Mole rojo, ensaladas, nopales, agua de jamaica and pastel de 3 leches. Teresa told me that she asked the women of the neighborhood if they could bring something for the meal and they all said yes, sure. And then when she asked what they would bring, they all gave the same answer: "Algo". Something. But of course, all the somethings fit together perfectly. As they usually do, in a community with so much goodwill and shared effort.
They've cleared out the side yard, usually overflowing with spare furniture to be shared around, tools, and the items for the perpetual yard sale that helps keep this effort going. Now the gravel is raked, and the small space is full of folding tables and chairs. People start arriving about an hour before dark. All down the block the neighbor kids are running, biking, making happy noise. All the kids, that is, who aren't already here because they're part of one of the programs, or following their parents in for classes. These kids are running in the garden and picking tomatoes (the garden I helped start three years ago, which now others have taken on), while the adults converse with each other, and with the community center's new English teacher and computer instructor. Everybody's here thanks to Teresa's untiring 12 years of work and welcome, and the majority are here because their status as undocumented immigrants makes this unofficial neighborhood center one of not too many places they can find work, continuing education, and community.
Teresa takes her rightful (and always calm and humble) place as Maestra de Ceremonias at the head of one of the tables, and announces our reason for gathering here: yet another Burqueño is heading to Nicaragua to join the Peace Corps, after being the community's volunteer English teacher for 3 years. He's 24: that's some dedication, for that age. A round of "3 Cheers" in Spanish goes up for him. He's brought his parents and his grandmother, who are visibly proud of him as they are introduced. He makes a short speech, part in English and part in Spanish, thanking the people, hoping they will keep learning, wishing them well.
Then Teresa announces that the guys from Ecuador are going to play music for us. All the years they've been living here part-time, on their migratory paths, and I didn't know that Pedro sang, or that Humberto played guitar. Only that they quietly take their handmade imports -- clothes, jewelry, knitted hats -- to sell at the area markets, and go back precisely when their visas expire. They occupy a minimum of space in their seasonal rooms here. They don't take up a lot of space bodily, either (they're both shorter than me), so they are able now to squeeze without much trouble, instruments and all, under a stairway, the only remaining space in the courtyard. Both are dressed, as usual, in jeans and tennis shoes, their black braids nearly waist-length. Pedro is wearing a t-shirt with a photo of Sitting Bull, which reads "Sure we can trust the government...just ask an Indian." Humberto's has a graphic of an army tank -- with underneath it the words "You Very Much." They do a really nice job on several songs that must be classics, as even I recognize a couple of tunes from the Andean music in my collection. Pedro plays Andean pipes and a flute, and does most of the vocals. When they finish one of the women calls out, asking them to please play a particular song again, as it sounded so pretty. Which they do.
Later I talk with them a while, squatting on the asphalt near the front door, while the party gets cleaned up. The two of them share a concrete parking-space marker, as if it were a park bench. Humberto is flying back to Ecuador the next day. This time they only gave him one month on his visa. Last time I think he got to stay 3 or 4 months. One of these days I have to learn more about these legal matters, and why they seem so capricious. I've probably mentioned my ever-present wish to return to Mexico in this conversation, as in so many others. Pedro asks when I think I'll visit Ecuador. Ah, me encantaría, I tell him, but so far I don't know how to come up with the funds for that kind of travel. They both smile, and Pedro says, just $800 for the plane ticket, and once you get there you won't need much to live on. Well that's really nice, I reply, but $800 is a prohibitive amount for me and most people I know. Really, I wonder how they do it. Probably staying at the center here, for one. Probably, too, living far more carefully than I've learned to. Even though (maddeningly at times) my own efforts at simplicity continue to put me in a permanent limbo between the people of this country and the people from elsewhere who I have the gift of knowing. Like these two. We talk more about imaginary travels; I say I also dream of going to India and they ask why. I try to describe how the combination of beauty and poverty draws me, and end up saying, "I just want to learn how the people with less are living in this world", well knowing how ridiculous this sounds coming from an americana, even one who lives close to the "poverty line" but saying it anyway because it's true, and from my heart. I think, from the way they smile and nod, that maybe they hear that from me. I wish Humberto "que te vaya muy bien"; Pedro wishes me luck on future travels -- including, he adds, to South America. I get a smile from both of them when I reply, "Cuando gano la lotería, quizas."
The party's winding down now. The leftovers have been carefully saved, and the dishes returned to their owners. Teresa invites me to walk with her around the corner, taking a plate to an older woman who can't get out much. On the way she greets kids, construction workers, and rumored drug dealers with the same equanimity and graciousness she shows everyone. She is without conflict in this neighborhood many in the city call "The War Zone". She is living faith, in her simplicity of life and her refusal of fear, at a level which not that many people imagine possible. And also, in the fact that she makes nothing of it. For me, she is a particular member of my chosen family: I think of her as a madrina, a godmother. Not only because she prays for me and offers me good counsel, but because her quiet force for peace, justice, and generosity show me one face of infinite divine Love.
Before I can leave, they all load me up with food, their blessings, and a few more future collaborations to dream on. And a few more lessons learned. The monotony of so many days is just making a living, stayinng housed, staying out of trouble. For me, and surely much more for the others here. This, today, was Life like it's supposed to be, something beyond all that. Shared and simple and beautiful and abundant.
