end of part one
End of part one.
Do toes have knuckles? Her toe knuckles are grey and shiny, like the edges of angles of the stone in Inca walls. She wears flips flops because it is summer, I believe. Her name is C. of ten years old. I hope her teeth straighten as she grows. Wonderfully real, and consistent, she is always in the background. Never having asked for much, but always giving, she inspires me to begin writing again.
I have completed 6 months of "service." End of part one.
Last night I commented: I've done this all wrong. Like a fool, at every turn I believed myself to be right. But after reading Ulysses, I've realized things change. What once was dense but knowable is clear and ultimately unknowable.
To "develop" others, as I believed development work to be, is shoddy enterprise. A career ought not be made of it. Like a fool, I've only realized now that I am here to be developed, to learn from my other, and to cook, under low heat, and slowly, the soup that is the broth of us both. Only then, can I achieve what I hope; a taste I cannot yet describe.
There is a picture stored in bits somewhere on this blog. It contains Elkin, Nemias, Jon and perhaps somebody else. If anybody, it is me, the picture taker. The children, these "poor" children are searching for a lost spinning top among a pile of garbage that is to the left, not the right, of the Lois y Thomas, our home. I keep coming back to this image, sometimes seeing it as black, others as white, and sometimes as grey. Is this an "Area of Moral Clarity" reader? Children looking for their lost and spinning top in a pile of trash.
I wondered then and sometimes now: ¿porqué? Why must it be so?
The simple answer is lack of trash cans and trash removal service. The old me had gathered troops from the richer, if not cleaner, parts of Lima to join hands with the community and "clean-up." The new me, six months older than the old, still has some of the old in him. But, will this be a solution satisfactory of the new year? I am leaning towards a "no."
This work has kicked my ass. I have been humbled. I have been angered. Yet, importantly, I have realized one thing: this is not about me.
Beginning of part two.
Do toes have knuckles? Her toe knuckles are grey and shiny, like the edges of angles of the stone in Inca walls. She wears flips flops because it is summer, I believe. Her name is C. of ten years old. I hope her teeth straighten as she grows. Wonderfully real, and consistent, she is always in the background. Never having asked for much, but always giving, she inspires me to begin writing again.
I have completed 6 months of "service." End of part one.
Last night I commented: I've done this all wrong. Like a fool, at every turn I believed myself to be right. But after reading Ulysses, I've realized things change. What once was dense but knowable is clear and ultimately unknowable.
To "develop" others, as I believed development work to be, is shoddy enterprise. A career ought not be made of it. Like a fool, I've only realized now that I am here to be developed, to learn from my other, and to cook, under low heat, and slowly, the soup that is the broth of us both. Only then, can I achieve what I hope; a taste I cannot yet describe.
There is a picture stored in bits somewhere on this blog. It contains Elkin, Nemias, Jon and perhaps somebody else. If anybody, it is me, the picture taker. The children, these "poor" children are searching for a lost spinning top among a pile of garbage that is to the left, not the right, of the Lois y Thomas, our home. I keep coming back to this image, sometimes seeing it as black, others as white, and sometimes as grey. Is this an "Area of Moral Clarity" reader? Children looking for their lost and spinning top in a pile of trash.
I wondered then and sometimes now: ¿porqué? Why must it be so?
The simple answer is lack of trash cans and trash removal service. The old me had gathered troops from the richer, if not cleaner, parts of Lima to join hands with the community and "clean-up." The new me, six months older than the old, still has some of the old in him. But, will this be a solution satisfactory of the new year? I am leaning towards a "no."
This work has kicked my ass. I have been humbled. I have been angered. Yet, importantly, I have realized one thing: this is not about me.
Beginning of part two.
posted by Carlos at 8:34 PM
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