Day 13

In the morning, made a short visit to the Paraiso primary school, another neighbor to the Sonadores' home school that we try to stay connected with every year, able to offer little more than our presence and good will. And today, a big bag of marbles. We passed them out and asked the kids to show us how to play, Nica rules.  

As we looked around and flicked the little glass balls, the head teacher told us they could use help paving the driveway into the school. We know that will be difficult with our already strained resources. We also know that some cement is just the beginning of what it would take, and what it's currently impossible for us to even think about providing, to make any meaningful difference here. Felt some impotence. Held the realization that it's folly to think we ever fix anything, at this school, in Chacraseca, back home, in the everyday struggles of just being a human being. I looked at the mural we painted two years ago with its hopeful rainbow, vibrant as ever.  

We kept shooting those marbles. We played. I gained some small satisfaction from the small satisfaction the kids seemed to gain from knocking their marbles around, kinetic energy transfering with a clean click from one to another. Later, we went to Leon to join in the town's celebration honoring the Virgin Mary, and even though we were greeted with a downpour that soaked us and then kept us huddled together by the side of a building, the night had a lot of fun to offer.  

Learning to allow room for celebration and play, even in difficult circumstances; to be humble about what we're really doing; to live with rather than in pain; to seek refuge in simple things like one moment in which two people share their compassion.  

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