SAVE THE DATES! I’ll be in St. Louis September 17 to October 15, 2013.
It took 10 years I guess, but I finally had enough “frequent-flyer” miles (35,000) to get a free trip! I was pretty nervous as I picked my way through the United (nee Continental) website, and when I hit a snag (“You need 14,000 more miles”), I was ready to call. I had already stocked my cell phone with extra minutes. A wonderful agent named Patricia quickly assessed the situation and said I if came one day earlier my free seat would be available. So I’ll come to St. Louis without an $800 deficit (the price of a ticket) before I even arrive.
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ESTA ES SU CASA--JUNE 2013
CHILI TODAY, HOT TAMALE
THE BEACON made a nice thing of my last report; take a look:
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/30770/voices_dulick_fiesta_050713
Actually, I’m not sure I’ll get a big welcome in St. Louis if I come with my hand out again. Because I have a lot of deficits! All three of my credit cards are gasping for breath, and my bank account is running on fumes. I had to crawl to my bank in Yoro three times this month, just to eke out a little more credit. I get my monthly pension from Parkway, of course, but I’m like Oliver Twist. “Please, sir, I want some more.”
What happened? Just look at Chemo’s family. So often I see on FACEBOOK parents flummoxed and floundering with a sick child. Soon they are swathed in Like’s and Comment’s, followed by updates from a miraculous health-care system. Albita, Chemo’s 2-year-old niece, and Keila, his 2-year-old cousin, were recently like a tagteam, each getting sicker than the other. An adult might weather the storm, but when it’s a baby, you panic. So off we go to the best doctor in the area, Dr. Wilmer Landa in Victoria. What am I supposed to say? “I can’t afford it”? Then Dania, Keila’s aunt, kept getting sicker, scaring me pretty good when she could barely move, her legs as heavy as lead. An alarmist I guess, I thought she might be experiencing the onset of MS. Turns out it was a heavy dose of tonsillitis, and again Dr. Wilmer saved the day, and emptied my wallet.
But the poster child for the Las Vegas run of “Les Miserables” has to be Manuel from Terrero Blanco. Son of the inveterate drunk Renan, this poor child of God lost his mother Maria Enemecia to cancer in February (see the March CASA). He comes down the mountain every day now, to my house, mourning his mother; mentally retarded and epileptic, he can barely express, or contain, himself. “Miguel, look at me. My mother died. I miss her.” Even the Phenobarbital I keep him supplied with can’t stop the seizures anymore. I’m pretty much at a loss myself. Every day he needs something, a flashlight, new boots, a machete, always money for food. Dorothy Day, who loved the poor to the point of sainthood, warned us do-gooders that the poor can wear you out. One day, I got so annoyed with Manuel that I pushed him out the door. Like Lennie in “Of Mice and Men,” he instinctively raised the broken blade of his machete, and he might have killed me, but I grabbed him and hugged him, till we both calmed down. I wept like Simon Peter when he denied Jesus, and swore to myself I’d never “deny” Manuel again.
Let’s just say, if I sold my house, I’d break even. That’s what I tell kids who pester me every day for “provision” and every night for a soda. “I need my money for emergencies!” But when poverty itself is an emergency, it’s hard to graph the triage. I guess I’m like James Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey into Night” crying “poor house” all the time till he poisons every relationship in his whole family. After all, I asked for this, and after the way help poured in for Guillermo--who you are STILL helping as he gets ready for another post-op check-up--I just sound ungrateful.
But I have been thinking about a fund raiser. The artist-formerly-known-as-Chepito, who now goes by “Jose,” is still churning out the drawings. What are they worth? I might follow the example of Maude Frickert, a character created by the late, great Jonathan Winters, selling greeting cards. “They cost $10,000; that way I only have to sell ONE.” Just kidding!
I’ve been getting lessons in fund raising in my role as president of the Junta Directiva, the officers of the parents association at the school. In fact, raising money is our only job description, I’d say. I had thought some ideas might be discussed or issues, but the problems are much more concrete, in fact, the problems ARE concrete, and canaletas, and zinc, etc., for the two new classrooms under construction. So we meet to promote “activities,” to raise money. I call the meetings, but I’m really more like a silent partner than a president, since I’m clueless. And they understand that; when I wanted a picture of the Junta, no one even suggested, Hey, Miguel, YOU should be in the picture, too! I think I was “chosen” because folks thought I had a pipeline from the U.S. flowing with cash. But I cede the direction to Profe Flor, who is not shy at all about taking the initiative.
Our first fundraiser was rather modest. During the recent annual fair that I talked about last month, we sold “orchata,” a popular flavored drink, in little plastic bags. It was slow going, three long days as we sat at the edge of the soccer field with music blasting out of huge speakers and another nearby tent hawking “COLD BEER.” (Guess who had more customers!) I wouldn’t have had to spend so much time, since Minga, Maria, and Doris, and Juana and Gloria were all taking turns, and no one even expects a man to “do” food, but I was there as support. Our biggest sale was the 30 bags that I bought myself and gave out at a dawn service up at the church.
Flor immediately “suggested” we invest the proceeds in another, bigger project, nacatamales. This would really rake in the cash, because every kid in school would have to buy one, or two if they were in high school. I couldn’t even imagine how this would work, though of course everyone was telling me at the meetings. I finally got it. Flor, in the name of the Junta, obliged the teachers to oblige their students to oblige their parents to cough up 8 Lempiras per tamale. It works, don’t you know, because each teacher is responsible for their class; if the kids don’t pay, the teacher has to make up the deficit. So let me tell you, no coin was left behind! And if I, as the “face” of this Ponzi scheme, weren’t such a nice guy, the parents would have probably lynched me!
This was a big deal, 600 tamales. But, again, no one even suggested I attempt any cooking, so I did all I could to fill in the gaps, shuttling between three different “equipos,” or teams, a go-fer for firewood, palm leaves, corn grinding, vegetables, and chicken and whatever else. In fact, I “cheated” and got extra chicken so the tamales, usually a Christmas treat, would be even richer. I spent my own money on the supplies, you know, to increase the profit margin. I also played parent to quite a few of the poorer kids whose mommy or daddy could not afford the 8 Lempiras for their tamale. It was the least I could do, since the women did all the hard work. But Minga, bless her heart, led the chorus of thanks at the end of day. “Miguel, you were the only one [meaning the only man] who helped us. You were always right there.” Flor, more hard nosed, wasn’t thanking anybody till the money was counted. “The ‘billetes’ [bills, as in dollar bills] will tell the story.” So she made Maria, the treasurer, sit right down and total up. Pretty soon everyone was counting and re-counting, till Flor was satisfied that our goal of 4000 Lempiras ($200) had been met. Then she sprung for a couple big sodas to share with the crew. And chips. I have to hand it to her, she keeps us focused. Next up, baleadas!
The rewards of the “poor house” are so abundant that I cannot even think about leaving. For example, the birthdays, when we get a chance to celebrate them, including don Ramiro, turning 100 and still with it, his devoted gaze at his sister Olimpia worth the price of admission. Little Beatriz with her first birthday cake ever, a “loaner,” as it were, since it was an unsold Mother’s Day cake the local store had in reserve. A few days later, her daddy Marcos‘ birthday, 29, Chemo’s cousin. That same day, Yoemi (pronounced “Jamie”) had her first birthday and Cristian and Aurora, against all odds, managed to persuade Profe Flor to give them a little discount on the cake she’s famous for. A long hike (they told me it was “across the river”) up, way up, to Quebrada de Agua to see one of the most active communities around, led by Ines and his wife Ana, even though it’s a challenge to look a man in the face and call him “Agnes.” There’s a lot of other blessings--Chemo ALMOST passing a test--but I hope you can see even in the things that break your heart, a Spirit is at work, promising our common humanity.
After a few false starts, “invierno” (“winter”) finally burst from the heavens at 3:00 in the afternoon with a wild storm of deluging rain and whipping winds on May 31st, the same day, I believe, that folks in St. Louis were diving for cover from tornadoes. While you were heading for the basement; we found ourselves stranded at the highest point in town, huddled in the little church, where we were closing out the month of “las flores,” the daily devotion of children bringing flowers to Mary’s shrine. Almost tore the roof off the place! But after forty minutes or so, the calm returned and we finished up with coffee and rolls.
Now the plowing, planting, and scare-crowing will begin in earnest, as the seed corn falls into the ground and and dies and soon puts up a sheen of green shoots on the black earth. Mud everywhere for the next five months, buses slipping up and down unpaved roads, clothes never quite drying on the line, I’ve already lost one umbrella. But plenty of water at last in the pipes and faucets. I don’t have to bathe out of bucket anymore. And La Pena, the mountain that defines our landscape, no longer shrouded in a haze of heat, wears a shawl of fluffy fog in the morning. I suggested to Chepito--I mean, Jose--that he try to draw the full moon that shone like a spotlight in the clear night. “Nature” is not his forte, so when he came a couple nights later with the drawing, I offered some constructive criticism. “The moon should be more white; this is so yellow, how can you tell it’s the Moon?” He put me in my place. “It’s full of stars.” Blue stars. The kid’s a genius!
But Chemo is my hero. When first-quarter grades came out and Chemo was at the bottom, I wasn’t even going to show them to him. Till he insisted. And he immediately started talking about “next year,” when he’d do better. He gets up and goes to school every day, it has to be a literal drag, but his teachers love him like their own child, he causes no problems, plays with everybody, no one has more friends.
What with the electricity going off half the time, and the Internet spoiling for a fight, I wrote this CASA out in longhand first. Now I have a better appreciation for what I put you through! If you’re still reading, thank you!
Love, Miguel
