Flow

Two years is a long time.  A lot changes over just one year – relationships develop, people move, projects begin and end.  And then again, it feels like no time has passed at all and the remainder will be gone in a second.  Despite the eternal summer of the Caribbean, life still moves in cycles here.  It’s finally raining again, and the whole rhythm of the day changes with rain.  It’s quieter, more relaxed, nice to just sit somewhere with a rainy breeze after the unbearable heat of June and July.  We’ve left mango season and entered avocado season (even better!), and the coming months will bring slightly cooler weather and lots of coffee.  People will disappear to their mountains for weeks at a time to harvest, and the streets will fill with a layer of drying coffee beans, the smell of their damp decay through the air.  

When we first arrive, everything feels fragile.  It takes time to build a support system and develop friendships, to get comfortable with how to live in a very different place.  But, like anything, this life becomes normal.  By the time I leave Tabara, I’ll have lived in this little blue cement house longer than I’ve lived anywhere but the house where I grew up in Pennsylvania.  That’s a weird thought – the home I’m used to now is a place where roosters wake me up at any hour of the day and I find a little blood on my orange tree from the neighbors’ cock fights; where people and animals wander into my house; where I wait for electricity and water to arrive when I need them, but am mostly prepared not to have them…  I recently got a fridge after being without for almost half of the last year.  Cold water is really nice, especially in July.  Leftovers are also nice. 

Anyway.  I’m ready for school to start again!  A few weeks ago I took some girls to Camp GLOW.  They loved it, as to be expected.  Right now I’m holding reading camp in the mornings for some of the kids who are really struggling to learn.  We supposedly start in the library at 8:30 AM, but they show up at my house to peek their little faces through the windows at 7:45 wondering why I’m taking so long… I can’t really get mad at their enthusiasm.  It’s kind of adorable, and we usually end up starting early. 

Lately, by the time I finish with the kids and come home, the sky opens up into a torrential downpour and everyone stays wherever they are for a while.  Good thing I’m not trying to do anything in the evenings like last year – those adult literacy classes were cancelled half of the time.  The kids run around mostly naked in the rain, stopping to drip in my doorway and hand me limoncillos, or whatever other fruit they’ve been out collecting.  They’re good little messengers, running through the flooded streets to pass me a cup of coffee from my neighbors, bringing them a piece of my banana bread.  Older boys race on motorcycles, lifting into wheelies on the slick streets… No one else seems concerned, but I still cringe a little, waiting for a wipeout.

Life continues!