2004 - To Love and Honor

This morning my mother and I went to visit Lucrecia's 87 year old father who is dying of stomach cancer. We met Lucrecia's brother Renee at el parque, or the park, and he lead us to another brother's home (they have a large family) where the father was being cared for. Over the last five years, my mother had made friends with this family and knew the father prior to his illness.

We had to walk through one of the major mercados, or markets, to reach this home. The booths at the market are set up in close proximity to each other and looks much like a flea market. However, I was disappointed to see that most of their wares were cheap Asian merchandise. Some of the market extends under a huge metal awning (kind of like a freeway overpass without the freeway) and as I walked down the aisle, the vendors would actually reach out and grab my arm with the intention of pulling me into their booth. I was a bit shocked the first time, but after watching the locals, I learned to just brush them off.

Mom and I followed Renee through about three blocks of market and then turned into a metal shop. In the back of the property was the living quarters of Renee's brother and there was the father hunched over in his rocking chair.

It's hard to describe the living conditions of this family. They own the sheet metal shop and, as I said, their living quarters are in the back. While everything was neat and swept up, the floor was cement and the roof was tin with sections open to the sky. A cinder block and cement room had been erected for bedrooms with curtains to separate sleeping spaces. Another son assisted his father when needed and supported him as he retched. I know this is probably more information than you want, but I wanted to impart the care, love, and compassion this family showed to their dying loved one despite their (what we would consider less than adequate) living conditions.

The father snoozed a bit while conversation and the work day flowed around him. He is still very coherent and aware; he seemed pleased to see my mother again, but he is very weak and probably not long for this world. I am glad I had the opportunity to meet this man and his family.

Once our visit was over, we waded through the mercado again. I told my mother and Renee to go ahead and I tried my hand at conversing with the vendors, with my diccionario (dictionary) in hand.

After lunch and English class with the girls, Mom and I headed out to Villa Soberana once again to visit with her friends.

First of all we visited Raina whose husband and teenage son were killed in the mudslides caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. She and her remaining children relocated to Villa Soberana along with much of her extended family.

Reina is a seamstress and my mother brought over some fabric from her vast stash to give to her. Reina makes her garments on a old treadle sewing machine. Her bobbin winder had broke so she was winding the bobbin thread by hand.

We next walked up to Estella’s home. She is a tortilla maker and rises each day at 5 am to begin the tortilla making process. Each day Estela boils corn in lye water then lets it sit overnight. She then rinses the corn thoroughly and has one of her children take the corn to the miller to be ground and processed into a moist dough.

Each morning Estela begins to form tortillas by putting a handful of dough onto a circle of heavy duty plastic and begins to pat out the tortilla. As soon as she finishes forming the tortilla, she puts it onto a large ceramic wok over a wood fire. While that tortilla is cooking (no oil or fat is used) she begins to form the next tortilla.

She repeat this process making approximately 200 tortillas per day and sells them out of her patio to other villagers. She charges 1 Cordoba per tortilla, which equates to $0.6 each.

Our next stop was the wood-working shop of Luis. He specializes in beautiful carved rocking chairs with cane seats and backs. Luis's entire family live in the area behind the shop. This family includes a couple of brothers and their wives and children, a couple of sisters and the matriarch of the family, Olga, who sits by the kitchen presiding over the whole clan. Olga has bad feet. I looked at them and determined she must suffer from diabetes, but could not confirm this. She must be in much pain, but regardless she was smiling and kind. Once again, her family cares for her with great love and respect.