola, hermana," he'll say.

And maybe, just maybe, we can sit down for a glass of sugar cane juice.

A day in the life

Carly and I returned from our bucket baths and began putting away the various supplies--shampoo in one spot, dirty clothes in basket, hang up towels on the towel nails. The evening was very dark and we moved around the room by the light of our headlamps.

Suddenly I shuddered as I felt the grippy feet of a bug hop on my arm. I flicked it off by impulse before I even saw it, then illuminated its little green body with the beam of my headlamp. Or should I say big green body.

"Whoa!" I said to Carly, "Look at this huge grasshopper!"

We peered. It must have been four inches long. Enormous.

"Oh, goodness," I said, "Look."

The grasshopper clung to our wall with his sticky feet. On the same wall in the upper corner was a shiny brown cockroach, antennae twitching. And then near the floor was a fat black spider with red spots and hairy leges.

We took it all in. All these lovely creatures we get to share our house with.

But Carly and I are not bug people.

"Which one should I get first?" I asked. I gripped my Sabbath school quarterly.

"Get the spider," replied Carly, "I hate spiders!"

I went for the spider. The "whack" of the quarterly startled the grasshopper, and it leaped, which startled Carly.

"Get the grasshopper!" she shrieked.

I went for the grasshopper. I missed. It jumped again, deeper into our room. Then we couldn't find it. We looked around our feet, squeamish, lifted up our heels and peaking around the backs of our legs.

"Okay, at least get the cockraoch," Carly said, "At least he's still there."

I nudged the cockroach to scurry down the wood wall, then smushed him on the cement floor.

"Oh, gross," we said.

Practicing hospitality

We ran into Hermana Sarita, a kind church sister who has worked with us as a Bible worker, at the vegetarian restaurant in town. "I want to come visit you at 38!" she told me.

And she did. She even brought her sweet mother, all clad in pink. We had prepared cookies and orange juice, because in Perú, there must always be refreshments when someone visits.

We had fun sitting around the table and talking. Sarita assured Carly and I that she had a single nephew for each of us. We talked about the weather, about the price of gas, and preventing colds in the winter.

It was lovely.

Sheep

We had waited for Dr. Richard all day long. He had said he was going to arrive in the morning, but as we sat down to supper in his absence, we finally decided that he wasn't going to come.

Ten minutes later, the truck drove up. I went out to meet it, and was quite surprised as Dr. Richard and Domingo heaved three sheep out of the back of the truck.

They laid the animals down in the grass, their little hooves still tied together. The sheep bleated. They didn't sound like normal sheep to me, they sounded like sheep in a washing machine, wet, wrung out.

Doctor untied the legs of one and helped him stand up. He released his hands from the fuzzy body and chuckled. Suddenly, the sheep bolted. He just took off on a run.

"DOCTOR!" yelled Domingo, "Grab him, he won't come back!"

Doctor Richard took off after him, stumbling in the dark.

I laughed.

The sheep are our new lawn mowers. The project administration is tired of paying for fuel for the cultivator. So now we have sheep. There are two females and one young, smaller male. One of the females is grossly pregnant. They all say she's going to have twins in a few days. Twins!

The boys seem to think that the sheep can live quite nicely off of the grass that is in our yard. They said the furry munchkins need grass, nothing more. This concerns me. What about grain? A breakfast carrot? I'd be pretty dismal if all I had was grass to eat.

Animal week

This puppy was born when my parents were visiting. They are so big now!

Joey has taken a liking to using my mosquito net as his hammock.

Carly loves the puppies.

One of our new lawn mowers.

This one is roly-poly, like a little bear cub.

Naranjas

Quite suddenly, we are up to our ears in oranges. There are about a dozen trees on the land at the project site that I know about, and we have more oranges than we know what to do with.

We have a little hand-powered juicer, and have been making juice every day, sometimes twice a day. It takes a lot of time because the oranges must be peeled before juicing, otherwise the fruit tastes bitter.

I enjoy climbing up into the trees when we run out of fruit that can be reached from the ground.

Keeping house

Our new and improved toilet.

The house at sunrise.

Banana bread for the neighbors.

Manuel watering his lemon tree hopefuls.

Carly, Manuel, and Mauro after church.

This week at Km 38

Sharing

I come home weary.

The day was long, the city dusty, noisy, busy. As I plod down the trail to our house, I'm making a list--we have bread, sugar, canned milk. There are mandarins, bananas, and biscuits left over from breakfast. I duck under the branches of the lemon trees. We can have tea, and a simple supper, and then go to bed.

As I reach the concrete porch I am greeted by a strong smell. I stop and sniff. There is a pot, boiling away on the stove. No boys in sight. I lift the lid.

A little bit of the Ucayali river is boiling away in my kitchen. The pot is brim full of fish--heads, tails, fins intact. They peer up at me though glassy eyes. I suddenly feel very possessive. My kitchen. My pot. Not my fish. Someone has thrown in chunks of green plátano as well.

This is their favorite food. As I love summer squash and lentil curry and cinnamon buns, these guys love their river fish and green plátano. They eat the entire fish, head and all, crunching up the bones.

Gross, I want to think, gross gross gross.

But I know better. And I'm learning to calm the turning stomach and bite the tongue and even make rice for them, to accompany their favorite dish.

Although I want to make rules about animals in the house (must be furry, warm, breathing, and by the name of Joey the cat), I also want Edwin and Mauro and whoever else to feel like their house is their home. It is. This space is shared. It is a home for any worker or passerby who happens to want to help out with our project.

There's tea and bread. I don't have to partake of their dinner, and they don't have to partake of mine. But we can share the same table.

Besides, no one has to know how much soap I will later use on that pot. That's my secret.

Delay

We're cooking breakfast when the gas runs out. It is a dark, blustery morning, unusually chilly for the jungle.

There are not many times when I miss electricity, but this is one of them. I'm just about to heat the water for oatmeal and put the muffins in the oven, but I can't get the oven to light. I try again. Nothing. It's kind of a complicated process, so Manuel comes to help. Nope. He tries one of the burners. No.

I sigh. Then I say, "Bueno, podemos comer desayuno un poquito mas tarde." That means, "Okay, breakfast, later."

So we detatch the purple gas tank from the plastic stove hose. I carry the tank in my arms and Carly and I hike to the road. We flag a motocar. Ten minutes later we're in Campo Verde.

The gas lady sits all day in her gas storehouse, a tall brick building full of purple tanks. We haul in our empty tank. We pay her. She points to the mound of full ones. We make our swap. The full tanks are very heavy. Carly and I manage by carrying it between us.

The townspeople stare from their dusty porches as we cross the street. "Treinta-ocho," the moto driver calls out. They know where we live. We bargain for the price we always pay.

Back up the road, then sticky-footed again through the mud, our flip flops spraying mud on the backs of our legs. Paint that is purple chips off in our hands. Home again. Hook up the line. Find a match, fire up the stove. In go the muffins, full blast flame under the oatmeal water.

Then I stand there, appreciating the soft heat, the bubbles on the bottom of the pot. Enough gas for about three more weeks.

Tranquilo

Carly and I went out at sundown to pick flowers for the supper table. The house was calm because Edwin, Manuel, and Mauro were gone to play fútbol in Yerbas Buenas. I was content because the floors were freshly swept, and there were brownies in the oven.

The evening was cool, the wet grass tickling our legs as we wandered down the muddy lane towards the church. We admired the orange trees, bent with fruit, and avoided the bushy places where we could hear the lizards scampering away to their little dens.

We gathered handfuls of the stalky purple flowers that grow in the back of the churchyard--somewhat weedy but still beautiful.

I wanted to take that moment and bottle it--to keep for a later, duller time. The sunset, the happy bug noises, our grasps of flowers and the smell of brownies as we tiptoed through the mud to home.