Incounters

Incounters

The sky is almost always cloudless  in the mornings and as the day progresses it warms and to being hot and almost always the clouds form their welcome shade around noon.  The roads are dirt and when the local buses (which are old school buses from the states-- standard Blue bird) pass they kick up the dust and for a moment we hold our breath.  The wonderful thing about these buses is they are richly painted in numerous colors hiding the old Yellow and black and the RE number of its forgotten past.  
In between them is normally vast stretches of quiet and the people walking along the road.  He approaches walking towards me and i am taken back by his form.  His whole face is a massive seeming lump of flesh and all distinction of facial features are gone.  It is some kind of Elephantitus I think and try not to stare.  Then he speaks in a very pleasant voice and gives me the greeting of the day "Buenos Tardes"  And in that moment i cannot know if he is smiling but his voice says he is.  I return the greeting gladly and we move on.  Accept and surrender displayed in the most amazing way and it fills me in a way he will never know. 

It is market day in the square.  Every town has one a small plaza referred to as the parkee,  it is usually hemmed in on one side by the Catholic Church and one side by the municiple building and the remainder by tiendas and such.  The whole area is filled with booths  selling everything you can imagine  and it is noisy and congested.  Thru it parade (and I say parade because evan tho people are used to horses they are not used to grey bearded gringo cowboys riding with pack horses)  Glenn and i.  i personally do not like the attention being an observer by choice.  We find a place to tie our animals up and i return to shop for some carrots for the girls and maybe a liquado.  I stop and kneel down where an old woman is selling vegetables.  She looks at me with a sparkle in her eye and asks me where i am going.  i think for a moment and reply  "con el viento"  She grins and reveals her many golden teeth and we connect.  She tells all her neighbors and they all grin and nod in approval. 

The sun is at its highest and we are working our way up a hill in the heat.   Someone is yelling to us and I turn to see a man running after us.   i stop Genee and he comes up panting and tells me to come look at a beautifull place and makes the motion of swimming.  i call to Glenn and he stops while i explain what the man wants.  Glenn is not interested and i tell the man so but he seems adament.  i want to see it so Glenn graciously turns around and we follow him to a side road and in a few moments we are at his small resort he is constructing out of old used tires.  He has by hand carved out the side of the hill using tires for retaining walls and has dug a swimming hole fed by a spring down a man made waterfall.  He is working on a deeper pool and he invites us to take a swim.   I strip down and the water is cold but invigorating.  It is a little green but clean.  He tells me he has been working for 8 years to date on it.  Some day it will be a fine resort and I explain he is very intelligent to make such good use of the old tires.  He is happy.  

rl