DAY 22...BULLIES AND FLOATING ROCKS

DAY 22

This is my next to last night here. Am I sad about leaving? Yes. Clearly. I feel so good here and I remain stunned by the beauty of the place. I must honestly say that my head is full to the point of not being able to absorb anything new. Maybe it’s worse. Yesterday, I was in a conversation group and was asked about the verb ‘conducir’ in the imperfect and simply and totally blanked. Just blanked. Couldn’t think of it. Couldn’t think at all. Just sat there looking at the maestro with a small group of people looking at me strangely. And all I could do was go: uh, uh, uh. And then finally give up.

And then after the conversation class as it got dark outside and began to pour rain, we heard from a guy by the name of Filipe who was actually kidnapped by the military in the civil war and tortured. Filipe told how when he was 16 (this would have been in the 1980’s) San Pedro was stormed one night by the military. They broke into his house. There were no lights, but the military had lights like mining lights mounted on their heads. They shot into the dark hallway of the house and hit Filipe in the arm and thigh. When they realized he wasn’t dead, they dragged him down the hill to the boat dock to Santiago, just a few steps from where I live, and took him to a destination across the lake with 4 other young guys. Two of the boys were ‘released’ and then shot as they walked away. The others including Filipe were tortured. I don’t feel like going into details tonight. But it was scary and brutal even to hear. When Filipe finally was let go he walked through the mountains back to Santiago and saw people on the dock that he knew from San Pedro. They wouldn’t speak to him or even look at him. They were sure they were seeing his spirit.

And Filipe tells it with an amazing objectivity. He even refers to himself in the 3^rd person, as Filipe. ‘Then Filipe didn’t know what to do. His arm and leg were bleeding and he couldn’t walk.’…or…’Filipe could translate from Mayan into Spanish for the others who couldn’t speak Spanish and were being punished because the military thought they were refusing to speak and only acting as if they didn’t understand questions.’

Today was a bright, sunny day and after finishing my assignment for Javier this afternoon, I walked all along the lake. Sort of saying good-bye and wanting to savor the sights and feel the place again. Tomorrow will be pretty busy getting ready to depart. I have decided that after I pack tomorrow afternoon, I will move to a little hotel ($12 usa) for the night so that when I have to be to the microbus by 6:30 in the morning I won’t have the fun of dragging my backs along this always slightly muddy path. It’s best.

I will never forget the play of light this afternoon as I walked along the lake. In one minute, looking back at the volcano San Pedro, it is dark like black-green velvet against the sky and the next minute the smallest crevices are lit in details. The lake this afternoon looked bluer than I have every seen it. Glistening blue and always changing. There are places along the lake you can’t walk now because the water is so high. I would say that in flat places along the shoreline maybe as much as 75 feet of shore is now flooded. Fields of corn are under water, citrus trees obviously standing in water. I stick to the bolder fields that edge the lake and imagine how the volcano must have tossed these house size boulders here. There in the late afternoon light, standing on boulders dipping half way into the water, are the bathers, skin golden in the slanting golden sunlight. I admit it: I stare. And then I return along the Bali-like back paths to the school for conversation group. It’s the last one for me.

When I reach the narrow street I see 3 young girls, as in 10 years old. Two of them have on the traditional dress and one of them is dressed in shiny sweat suit pants and a tee shirt. I think they are playing, teasing each other but when I get closer I see that two are really harassing the other one. And then I see that the girl being harassed is exactly the size and my grand-daughter Fidelina and the fatherly, grandfatherly, protector of the world side of me goes into action. I go up to the girls and stop them. I tell the two harassers to go home and leave the other one alone. She has her face turned towards the wall of a house and is crying. And then I notice that the two toughies have their hands full of money, coins and bills and I find out that they have taken it from the girl who is crying. I am sure it was grocery money that the girl’s mother had given her to buy something for supper. Well, we just can’t have this! No, I am not wearing a cape and don’t look anything like superman! But that doesn’t stop me and I have them give the money back, tell them to leave and go home and watch out that I don’t come and tell their mothers what horrible ‘mal educación’ they have. The girl that had been crying says, ‘Gracias, señor, por ayudarme.’ That feels so good and I realize how I hate bullies, physical bullies, emotional bullies and intellectual bullies, all of them.

It’s freezing down here in the open air kitchen. Finally the horrible wailing of the woman who sings at the protestant church up the hill as subsided. She must go on for 4 hours singing her horrible roller rink songs of devotion. Is this the cultural heritage the missionaries brought to these people of ancient culture? How sad. How totally inexcusable in my eyes. God forgive us.

Eveyone else here has gone to bed. Well, of course they have! It’s almost 9:30. So, I will gather up my things and go up stairs, have some of my secret stash of Nutella, a plastic glass of wine, try to get some more Spanish in my head watching the news, read two pages of Zafón and eventually fall asleep until somebody starts their wood fire for breakfast at 5:45. This will be my last night to sleep here in this room.

Oh, as for the floating rocks, they are pumice from the volcano. They weigh nothing and are so full of air that they float. The first time I saw them in the lake, I wondered what all the Styrofoam was about and then I picked up a piece and it was a floating rock. Am bringing some home.