As a part of my week traveling with the San Gabriel Team I was pared up with Andrea and Betsy, who will be helping to train the local ¨Teachers¨who will then train the rest of the people utilizing the water from the water system. It sort of reminds me of the each one teach one method.
In order to get a better grasp on what they did and did not need to teach Andrea and Betsy, along with the local pastors, arranged a couple of home visits so they could see how the local people utilize water in their homes and where it comes from (as in a well, a spring, city water, etc.). It was really cool to be a part of this.
I wanted to comment on our visit in Huanta to Mama Florinda´s house. It is a bit of a ride from the center of town where the church is. Galmiel took us in his mototaxi. Mama Florinda lives on her parents land. She was an only child. It is a grove of avacado, granadia, and nispero trees set back off a dirt road, behind a sort of rickety wire gate. As you ¨shimmy¨up the incline and pass the gate BOOM you are met by trees bearing avacadoes as far as you can see.
Florinda´s daughter was there and met us halfway in. Apparently we caught them by surprise (darn it!) Florinda was off to the side by the water spicket washing and combing her hair. They were not so sure about letting us in because they didn´t have anything to offer us to eat. Everywhere you go in Perú people want to offer you something to eat or drink, how hospitable. Pastor Eber reassured them that we had just eaten and food was unessecary. So we passed on. Later, a bag of Granadias was brought out. They have a semi hard shell, about baseball size. You crack it open and under the pulp (like an orange) are these seeds covered with an amazing GOO. I would consider GOO in this case to be a technical term. You eat the wonderful GOO and seeds together. YUM..SLURP!
So we were probably there for about thirty minutes when the tension started to ease. It just happened. Florinda talked about their water coming from a sping up the mountain. Collectively they treat it with clorox. It arrives to the crops once a month through a system of canals on a roatoing basis, and through pipes up to an outdoor faucet all the time. That is the family´s communal fuacet. They collect water their for cooking, wash and bathe, as well as brush their teeth and wash clothing there as well. This is over to the sideyard, about 30 yards from the house, right next to the Cuy (guinea pig) dormitory.
Up at the house is where Florinda had set out some chairs and we sat and talked. While we were inside the house one of us, it may have been me, asked about the young man whose picture hung on the wall in prominence. Florinda´s daughter hung her head and said that is my brother, her only son. ¨He died 2 weeks ago in an accident.¨ Apparently, the young man had been traveling in a car back home. It was foggy, and the road was obscured. They got out to see what the visibility was, and apparently a large boulder fell ontop of him crushing him. That has left his mom Florinda, and her daughter to tend the land and provide. They are still greiving as well.
There were moments of greatness in this visit to see first hand the way that the people use water, and to just be present with Florinda and her daughter who is in her 30´s. Florinda´s daughter, a single woman, has just adopted a beautiful little girl who was abandoned and had no food or place to go. This family does not have a whole lot to work with themselves, but their door was open to those who had even less. Florinda sent us back to Cristo Rey church with a bag of granadina´s to share with the group.
At church the next day some women during the time of tithes and offerings knelt at the front and placed bags of fruits and vegetables as their offering. Mama Florinda was one of them.
The next day, while eating dinner, Pastor Eber told us that Florinda was SO proud to have had us visit her home. He said she glowed as she told her neighbors and tapped her chest saying ¨Yes, my new friends came to visit MY house.¨ Pastor Eber felt that our visit and the church accompanying her during this time of grieving over son continues to help a woman who has only been a Christian for a month or so to feel loved, supported, and vauled as a human being. I couldn´t agree more
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