A few more excerpts from my last week’s journal entries:
Ciprian has a broad goofy grin, missing some of his back teeth. Hilda says he used to spend all his nights on on the street drinking and hanging around, but now he’s more serious. He is a student of political philosophy as a well as law. His religious views are Christian, but with a unitarian flavor. He believes that Sai Baba in India has raised men from the dead, and places much importance on the scriptures of other faiths. To relax he watches action movies, the higher the body coudn the better. He makes a mean smoothie.
Agustin my translator is also my resident social commentator, grammar teacher and conspiracy theorist. He is a thorough-going pacifist who believes that George Bush planned 9/11 as an excuse to go to war. His great concern is that everyone be “positive.” He even took issue with the psalmist for being overly negative. He has a very soft heart and has become quite concerned with some of the women we’ve talked to. One of the in particular, a lady named Yindiana–impossibly skinny with missing teeth and wild eyes–he came to feel somewhat responsible for. He told me he planned to loan her husband the money he needed to sell fruit. Las week, after I thought he’d forgotten about it, he gave the money to Ciprian, who completed the transaction. I hope it helps them and doesn’t interfere with the project. Aguesin says he will cry when I leave and I believe him.
Walden is the best book I read this summer. I read it twice, underlining quotes and writing bad poetry in the margins. The last sentence still runs through my head. I think I want it carved on my grave: “There is more day to dawn, the sun is but a morning star.”
The best way to eat a mango is to peel it with your teeth. You bite into the top and rip off a long chunk of the peel, then repeart until you have an open place large enough to sink your teeth into. The best thing is to leave yoursefl an unpeeled portion to grasp it by until the last possible moment, but no matter what you will eventually get your hands and face all sticky with the orange juice. Experienced and determined mango eaters spend considerable time sucking all the goodness out of the stringy part, then they throw it into the street for the flies to finish.
The singing in our little church (La Iglesia Episcopal San Pedro y San Pablo) is a cappella and robustly out of tune. “Hoy Senor Te Damos Gracias,” “Pescador de Otros Mares” and the others all had keys when they were written, but the church members sing-chant them in a way that seems to force the key signature out of the way. I do my best to follow along, sometimes finding the melody, other times just keeping up with the words, singin softly in a low register.
The service is very formal, which combined wit hthe early hour (7:00 am) gives me a feeling of rightness, as if everything were squared away and simple, no matter what might happen the rest of the day. Reverenda Milquilla takes the first communion wafer, which is larger than the others and usually decoratted with a chi-rho symbol, and breaks it into quarters over the cup of wine. Then she eats half of it and gives the other half to Alexander. Before she swallows she takes the first sip of wine. I watch her mouth fill with bread and wine, and every week I notice her throat move when she swallows. Every time it surprises me just a little bit. It looks gross, not ceremonial or holy when she drinks with her mouth full then swallows the whole mess hurriedly so she can continue the service.
Still more to come, but I’m going with my family to Colorado for a week. This is a good review exercise, so expect more posts after I get back.
