Bob Marley in South America

I watched Bob Marley smoke dope all day.

Andy and I have a small old kitchen with only a small sink off of our bedroom. There is a large open doorway covererd by a Bob Marley tapestery, a remanent of a previous occupant. A profile of Bob Marley smoking a joint is on the middle surrounded by a circle of lions, a circle of pot leaves and finally by a ring of fire. Colorful and vibrant the red, yellow and green were a masterpiece in its own time, I am sure.

With the kitchen window open, the wind currents suck the tapestery in hard into the open doorway, and then exhale the tapestery gently letting it go limp and sailing through the doorway across the foot of my bed. In this way, I focus on Marley and watch as the tapestery is pulled tight and imagine him suckig in on his joint, holding it....and then exhaling as the tapestery blows back out. Marley would be proud, inhaling and exhaling his inextinguishable joint throught the winds of time.

I watched Marley smoke because I was sick in bed and for the better part of the day this was my entertainment. I started getting stomach cramps yesterday during the day and last night. I thought they had subsided, but at 1:00am they returned with a vengeanace and kept me up the rest of the night. I got out of bed at 6:30am that morning partly because I couldn´t sleep anyway, and partly because I had a mission. The president of our organization, a very intelligent man in the ways of agriculture, has had his son come to stay at the farm. "Juanito" is a twenty-year-old highschool dropout who has been living wiht his grandma for the last few years. His idea of a haircut is a mowhawk mullet, his idea of a suitable accessory around all the children on the farm is a lit cigarette, and his idea of hygeine is not to shower or change clothes. His idea of work is to show up late, start something with the rest of us and quickly abandon the activity to walk aimlessly on the farm. While this behavior may be tolerated on the farm because his dad is "el jefe", living in a communal house sharing responsiblitleies, this cannot be tolerated. Juanito had already bailed on a previous supper responsibilty he was supposed to be helping make dinner and instead decided to hide in his room and not come out until dinner was almost ready.

Juanito was on breakfast duty this morning, a one person job, but since he had just not shown up for the cooking duty the previous night and there had been no consequences, I was interested to see how this would turn out. He had also infromed us that he had always had a maid at his house that did the cooking. So he didn´t know how to cook or have any interest in learning. At 6:20am, the usual breakfast prep time, Andy and I discussed the options. There was the "let him crash and burn" mentality of everyone showing up at 7:00am without breakfast and making it ourselves. However, there were two arguments to this: he had not helped at all on his previous responsibilty and nothing had happened and I do not think he minded not doing anything or helping out. For the second argument, I thought to my high school kids. As long as they have the excuse, "I don´t know how." They are happy to sit there and do nothing, but as soon as you sit with them and explain it and make them do it, they can never use that excuse again.

I settled on this and decided to intervene. I went and knocked hard on his bedroom door at 6:35. "Juan are you ready to cook breakfast?" I say in Spanish. I woke him up, obviously, and have to go back one more time in the passing minutes to knock again and make sure he is coming. For the next half hour, I give him instructions on how to start a gas burner, how to make oatmeal and how to heat milk. At the end of the thirty minutes, breakfast was ready and he had made it. I would be lying if I said it went smoothly. This is a developing country so there are always unseen obstacles--as I am doubling over during the cooking lesson because of stomach cramps, Juan has run outside once because he thought he was going to throw-up (he didn´t), the propane runs out on the stove and we must halt everything to find another propane can. Iit was as successful as could be expected.

I myself could only muster hot water for breakfast, but decide to brave the day because Josefina is giving a medicinal plant talk. We head off--I´m taking notes, Andy is taking pictures. About thirty minutes into the talk we are in a field below the Foundation, I realize what a poor choice it was not to eat breakfast even if my stomach was hurting. I tend to "bonk" as Andy and I call it, which is a much more fun way to say I get nauseous and pass out. Right at this moment I am standing in a field in direct warm sunlight in big yellow boots, long sleeve pants, long sleeve shirt, a bandana around my neck, a big sunhat on my head because any exposed skin at this altitude (8500ft) on the equator tends to burn instantly. With all the clothes, lack of food, stomach cramping and warm sun, it was a recipe for disaster. At times like these there are two thoughts in my head 1) How can I get to my bed as quickly as possible? 2) Why is my bed always so far away?

Josefina notices something is wrong and I tell her I need to go back to the house. Andy comes with me and before we get to the edge of the field to crawl under the barbed wire fence (really, barbed wire, could this get any worse?) I realize I am about to lose it, so I lay in the grass in the shade. Within seconds, Josefina is beside me. In my life I have met very few people, two to be exact, that can come into a situation and take complete control while immediately putting you at ease. One is my aunt Rosa, and the other is Josefina. Both women dispense remedies, recipes and sound advice like it is their paying job, and both do so with such intense sincerity and concern that you fully trust them immediately. I had witnessed Josefina´s whole concern for all living things throughout the morning. She showed us the brand new baby rabbits. She had picked one up and held it for us to see and feel. Before setting it down in the nest, she kissed its little head. As we passed cows in the pasture, she would gently stroke them. So when she kneeled down beside me, and took my hand and wrist in her hand to check my pulse, I had no reservations that I too was in good hands. I don´t know what it is about these women that exudes such confidence. Maybe becasue the knowledge they are passing down didn´t come from books, but from their parents and their grandparents and great-grandparents, so it sin´t so much knowledge they remember specifically learning, it is more like something they´ve alwyas known, passed down as much through their bloodline as through their psyche. An innate ability to care for others and put them at ease.

Josefina imediatley starts to ask me questions, "when was my last menstrual cycle, could I be pregnant?" To which I can emphatically say NO. I tell her about my symptoms, she tells me about my pulse. When I am feeling well enough to walk back, she tells me she will make me a tea after her lesson. I return to the house with Andy and promptly climb into the bed feeling very lucky to know Josefina. But no matter how fortuante we are for knowing her there are far more lucky ones in Josefina´s life.

Ecuador provides the U.S. with about one third of thier rose production. So when you bought roses for Valentines Day, one out of every three you saw were shipped from Ecuador. There are so many flower companies here that from up above it looks like the valley floor is blanketed in plastic from the greenhouses. Conditions are not good in the industries becasue of the heavy amount of chemicals (pesticides and herbicides) sprayed on the plants. The workers work forty hours a week and at the end of the month, they recieve $250. During the first of the year, to prepare for Valentine´s Day, they will work six-seven days a week and for each hour of overtime, they will recieve fifty cents. Many people have heath problems because of the chemicals: lots of birth defects in babies, women not being able to have children and even some mental problems. Josefina worked at the flower companies for more than ten years. She had one bably, but for reasons I am not entirely sure of he died at about six months of age. Years went by and Josefina and her husband became proponants and teachers of organic agriculture in their community, and they started a bread business, but were never able to have children.

One morning when her husband was out delivering bread, he found a bably on the doorstep of a house. He took the baby and called the police. The mother was found, but did not want the child. So, Josefina and her husband have since adopted the child. Now on the minimal salaries they bring home, they manage to send four-year-old Milagros (Miracle), to private school where she is learning multiple languages.

After lunch, Andy brings me the tea Josefina has made for me. Before long Josefina has come to check on me. Immediatley she surveys the surroundings, "this room is too cold." She then surveys my blankets and sleeping sack, they must have passed inspection because nothing was said. "There are twenty herbs in the tea," she tells me and instructs me how to drink it. It tastes of thyme, lime and very floral. I also have some juice she made for lunch with tomatoes, carrots, alfa-alfa and celery. She chats and invites us to her house that weekend and leaves. I learn later from Dana that Josefina still thinks the real reason I am sick is because I am pregnant (I AM NOT), so as I drink the tea that does soothe my stomach, I wonder how many herbs are for my upset stomach and how many are the pre-natal herbs she has probably slipped in.