My cup runneth over
There is not a day when I come back to our place of lodging with my shoulder bag lighter than when I started out.
Our project for healthy families takes me on a long pilgrimage up and away from the center of the town to a neighborhood called Barrio Alto. Along the way up the hill I pass by the house of Hilda, a Jehovah's Witness, who always yells, "God bless you, friend!"
Hilda often trots herself over with a gift of toronja, Peruvian grapefruit. I love toronja.
Then a little farther up on the right past the bridge is Tomasa's bakery, with her house attached to the side where she lives with her elderly sister. Tomoasa makes wonderful dense cake, sometimes banana and sometimes orange. I stop and buy slabs of it for our supper, 50 cents a person, and Tomasa throws in a bunch of my favorite type of bananas, manzanitas, for free.
These people have nothing, barely enough rice to feed their children, and yet they won't let you leave their homes without a gift of some kind of fruit from their backyard.
Carly and I have a wooden crate in the corner of our tiny kitchen room, and it has been heaped with fruit all week. We can't keep up. We have a mountain of toronja and naranjas (oranges), for making juice, we have three gigantic papayas (which we don't really care for, but eat anyway), we have sweet bananas, green plátano, and six golden coconuts that one of Carly's families donated, then hand carried to our hospedaje for a special delivery.
We are overwhelmed by their generosity, and trying to think of ways we can give back. Tomasa said we could use her oven as long as we shared our recipes (we want hers, too), and I think we're going to bake brownies to give to our families. But somehow, brownies just don't seem to hold a candle to a fresh jungle coconut, heavy with sweet milk.
I just feel so blessed to be here, blessed to walk these dusty streets in my flip slops and wave at the little old people who sit on their porches all day long, watching people like me walk by. I love the village life.
Our project for healthy families takes me on a long pilgrimage up and away from the center of the town to a neighborhood called Barrio Alto. Along the way up the hill I pass by the house of Hilda, a Jehovah's Witness, who always yells, "God bless you, friend!"
Hilda often trots herself over with a gift of toronja, Peruvian grapefruit. I love toronja.
Then a little farther up on the right past the bridge is Tomasa's bakery, with her house attached to the side where she lives with her elderly sister. Tomoasa makes wonderful dense cake, sometimes banana and sometimes orange. I stop and buy slabs of it for our supper, 50 cents a person, and Tomasa throws in a bunch of my favorite type of bananas, manzanitas, for free.
These people have nothing, barely enough rice to feed their children, and yet they won't let you leave their homes without a gift of some kind of fruit from their backyard.
Carly and I have a wooden crate in the corner of our tiny kitchen room, and it has been heaped with fruit all week. We can't keep up. We have a mountain of toronja and naranjas (oranges), for making juice, we have three gigantic papayas (which we don't really care for, but eat anyway), we have sweet bananas, green plátano, and six golden coconuts that one of Carly's families donated, then hand carried to our hospedaje for a special delivery.
We are overwhelmed by their generosity, and trying to think of ways we can give back. Tomasa said we could use her oven as long as we shared our recipes (we want hers, too), and I think we're going to bake brownies to give to our families. But somehow, brownies just don't seem to hold a candle to a fresh jungle coconut, heavy with sweet milk.
I just feel so blessed to be here, blessed to walk these dusty streets in my flip slops and wave at the little old people who sit on their porches all day long, watching people like me walk by. I love the village life.
posted by Ansley at 12:34 PM
1 Comments:
Ansley, I just finished reading your posts from Masisea. It's been a long wait, but worth it. 120 kids a night. Whew!
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