Last days: photos

Last day in Oaxaca, Mexico

May 31, 2006

One more day in Oaxaca, Mexico. How do we begin to share our interior thoughts on this? We cannot. But we are comfortable to let others more articulate than us right now express some generalizations on the many emotions and gifts of the last eleven months.
Later, after we have had more time to digest, we will write of what an enriching sojourn we have had.
Thanks to all who have followed us on this journey by reading the blog. Later on, if you can keep your interest with our journals, we will share for just a bit longer.
But for now, with one day left in Oaxaca...other voices can speak better.

In the more fugitive, trivial association of the word exotic, the charm of a foreign place arises from the simple idea of novelty and change. But there may be a more profound pleasure as well: we may value foreign elements not only because they are new but because they seem to accord more faithfully with our identity and commitments than anything our homeland can provide. What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.

Alain de Botton, Art of Travel.

The word I kept hearing, wherever I went was, GRACIAS! Gracias a usted..gracias a Dios!..muchas gracias! Thank you, thanks be to God, many thanks. I saw thousands of poor people, spent many hours with people who do without many material things. But in the midst of it all, that word lifted me again and again to a new realm of seeing and hearing: GRACIAS! Thanks!
Maybe there would be food tomorrow, maybe there would be work, maybe there would be peace. Maybe, maybe not. But whatever is given...money, food, a handshake, a smile, a good word or an embrace.. is reason enough to rejoice and say, GRACIAS!
What I claim as a right, my friends in Latin America received as a gift; what is obvious to me was a joyful surprise to them; what I take for granted, they celebrate in thanksgiving.
And slowly I learned what I must have forgotten somewhere in my busy, well-planned and very useful life. I learned that everything that is, is freely given by the God of love. All is grace. Light and water, shelter and food, work and free time, children, parents, birth and death..it is all given. Why? So that we can say gracias, thanks: thanks to God, thanks to each other.........
Going to a different culture can be a real opportunity for mental and spiritual growth. When we walk around in a strange place, speaking the language haltingly, and feeling out of control and like fools, we can come in touch with a part of ourselves that usually remains hidden behind the walls of our defenses.
We can come to experience our basic vulnerability, our need for others, our deep-seated feelings of inadequacy, and our fundamental dependency. Instead of running away from these scary feelings, we can live through them together and learn that our true value as human beings has its seat far beyond our competence and accomplishmnets.
One of the most rewarding aspects of living in a strange land is the experience of being loved not for what we can do, but for who we are. When we become aware that our stuttering, failing, vulnerable selves are loved even when we hardly progress, we can let go of our compulsion to prove ourselves and be free to live with others in a fellowship of the weak.
This perspective can open up for us a new understanding of God's grace and our vocation to live graceful lives.

Henri Nouwen

We lay still for a time, looking
at the tiny guavas and the perfect,
soft, high blue sky overhead.
A long, hot way home.
But manana es otra dia. Tomorrow
is another day.
And even the next five minutes
are far enough away, in Mexico
on a lovely afternoon.

D.H. Lawrence

You say I am repeating
something I have said before,
I shall say it agian.
Shall I say it again?

T.S. Eliot

YES!!..Katy and I will say...Que un milagro!..what a miracle!..this year has been.
Gracias a Dios, Adios.

A Rich Sadness

Poetry may make us a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.
T.S. Elliot

It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world.
Solzhenitsyn

Our calendar is still very busy with only one week left here in Oaxaca. I'm feeling the need to slow down; not to prolong our stay but to digest my emotions. Sadness is always close by and I don't want to deny or avoid it. This is a rich sadness based on relationships we have to put on hold. These people are valued gifts from God. It will not be easy or comfortable to lay them aside. That in itself is something to rejoice in.

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.
Conrad Aiken

Count the days?

Do I count the days?
There is only one day left,
always starting over.
It is given to us at dawn
and taken away from
us at dusk.

Jean Paul Satre

The days are made on a loom,
where the warp and woof are
past and future time.
They are majestically dressed,
as if God had brought the
threads to the sky-ey web.

Emerson

Life is not what one lived,
but what one remembers and
how one remembers it in order
to recount it.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez


For Katy and I, two weeks more
in Oaxaca, Mexico..one-way tickets
back to our California lives on
June 1.
We taste 'bitter-sweet' every day
now on our tongues. We feel thankful
tears on our face most nights.
Gracias a Dios! Que un milagro!

Puerto Angel

We spent 3 days and 2 nights in Puerto Angel on the coast of Oaxaca. Gundi & Tomas is the name of the quaint Casa de Huespeded where we stayed. We ate in palapas on the beach, lounged in beach chairs, went to the Turtle Museum in Manzute, swung in hammocks, and just relaxed!


At night I tightly tucked the mosquito netting around the four corners of the bed and climbed in. A top sheet was provided. It was neatly folded at the foot of the bed and remained there all night, not used. Since we were the only guests we left the doors wide open all night hoping to take advantage of any breezes that would come our way. Closing the doors would NOT have helped to keep out mosquitoes and bugs as all door frames had a MINIMUM of ¼ inch of space between the door and the frame.


If I had been thinking, I probably would have realized that other creatures roamed these areas. But I was mesmerized by the sound of waves cascading and birds chattering, and by the sights of various colored bougainvilleas, palm trees laden with coconuts, and hibiscus in bloom. We were in paradise!



Early on our last morning while eating breakfast on the terrace we chuckled at the plastic iguana the owners had attached to the apex of their roof. When Bruce went over to refill his coffee cup he said, “Hey, that thing is looking the other way now!” Sure enough this 2 foot, brightly colored, iguana was still posed exactly the same, except now it was looking to the west. If we had stayed one more night, I’m sure I would have closed the doors!

Relationships

Relationships are very important in Mexico. People are polite and careful to greet others when passing on the street. If you're in a hurry you still acknowledge the other person with "Adios" which means, "I see you and would love to stop and talk but I'm in a hurry"; otherwise friends and acquaintances pause on street corners or doorways to exchange greetings and ask about the family.

In many homes extended family members still live together; grown children live with parents, a child marries and may build a small home on the side of the family compound. The older generation is valued. Wisdom is associated with age. Mexico celebrates Mother's Day and Father's Day like the U.S. But Mexico differs from the U.S. in that it also has an official "Day of the Child". Children are celebrated each April 30.

Bruce and I and our friend Carrie had the pleasure of celebrating Day of the Child in one of the remote rancherias outside of Oaxaca. We were invited to go along with 2 of the Manos de Vida nurses to La Canada. La Canada is a small community about 3 hours out of Oaxaca. It consists of about 30 families. It is a community that is forgotten by the government; they are small and inconsequencial.

However, small and seemingly inconsequencial is exactly who Manos de Vida is looking to work with. Their work is transformational development, their focus varies depending on the need of the community. April 30th's need was to help honor the children of La Canada.

A celebration was arranged at the school. The mothers prepared Caldo de Pollo (Chicken soup) with mountains of handmade tortillas for all 40+ students. Manos de Vida brought volunteers who sang with the children, played games, put on an "obra de teatro" (work of the theater) and brought a cake. Bringing a cake was no small feat, it meant driving on twisty, windy, rudded dirt roads for 3 hours while Carrie and Osiris balanced a LARGE sheet cake on their laps. The cake made it intact except for one cherry and one clown made of frosting that was smashed with an elbow when we hit one of many pot-holes! One casualty in 3 hours was not bad and I don't think any of the children even noticed!

As we drove back I wondered, "Why did Manos de Vida invest in this day? It took a lot of time and money and what was accomplished?" Again I reflected on relationships- on intangibles. The children of this small community were cared for and valued. Seldom do any works speak louder to the heart of a parent that when love is shown to their children. In reality this was a very worthy investment to a needy community.