Stories

Life is full of stories.  In some ways our lives themselves are stories.  I’ve been blessed to have come across many storytellers in my life.  Some are part of my family, others are friends are yet others are people whose paths have intersected with mine and when I look back, I see our different paths and remember their stories and think about my own.  Some people, like my friend Gathoni , whom I’ve been fortunate to visit on 2 continents, tell stories through pictures Life Through Gathoni's Lens.  Others tell stories through paintings, poetry, sculptures and dance.  And now, I, like many others will attempt to tell some stories through words.  It’s been quite some time since I have posted anything; now the time has come to sit down and write. 

                Sometimes, as I walk down the streets of Chiclayo, as I look out at the young faces in my classes, as I see the wrinkled and worn hands of those searching through the garbage for any remains of food they can consume or plastic that they sell for a few meager cents, and as I listen to children shrieking with delight, I find myself wondering about their stories; where they have been and where they are headed. 

                In the mornings, I often buy bread from a nearby bakery.  The baker sometime shares anecdotes about other foreigners that he has met with me, asking if I know them or have been to their countries.  He seems interested in the world around him, yet is a slave to the ovens baking bread from sunup to sundown for the rest of us to enjoy. 

                I met a student a few weeks ago who is struggling in his English classes.  Yet, it isn’t a surprise.  He only sleeps about 3 hours a day since he works as a security guard all night and goes to classes all day, just to be able to sleep in a tiny room with a roof over his head, so as to be able to study at the university.  I hope he is able to make it through and finish his studies.  Without a formal education, life can be extremely difficult, as employment opportunities are limited.  On the flip-side, I’ve met an industrial engineering student, studying at a private university.  He lives comfortably with his family and gets much of what he wants, is bright and speaks English fairly well, having learned much of it from watching American TV programs and sees the world as a simple place to live.  Where will these two end up?  Will their views change or simply be reinforced?

                Having gotten involved with a leadership program for women in a pueblo joven, I get to hear their stories.  I see women who love their children more than anything in the world sweeping them up in their arms and giving them a kiss when they’ve fallen down or just want some attention.  I listened through tears to a women suffering from cancer of the uterus, who has no home and lives with her blind husband in the streets, suffering and barely able to earn a living.

                A colleague from the university married a man from Switzerland this weekend.  I enjoyed dancing at the ceremony and observing the mixture of cultures, the swirls of colors and imagined where she will be in two months when she moves to his homeland. 

                Translating letters to Canadian donors, I get to be part of telling stories of joy.  A few people received beds through the donated funds and this is what they shared.  An older gentleman suffering from TB wrote, “Although I live in humble conditions and can do little because of the severity of my illness and its contagious nature, I am grateful beyond words for your kindness, for now I no longer must sleep in the dirt like an animal, but have the bed of a man.”  A teenage girl who’d been sharing a bed with her parents and younger brother wrote, “I am the luckiest girl in the world.  You have made me a princess.  To have my own bed and a blanket was a dream that I didn’t think would come true.  May you be blessed for blessing me.”

                There are so many people we see and never know their stories.  Running along the beach with my friend Igor a few weeks back, we looked back before the tide erased our footprints and saw ours crossing with those of others, people of all ages scattered across the beach like the grains of sand, each absorbed in their own worlds, each with stories told and stories untold.