tend your garden

Early morning, before my eyes have adjusted to the light and the hot milk chai is cool enough to drink the girls creep into the courtyard, an area forbidden to them, to watch me take breakfast. I hear them whispering, and as I peek out through green plastic curtains and make a face they burst into suppressed giggles. All except one, who frowns and holds up four little ashen fingers. Only a few days she says softly, and I run across the square and lift her up in my arms and spin her slowly, telling her, "but how many hugs we can share in four full days," fighting back the tears that slip into my eyes, trying to be brave, for her, for me.
There is an expression in the Pashto language, You are not a man until you give your love truly and freely to a child. And you are not a good man until you earn the love, truly and freely, of a child in return. I'm falling in love with these children, one by one, learning their names, they're ticklish spots, their favorite ways to be held and swung and danced with. Not all of them, arbitrarily, but certain ones. I worry they've become too attached to me, and I find myself fantasizing about staying, or worse asking them to run away with me, showing them how to build sand castles and search for sea shells. They know I'm leaving. The girls at the orphanage say goodbye every time I walk out of a room. I just hope they realize it has nothing to do with them. They've been abandoned their whole lives. They will forever feel unwanted, and now I'll be another ghost, a person who passed in and out of their hearts. Is it better to have loved and lost? Did anyone ever ask a child that? I find myself whispering "I love you, over and over," into the tiniest ear. I have to stop myself. But now, looking back, I wonder if she's ever heard these words before. She is six, but the size of a two year old, the one who came to the sisters crawling like a chimp. I want to repeat these words over and over until she understands what they mean.
Some compete viciously for my attention, clawing at each other's hands and hair. Everyone wants to be wanted. Maybe that's why I've fallen so hard. I need their love just as badly. But still, it’s frightening to see so much anger, so much jealousy, so much emptiness in such small hearts.
It's time to move on. I'm running out of material, patience and restraint. At school, the children take advantage of me. I've come to realize that violence is self perpetuating. The class gets out of control and no amount of yelling and clapping will stop it. Another teacher always comes in to beat the students, and I have to turn away, feeling inadequate for my inability to discipline without a stick. But I think it's the stick that causes the chaos. As long as it’s absent, the children have no boundaries. Other methods don't work because punishment is the most immediate and efficient means of control.
I've become frustrated with the absolute austerity of control here, in India and in the convent. Children live in fear. From preschool on they are driven to succeed, not by their own choice and desire but by the stick. Even the youngest ones live in angst, to the point of teachers confessing that they don't want to tell parents how their five-year-olds are performing. The chellis I live with are afraid to break the rules in any way. I understand the importance of structure, of school, of goals. But these are kids. I brought the girls temporary tattoos, expecting pure rapture, but instead every one worried about the beating that might follow should they be discovered. The next morning, one girl's skin was rubbed raw. I asked what happened, if she'd gotten into trouble. No, she replied. Sister said it causes skin cancer. I told her that was a lie. Flat out. I know I'm going beyond my boundaries but so are they.
At first I was content with silent acquiescence, but that has never been my way, only theirs. I'm trying to find a compromise between teaching my classes what I believe is true and right and empowering and allowing them to live with the socially accepted modes of behavior, within webs of manipulation and domination--by their parents, spouses, teachers, and their sisters. I feel like I'm being monitored, censored. I discuss with the students primary differences a between American and Indian cultures: food, language, dress, appearance, religion, appearance. I tell them that in America wives and husbands have equal opportunities and equal power. I teach them that we fought hard for these rights; I talk about the Women's Liberation Movement (without the burnt bras). The boys aren't really paying attention, but one girl replies that this inequality, this disparity, is what makes India a developing country, even with all the drive and technology its people possess. I'm not trying to start a revolution but a little dissent could be quite progressive. Still maybe it’s best that I sow the seeds and let the fruit ripen on its own, in my absence, like the first missionaries did with mustard.

Going local

Even the buffalo ox, walking down the street and merging seamlessly with traffic, looks at me funny. The girls at school ask why my hair is light and my cheeks are red and only laugh when they see my toes, and I don’t have a real answer except I was born this way. I expect it from them. But when the herd in the road stops to stare I start to squirm. They are called “natural speed breakers” because Indians (dot not red [their designation]) consider them holy, and it is a more serious offense to kill a cow then a beggar. Streets teem with life and sounds: marriage processions, firecrackers, markets, hari krishna chanters. The sisters pray for our protection each time we go out in an auto, which provides some reassurance as we weasel in between moving buses whose occupants jump and hit the ground running and mopeds carrying 4, 5, 6 people with outstretched babies held over speeding concrete.

And music, music everywhere. The wind carries gasps of chants and flutes depending on the direction. A child ululates his national anthem--so bold, so proud, when moments before he was huddled over, timid cheek pressed into his desk. He moved here from Rajasthan, a land where women cloak themselves completely, allowing only their eyes to peer out as animals in the darkness. When he’d first arrived he’d been afraid to go to class with his teacher exposing so much skin. He’d lingered outside the averting his eyes.

There are certain aspects of this culture I have to learn to accept without judgment. The boy’s teacher suggested I get a sari, because my figure is so slender. I teased her that perhaps then I’d find a nice husband, and maybe we should go shopping for one together. She’s not permitted to leave the house alone, not even to go to church. Her husband does not allow it. I asked how she deals with this. She doesn’t mind so much any more; she’s been married 15 years. I responded that I wouldn’t be finding a husband in India. One of her students died the day I came. She came down with a fever and hours later she was gone. She was so sweet, a bright, beautiful girl only 5 years old who smiled at everything. Sister Alice said “that is why God took her so young.” I refuse to believe in such a selfish God. But then, I am told he made us in his image.

Other than a few speed breakers I’m adjusting well: I accidentally poisoned myself with insect repellant though incidentally was still attacked, and I believe I’ve been bathing in the toilet bucket for a week now. I gave the boarders, my chellis (little sisters), their first Halloween. They too don’t completely understand our culture, and what a bizarre holiday to explain--mischief and make-believe. I revert to a show not tell method: coloring and cutting out a butterfly mask that I strung to my face. They begin shouting acca acca (older sister) I want to be a doctor, a sister, a lion, a princess, a saint. One is even a mango! She makes the costume herself, while I do most of the drawing for the others and the big girls do the cutting, all to the scary tunes of a “thriller” cassette I’d found that afternoon. We have to trick or treat quickly because it is time for duties, but their masked faces light up at the sight of treats, though no one wants the plastic snake and they all shrieked at the sight of it. I have to instruct them to unwrap the candy first and not swallow the gum, but we all walk back to our rooms smiling.

That evening we explore the city. Another volunteer Daniel is visiting, and the presence of a male escort brings me much more freedom. Our tour consists of mostly traffic but we end up at enormous marble temple with white towers glowing in the night sky. We leave our sandals in the car and climb the steps, encountering various shrines with adorned creatures or gurus and intricate carvings covering every surface, telling stories of battles, sacrifices, beasts and heroes. At the highest level bats circle a gold flagpole, and I silently thank them for chasing the mosquitoes that feed on my flesh. We stand in line for a long time only to be hurried before a great altar where a black figure completely covered in garlands and flags peers down on us mere mortals. A priest with a wiry beard and fierce eyes outlined in ink feeds me blessed water, which I sip and splash over my head, repeating the motions of those before me. Another man, stout and shirtless but wrapped in fabric, chants responses and offers the sculpture sacrifices of fruit and incense. A guard ushers us out, and I bend down in prayer, touching my fingertips to each tusk of the elephants that frame the entry. My heart is heavy with bliss of this holy place and perhaps the affects of the offerings I have taken.

When I finally arrive at the orphanage, the girls are not as excited as I expect. Happy yes, but rowdy no. Not at first. I think they are feeling me out, developing trust. They’ve been disappointed all their lives. The conditions are not as bad as I assume: cramped but clean. They sleep head to toe in a tiny space, but there is a large open room upstairs big enough to dance in. So, we proceed to do just that. First they perform for me-- in rows with synchronized movements, a welcome song then one in Hindi and one in Telugu. The little ones are so small they can’t keep up. As the children dance the sister who cares for them explains each story: this one left in the station, that one outside the hospital, those girls, sisters, in a temple, their father told them he’d come right back and never returns. The one in red, both parents died of AIDS. She may be carrier, we don’t know. That one’s father killed her mother, lit her on fire with kerosene. He was going to do the same to her when she was rescued. He tries to visit sometimes, and she runs inside screaming. Row after row. This one was working in a house at age 6, rescued when the government raided, many child laborers are victims of physical and sexual abuse. That one abandoned when she came down with chicken pox, the neighbors heard crying. The small one in blue just recovered from malaria. That is why there are cotton balls in her ears--they have two holes. The fever went to her brain, and they had to operate. She cannot hear. They will operate again to restore sound but not until she becomes ten. And the littlest one in the red dress was very malnourished. When she came here she looked like monkey, huge swollen stomach, face bulging out, so small. she cannot walk properly. never will. but look at her dancing.

Dancing, dancing all of them. The past seems to disappear as they pull me up from my seat with many little hands. I spin them around, lifting them high and dipping them down and become dizzy and soaked in sweat, but more, acca, more they cry. I forget all else and only dance. But the sister reminds me gently that each one was unwanted, that they will never forget that, no matter how much love they receive. Deep in their hearts they burry terrible pain, and it haunts their subconscious. I wish that I could take away their pain, wipe their memories clean, dance forever, spinning in circles faster, faster, faster until reality becomes a blur of laughter.

I return home and scrub myself cleaning, asking for a washcloth that turns from yellow to brown. Many of them have lice and scabies, and I held most and touched them all. After I bathe I have dinner and tell the cooks chala bagunde, very good, a phrase I learned in Telugu that day, my first. They smile with such pride. One hurries to the corner and re-emerges with something white. At first I think it’s a washcloth (I’d asked her for one just a little while earlier) but I see it’s flowers, a string she’s sewn together. She must have seen me gathering them in the courtyard that morning, pinning them into my hair before mass. She holds out her hand, then pulls back, telling the sister something I can’t understand. She wants to do your hair. Go get your brush. I run to grab a comb and she seats me down, while all the chellis gather to watch. They admire my comb and show me their brushes. She combs my hair gently, and the girls murmur, so soft, so pretty. She pulls it back into a tight braid. I haven’t had my hair done since I was a little girl, and it feels good. A sister comes by to give advice, telling her to string the flowers through the braid. Yes, sister, she says. One chelli climbs up on the chair and asks me, are you happy. Yes, I reply, so happy. She ties the final knot, and I’m lead into the girls room to look in the mirror. Very beautiful, I say. She follows us, and whispers something to one child who returns with a sheet of paper. She removes a bindhi and sticks it on my forehead, slightly off-center, the perfect spot, and smiles with smug satisfaction. I have found my place.

day in the life

I awoke from deep incoherent slumber to pitch black and creaks of old plumbing and aching bones. Took chai and watched the girls doing their morning chores, offering assistance they only giggled at. I asked if I could join them for yoga (I'd seen it on the schedule) only to find they trickled into the empty room and stared at me as I stretched, finally mimicking my movements. I led them through a few sun salutations and warrior series, and they particularly enjoyed the tree pose, toppling over with laughter. (I had to resist the urge to hollar timber so as not to disturb the sisters' morning prayers.) Next I observed mass, my first since childhood, listening to the sweet voices of my little sisters and wondering at the strange practices of the priest and his assistants. I chose not to consume the body of Jesus, as I was never baptised and heard that is immediate cause for eternal damnation.

A quick breakfast and it was off to my first day of class, as a teacher this time. Rocky start as I tried a name game involving alliteration and grammar with kindergardeners who also knew all the songs I had prepared to teach. The next class was no better, for they were so small they barely understood what I said and after explaining duck duck goose found myself being chased in circles by the entire class. The following two went much smoother, and I hit a home run with "head, shoulders, knees and toes" and "row your boat" though I don't think we'll be making rounds anytime soon. I fell in love with two girls from the orphanage who clung to me like chimps and resembled them even more as they plucked the lice from eachothers' hair. Their clothes were stained, pinned together and in tatters, and their faces were covered with scars and snot, but they smiled sweetly and wrestled over who got to hold my hand. I tried to have snack with them but apparently the tree the kids sit under drops poisonous catterpillars that can cause your skin to swell.

Home for lunch, Sister Alice gave me a bouqet of three roses, pointing to each in turn and chanting "We love you". Over lunch she told me about the issues they're having in acquiring land, and I confessed to her how frustrating it was for me to come home to such affluence after a simple summer. I indicated that if I could only get three women in Beverly Hills to sell their purses we would have enough money to by space for a new orphanage. She replied, "God gave us all everything, to share" and shook her head at how unevenly the wealth had been distributed. After school a walk into the hills brought me to the other side of the mountain, with a full view of Hyderabad. I was surrounded by the reality I came here for: a woman feeding her goat rubble, one spanking her child with one hand and shoveling cement with the other, and a family with a yellow swollen baby who begged me to take their photograph. Skeleton buildings flourished with plumeria and housed families of butterflies. A few turns later I found myself lost in a slum. The road turned to dirt, the structures to shelters. People gathered in clusters to watch me pass and held out hardened hands. No one spoke English or knew my way home. Luckily I happened upon a rickshaw and payed him tripple fair to take me back to my sanctuary(which amounted to one dollar).

After I'd rested and took more chai the sisters escorted me to the bazaar to get me some new clothes (which is probably a kind way of them indicating that my sheer shirt was inappropriate for the Father's visit tomorrow). A thin alley offered all the wonders of the world, much like Ariel's cave of gadgets and gismos a-plenty. Sinister villans and beggers lurked in dark corners, but I had a guardian angel on each shoulder. It was tricky to try things on over what I was wearing but amazing to watch Sister Alice haggle, waggling her finger at men and demanding they "Give a fair price! You wouldn't cheat a nun." I got the full makeover, and the next morning the girls would look at me like a movie star. Traffic back was deadly and fumes of exaust seared my eye sockets. Happy to return home I had little time before we went to a nearby house to give a Rosary prayer, which included 50 Hail Mary's, several readings, and hymns in Telugu. The soft cadence resembled a lullaby; it lulled me almost to sleep. Afterwards we feasted, and I ate with my fingers the home-cooked delicacies. All I wanted was a bath bucket before bed but the water seems to have run out, which means it's time to call it a night and wake someone else up with the leaky pipes come sunrise.

initial impressions

I walk through the terminal doors into a blast of humid Indian night and immediately spot three beautiful women dressed in all starched white with smiles upon their faces and my name in their hands. As they embrace me and welcome me to their country I know that I have arrived. I am home.

They help me carry the baggage that has been such a burden for the day long journey and we shuffle into a car. Sister Alice, the eldest one with white whisps of hair creeping out from under her habit, touches my arm tenderly while she explains sights we pass: the rickshaws that were once their only means of transportation and the lorries for luggage that read PLEASE SOUND HORN PLEASE on their rear bumper. Honking (along with the head waggle) seems to be the primary method of communication, replacing stop signs, speed limits and lights. My first encounter with India had been smog, a grey brown soot settled across the sky into which I descended. It wasn't until we'd nearly landed that I could make out buildings--urban sprawl scattered across the surface below an enormous glowing ember sun that left amber cream in its wake. Now, driving through the city, I understand the source of the pollution: production and destruction. The air is sour sweet like milk on the cusp of turning, with undertones of smoke from cinders burning into ash along the street. It is filled with noise at all times: horns blaring, dogs barking, dripping facets, spinning fans, soft voices, loud cries.

The sisters have such kindness and love that you can see it pour out from their dark deep eyes and they wait upon me like the children they watch. A note in the kitchen reads "A Hearty Welcome Dearest Emma". The food is delicious but foreign and my body is reeling like a reversed magnet at the change in time, climate, and conditions. I carry myself with a grateful propriety at all times, smiling at everyone I pass and careful of what I say. I was discussing religion with Alice, that my mother is Hindu and my father Buddhist though both were raised Christian, and she commented, "how sad."

Even all the warmth of my new home doesn't compare to that which radiates from every child as I enter my first classroom. Their faces come to life with excitement and joy. I cannot help but grin back, meeting the eyes of individuals who wriggle with pride at my attention. They run to the front and clasp my hands in their tiny fingers, shaking them quickly and greeting me in a mob. Many ask for autographs, notes and drawings. While the school is structured, and it must be to accomodate 4,200 students in such a small space, my role remains undefined. I am told I can do whatever I want when I ask whether there is a specific class for me to teach or if I should share my time with many. I am nervous of what tomorrow will bring with nothing prepared but a list of songs. But I know that my mere presence in these children's lives makes a difference. I will bring them new experience, help them with pronunciation and show them the world that exists beyond their own. A world they can aspire to reach with enough determination and courage. Especially the nine girls that live with me. They call me acca, which means eldest sister. They swarm like bees as I try to teach origami, asking questions all at once. I brought small gifts and instructed each to take one, but within minutes all were gone, and they seemed confused when I asked where the extras were. I didn't have the heart to make them return anything. They have so little, and I have been given so much. At the sight of construction paper and markers they become overcome by delight and run around the room. But the eldest settles them, and I when I return moments later they are seated in desks, hands clasped in front, awaiting what new adventures will follow. I feel just the same as my sisters.

That night my orphaned sisters prayed for me, though I can't imagine what they wished for.

partas de bolvia

sinking into sunshine hammocks, music sounding softly through my cocoon, escaping the shanty stretch of sand and boats bustling, blocking our entry to the calm waters of lake titicaca...
sputtering slowly by archipelagos of ancients, believed to be the origin of sun and moon and stars, whose heavenly bodies gave birth to all living beings...
isla del sol, a stairway to heaven where donkeys serve as vehicles to ascension and llamas descended sporadically spitting...
shivering on stones to watch a sun that never set but sank into a bank of cloud cover, casting shadows across the bruised landscape...
sailing back on the bow of the boat, past dragon tail mountains and lone trees...
a road of rain to la paz, leaking buses, leaching in, locals falling asleep in isles, floating backwards on barges,arriving into a canyon of crystal lights, drowning the night dancing irish jigs, flips, gliders, suspended motion...
sudden downpours and spoiled church chicken, smiling into shared milkshakes...
brujas whispering incantations, directions demanded of rattle snake shakes and herbal remedies to preserve and protect, trying not to make contact with hollow eyes of burned bodies and skins of souls...
maneuvering through market stalls, pumping, purifying and peeling to give gracias and tradition to a troupe of irish potato eaters...
handmade turkeys and hedonistic headdresses, toppling totem poles, circled gracefully...
a drunken dash to the wrong bus, passengers peering warning peligroso, the ayudante casting us out into the rain to search for safer slumber...
dawn ripens on peach mountains, while white cristo towers upon the crescent moon...
crayon colored parks match cinnamon sorbet, tracing palace paths through forebidden rooms...
a basketball player with nike swoosh tatoo, numero 69, aged accordingly, blockheaded blundering but our superstar scaling him to reach the rim...
white russians mixing with coca quid, tongue in cheek, dancing til dawn in high school circles to block potential prospects and
predators...
a woman on the sidewalk nursing her baby bundle bares breasts in slumped slumber...
conchas collection of synesthetic energy, women in white spring hats and velvet pleaded skirts gathered eagerly around innovations, pouring through piles of panties, plastic doll shoes, pastries, asking to try on a t shirt, translating into taking advantage of the manikin, meat melting red streams of sidewalk, spit settling onto clothes, clinging unbeknownst, a boy asking for help to say "i´m thinking of you" to a girl of unknown origins...
tea and tasties in a room with straw hats hiding light bulbs...
desert dissolving into clouds, creeping in rifts of ridges, greenery as silt settling among dew drop bird nests, hiding behind eyes winced shut from bolivian belly aches...
a giant swing with women soaring, an old one stumbling to dance between kisses and cries, the music moaning invading tranquil tree house...
wading in the shallow waterholes, scrambling up sandstone perches, painting paz with red rock, watching cutter ants move mechanically...
monkeys on manos scrambling over their human counterparts, the tiger escapes and the ice cream boy laughs at danger...
a doctor declares me perfecto as i announce sickly symptoms and liquid mierda in contaminated cups, then announces my fate, amoebas...
fiona painting roses on walls while we talk of things to come...
slender mine shafts swallow the last speck of sun, breaths choked with dirt, sweat streams like tears in the silver potosi where dynamite comes earlier than cigarettes and kills quicker...
stretches of salt flat, hexagons sealing the surface, white light as far as the eye can sea melts into an oscillating horizon of projected sky pools and ink blot mountains...
an island of cacti rises from the midst, grey hairs revealing untold wisdom, their postures frozen from dancing in the darkness...
flamingos frolic across a placid pond, where desert foxes prowl grass gathered into groups like an army hedgehogs...
rainbow eucalyptus mountains, peeling pastels, whose twins are trapped by liquid mirrors...
swirling snow settles among the salt flakes as we bounce over boulders in a jeep driven by a deaf mute gnome whose smile describes it all...

dios le pague

¨Somos pobres, pero no tenemos habre.¨ We are poor, but not hungry, an old man told me, noticing my eyes swollen with pity. His declaration epitomizes the strength of the people of Ecuador. Huddled under homespun alpaca sweaters and shaded by felt hats, they shuffle along the dusty roads, trailing strings of goats like kites. Their skin is calloused leather, their hair a worn white grey woven into long braids, but their eyes and smiles are full of resilience and compassion. As the bus jostles through the countryside, I notice not much has changed in thousands of years. Huts of stick and mud shelter the poor from heat and rain, market stalls stacked with pyramids of colorful fruits and veggies cluster near roads, and women burdened by babies tied in thick cloth to breast and back walk by selling their wares. This country has managed to maintain an element of indigenous authenticity despite the radical influences acting upon it.

I boarded the bus early in the growing light and slipped past vendors hawking popcorn and dried fruit. My breath led the way up the stairs in crisp puffs of steam. I watched the landscape flash past my window, the steep slopes that formed fertile valleys, which were scattered by huts made of adobe and topped with recycled tile or thatch. Long fields were speckled with grazing cattle and the toddlers milking them. When I arrived in the tiny provence of Ona, I found myself in the midst of madness, as the only market for miles and days was already in full swing. Each vendor introduced their family, and with the same pride various verduras they had to offer. Their warm toothy smiles and soft hands welcomed me into the community. We found an escape by squeezing onto a flatbed camioneta, and rode up to the top of the hill overlooking the county, where a dilapidated church and single cow peered out at their world: the clouds of the Amazon rising in the east, the mountains separating us from the coast to the west.

Adventures drove the next day and me out of bed. We gathered strength from encembollada soup, a fish stew, and rode a wretched bus along the winding road to Cajas, the national park. As I disembarked, the frigid air seared my skin, and my plastic poncho blocked my steps but provided little protection from the hail that flew down and scattered, skittering across the frozen earth. The rain seeped in through the socks I wore as mittens, and I soon lost feeling in my extremities. While my body shut down, my eyes went wild, surveying the rocky peaks that surrounded me. Vibrating lakes reflected the clouds and gathered their tears in hollow bowls. Jade moss slipped over the hills, and melted under our steps like snow as we sunk into the moist earth. The fog feathered in through inlets and my vision became fluid. The sky pulsed, growing and receding with my breath. Even the crags, the mountains towering before me, moved in waves of radiating energy, filled with fluctuating power, the ebb and flow of life. As the trail came to its close, it narrowed into a path, edging through muddy slopes and across boulders back to the broken asphalt that foreshadowed civilization.

Cuenca´s independence day was characterized by chaos. Celebrations filled the streets and funneled into parades of dancing children dressed in embroidered skirts and blouses, canvas sandals and hairy pants. Reinas sat solemnly atop floats, pouting under sun umbrella and waving patiently from their thrones. At the fairgrounds pigs were splayed open on stakes roasting over fires, and caballeros tore at the meat and took shots to gain confidence and loose their reason. The rodeo came later that night, with mariachis wailing away, torros thrusting their riders, and snow white mares prancing to the music. The locals drank heavily and hollered ¨Viva cuenca¨ in unison with the announcer, until haunting echoes and horse’s neighs filled the night.

uno mas

We embarked on our greatest endeavor yet by venturing off the grid and beyond the roads to Punta Mona, an organic sustainable farm far from any town. We pilled our gear in the broad boat and set off, speeding over the small waves, past the sweeping shoreline of islands and inlets, cliffs, caves and crevices overflowing with garbled jungle vines.

We pulled up onto the sand and stepped uncertainly out, just before a small dilapidated shack belonging to Patty, the one remaining native, a shriveled grey haired man with an ardent love of baseball and cryptic psychic powers. We sauntered past his shed and up to the main house, a large open kitchen where we met the first members of our future jungle family. Molly was a jolly woman with huge dreads draped in fabric, who gave us a simple tour of the paradise called Punta Mona. She guided us through the dirt paths and plucked samples of cranberry hibiscus off of large maroon brush for us to taste. As we roamed the fertile grounds and swam in the warm waters, Punta Mona seemed a fantasy, a dream, a garden of eden with elves to tend it. The conch called us to dinner its low horn, and we held hands in a circle of appreciation for life. The food was simple but fantastic, the work of the sun, the earth and our new companions. We savored every bite, and scraped the scraps into a bucket for the chickens.

After dinner we headed to the beach, where we stripped off our dirty clothes and ran into the warm water. The waves glowed a light green as I spun slowly around, surveying the magic unfold. Each move created a surge of glowing glitter, fireflies circling us, mimicking our movements, transferring sound and swirl into liquid light. A local told us it was reflections of the stars, as though their bodies were bound by water while their souls soared freely through the sky. He said the full moon made them stronger, brighter, as if searching for her fallen children. We rinsed in the shower and returned to our nest, sending goodnight wishes to the nearest Golden Orb spider, who we named Nectar. We lay down under our mosquito nests, listening to the rat run by and the howler monkeys battle the roosters for control of the night.

The next day the fantasy became infused with reality. After a sleepless night, I rose to humid rain, and found my way to the bathroom, a muddy hole that fed the compost pile, where you shit standing up and cover your droppings with dried leaves. After a breakfast of porage we began to work, sweeping the screen windows from the inside for fear of the large but docile spiders that guarded each corner, mending mosquito nests with stitches that joined the gaping wounds of these mangled ghosts, pumping water as the UV filter failed in the low light. My body ached and I aided it after lunch, slipping into a clay pit of pond scum and covering my skin with rich grey blue scoops from the depths of the stagnant cesspool. We covered our brown surfaces completely and baked in the returning sun, blending into the black beach.

As the days passed by I became comfortable in the wilderness, a mudluscious puddle wonderful womyn, caked in earth and at harmony with the spiders and bats. I appreciated each meal that we prepared. One night a local caught a red snapper with nothing but a hook and a spool of line. I watched it take its last gallant breath, and we fried it fresh, the most flavorful morsel my taste buds have known. We painted a mural of the tree next to the mud pit, using our handprints as leaves and hoping that others would follow our footsteps. That next night we had a pipa party— an expedition to find, capture, and consume the freshest virgin coconuts. I used my machete to crack the thick crust and sipped the sweet juices that poured down my neck. We walked back along the beach, watching the lightning explode over clouds on the horizon.

We rose early, just after the peach rays had escaped the calm the waters, and began to warm the green land. We paddled out while it was still cool, our oars dipping quietly into the shallow waters, as our kayaks glided out across the shallow reef. I watched the translucent jellyfish flow by, nearing the island before me. The crabs scuttle across the rocks, and the pelicans watch from above me. The inlets invite further exploration but the promise of porridge drives me on. I circled the island, watching the open ocean beyond, and almost hoping for a stray wave to carry me out, but returned to shore and dragged my craft into the shed by Patty´s shack, hoping to avoid any ominous interaction.

My soul wants to stay but my body needs to leave. Over four hundred bites cover every patch of skin, and drive me to behave as a crack addict, scratching constantly while my jungle momma reprimands me. The jungle fever has left me unscathed but jungle rot hardens my skin and spreads in strange conditions. I can still taste the last shot of guaro, and the cranberry hibiscus that chased it as we pull away on Paco´s boat. My mouth is dry but my eyes sting with seawater and I blow one last kiss. I feel truly blessed to have found a home with so many beautiful souls, but I am still searching for something intangible that eludes me constantly. Still, every interaction awakens a part of me, as if fate desires that I be influenced by each connection. It seems the possibility for change is inherent within my heart, awaiting the catalyst.