5 mayo 2008: Clipping

these poor are blessed, bless-ed,
blessed are they who and
everything is so cheap here

we are Everything is so cheap here
this market array fruits vegetables magic
cactus clippings over spread-
out sarapes guatemala palenque maya
squatted women offering squash

we could buy it all if we wanted, if we needed
not that we need not here where we can pretend
to be poor but richer
than
less poor than
squatted women selling mushrooms

move on to the next blanket
huaraches ruin the feet

4 mayo 2008: Bucaramanga

antonio presented a fish dinner inside his house

we sucked the bones and licked our fingers

it rained there was noise on the tin held by bricks

they thought they were poor

the teenagers didn't want to move into the empty house below

why, i asked

what, they said, and leave home?

they weren't poor

not even close

just look at that mountain across the way

a day's walk

and time to do it

they would all live a long time

they would never lack frontiers,

the one thing i lost long long ago

and all the money in the world

can't buy it back

tales from the route

One of the four widows on the route for whom I get out of the car and take their papers to the porch wasn't waiting for me as usual by the door today.  I was about to leave the paper there when I heard her calling.  "I fell down," she said.  "Can you help me?"

I went in the back door, walked through the kitchen and found her collapsed.  I had to struggle to lift her up ("Don't drop me," she said, afraid), untangle her legs, and half-way carry her to a place she could sit down.  She didn't want me to call anyone for her, but I found her phone and brought it to her.  When I persisted, she said she would call her niece.  I gave her dog a biscuit.  She's 90 and lives alone in this old farmhouse right out of a Grimm's fairy tale, like Hansel and Gretel. 

Then, a couple of hours later, I killed a gray cat who ran right out under my car.  I slammed on the brakes but it was too late.

Tonight, Lee and I watched Rush Hour 3; I finished watching Cloverfield; and I am re-watching part of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly now.  The DVD has Spanish, English, and French language tracks, so we can watch without subtitles.  I had read them to Lee when we saw it in the theater.  It's a beautiful movie.

We bought Miles two copies of Grand Theft Auto IV by mistake.  I'll have to take mine back. 

I spent this morning finishing reviews of Mishima and The Cell for the Ebertfest blog.  Still have one more to go, my wrap-up of the festival.

My book of poems by Thomas Lux came yesterday.  Portishead's "Third" came out today, their first CD in 11 years, but I'd downloaded it from Russia about two weeks ago.  I'm listening to it repeatedly, alternating with The Brief Life of Oscar Wao, the first novel by Junot Diaz.  He won the Pulitzer for it and it's in Spanglish pretty much and they interviewed him on PBS news tonight.  I turn off anything related to Pastor Wright and I haven't read the local paper in 10 days now.

trouble

Our MCC trip to Colombia in 2003 was supposed to be a War Taxes Learning trip, but it didn't apply to Colombia itself, which has a different tax system. Nobody seemed to realize this until we got down there. We were virtually locked in the hotel, whisked away to meetings morning to night, in churches, schools, meeting rooms, meetings, meetings, meetings.  We weren't even allowed to go outside to walk or exercise until I, representing the group, demanded a morning jogging hour, during which we had to be chaperoned.  I did like our trip to the U.S. Embassy.  Finally I demanded to go spend time with our sister church in Bucaramanga; they wanted to fly me up and back in one day.  I said, no, and stayed three days.

The next year I went by myself and spent a month in Bucaramanga.  I took buses and toured the countryside.  I walked the streets of Bogota at night by myself.

But that's me.  Anyway, as for institutional service trips, I much preferred the Presbyterian trips I took with Intercambio, working in Mayan villages in the Yucatan, building cinder block facilities and assisting with medical and dental treatment.  Hands on and hammocks.  I learned how to wire houses for electricity, too.

I still want to retire as some kind of MCC volunteer in Latin America, but I doubt if they'll have me after my Colombia experience.  I have a well-earned reputation as a trouble maker

I want to live in Mexico