Some journal entries

A PERSPECTIVE GIVER:
I´m a pretty tough person. Ok, not always, but I can be. I have raced so many body crushing 1500 M in my life I could never count. I´ve walked 500 miles across Spain in a month despite shin splints, falling arches, blisters and perpetually swollen ankles. My resume is short, but neither of my claims to toughness were easy. Having that said, carrying the lumber for my house up a steep, slippery, endless trail through the stifling heat and humidity of a Panamanian forset was the most physically challanging thing I have ever done. I made four trips, each taking more thatn an hour to complete. The trail is steeper than taking stadium stairs by two, and its muddy and covered in vines so that you trip going down and slip coming up. We hade invited 8 grown men to help carry the wood, and I had provided food. One came, one sent his 12-year-old son adn the rest... MIA. ALong the trail two youn girls, both under the age of 13 asked if we had chicha (juice made from corn). We told them that we did, in fact, have enough for 8 grown men. So they joined our ¨junta¨. They each made 3 trips carrying about 60lbs, just as much as me, and faster. When all was said and done the girls recieved heaping bowls of rice, beans adn chicken, and juice. But here is what made me want to cry: 2 pre-teen girls would want to do what for me was the hardest thing I have done in my life for the promise of some corn juice.

TWO VERBAL SNAPSHOTS:
My two little sisters are huddling under the overhanging zinc roof, giggling and pushing eachother under the streams of water that funnel down from the sky. They are so beautiful in their red and navy nagwas up against the wood pannels of the house: grey streaked with floresent green moss. I want to frame their smiling faces throught he doorway and over the hand crank Singer where Aida sits sewing. But my point and shoot would never blur the foreground and background the way I want, and the secound I take out my camera the smiles change, the moment is lost and I´m nothing more than a tourist.
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Little Lilly is walking around with small dead sparrow in her hand. She shakes it about to the tune of happy, God-praising evangelical rock and its limp head wiggles like a noodle. Mikeal deftly popped it out of the mango tree with a home-made slingshot and soon Paula will pluck and fry it up on top of white rice. Until then, 3-year-old Lilly fingers its soft down and smiles at her toy.

QUÉ PESADA
¨Señora Bedi¨she called me. No one has ever called me señora. It made it feel like there was so much distance between us. It´s worse than being called Gringa. I was carrying my secound load of 50lbs of rice from the road to my host families store. The woman who addressed me is a friend. I have spent much time in her house, she sharing what she has- rice with a chicken foot; and me eating what she has offered, also a sacrife. She has a wonderful sense of humor and I love the way she takes my hand to shake it but then doesn´t let go. But my gut tells me this meeting is different. It´s a sixth senth I´ve developed for guessing when people want something of me.

She starts talking. ¨I´ve been afraid to ask,¨ she tells me. But there is nothing else she can do. There is no food in the house and she needs to buy clothes for her grandchildren so they can go to school. Could I please lend her $10? I explain that I can not lend her money because I can not lend money to everyone who asks, or to everyone who needs to buy food. ¨But Bedi,¨ she assures me, ¨I will pay you back as soon as....¨ something. ¨
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¨Then five, just five so I can feed my family. ¨ She says this holding up the five fingers of her right hand. ¨Just five.¨ I shake my head again but I´m starting to loose my composure. She is one of my favorite people in the community.

Even though I am growing wearier of pleas for money, or loans, or cell phone minutes, I know that I, in her place would do everything I could to feed my grandkids. Especially if I considered the gringa a friend and someone with whom I had shared as much as I possibly could. It´s enough to make me want to stop going visiting from house to house. I´m literally indebted to every family here, even though I am constantly reiterating that I do not Pasear for food, but to pass time and make friends with the community.

¨Bueno, bueno.¨ She says, letting go of my hand. ¨Fine.¨ She isn´t looking at me now. ¨Jatuita Bedi.¨ Goodbye.

As I walk away she calls after me. ¨For this I come only to you. Only to you.¨ I have no idea how to respond, so I say nothing.

Later as I return home with the load, I see her standing outside my family´s store talking to my host mom. ¨you arrived.¨ I comment, determined not to treat her any differently after the akward episode. ¨Sí, I arrived.¨ she says. ¨I arrived to my house crying.¨ Again I am left without response. I don´t know if she is making light of the situation or if her biting humor has turned against me. So I shrug and walk into the house. Somehow I feel even heavier, despite having just thrown down the 50lbs of rice I´ve carried for 45 minutes.