I Cannot Cover the World with Leather, but I Can Transform My Heart

As we walk through the villages and streets of Antigua and the surrounding towns, we give money and clothes and buy food and supplies for everyone we can. Samy correctly observed that the more we give, the more poor people there seem to be. How can we help everyone? I told her about this beautiful teaching by Master Shantideva, from the "Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life:"

Chapter 5 v13
Where would I possibly find enough leather
With which to cover the surface of the earth?
But wearing leather just on the soles of my shoes
Is equivalent to covering the earth with it.

Chapter 5 v14
Likewise it is not possible for me
To restrain the external course of things;
But should I restrain this mind of mine
What would be the need to restrain all else?

It is not possible to help every person in need here in Guatemala or in the rest of the world. What we can do is transform our hearts to love every single being the way we love our parents and children; to not only wish them happiness and freedom from suffering but to do as much as we can, individually and collectively, to make that happen. Only by transforming our hearts can we transform the world around us.

Gifts That Keep Giving

I love how things just fall into place here in Guatemala. During our visit to San Antonio des Aguas Calientes, the grandmother -- Abuella -- heard we were going the next day to Santa Maria de Jesus and said she wanted to come too. We assumed she knew people in SMDJ, and wanted to visit. We arranged that she would meet us in the Parque Central -- the central square of Antigua.

At noon on Sunday, we drove up to the central square, and sure enough, there she was. In the winding car ride up Volcan Agua, it turned out that she didn't know anyone in SMDJ. But she had never been in a car before (she's 61) and wanted to get out for the day! Then, as we drove up, the driver asked us if we knew how to get to either Edgar's or our other family's house. We didn't, but had faith that somehow it would work out. As we rounded the turn from the mountainside into SMDJ, there was Edgar, leaning against a concrete post, waiting for us with his bicycle, wearing his Gas Lamp Players' "Show Me The Beast" t-shirt! And we followed him to his family's house.

It is hard to explain the deprivation in which Edgar's family lives. Edgar's mother is nursing her 11th child, who is only 3 months younger than Edgar's baby, and our godson, Elmer. Edgar has two older sisters who are married and live nearby with their husbands; the other 8 children are 14 and under. For a while, the entire family was homeless because Edgar's father had a drinking problem and stopped working. But he stopped and now works seasonally on a coffee plantation picking and sorting beans, for which he makes $4 a day. Off season, he tries to find construction work at $2 - $3 a day.

Edgar supports his wife and son, and supplements his father's income with his work for "From Houses to Homes," (FHTH) for which he is immensely grateful. He and his parents each live in homes built by FHTH and the other children sleep in a cornstalk shack between the two cinderblock houses. The families have two "kitchens" -- cornstalk enclosures with a fire inside. They all share one outhouse -- a hole in the ground with a bottomless toilet on top of it. The compound is enclosed by cornstalk "walls," and, except for the concrete floors of the FHTH homes, the "floors" are dirt. It is incredibly dusty. All of the children are covered with layers of grime that they wash off with rainwater collected in big drums.

Edgar's younger siblings' shoes are worn and cracked. One of the pairs of sneakers that we brought (thank you Annie Bayne) fit his youngest brother and you can not imagine how excited he was to receive them. When we were leaving, kids from the neighboring alleys came running up to admire them, getting down on their knees in the dirt to trace their fingers over them. And Edgar's brother was as proud of them as Dorothy her ruby slippers. It was that exciting.

On Saturdays, Edgar supplements his FHTH income with other construction work or coffee bean sorting. On Sundays, he rests and also tries to learn English. He proudly showed us a tape he is using to teach himself. I noticed that his English is much improved since we were here in February. None of Edgar's siblings go to school -- the family simply can't afford the meager school supplies that Guatemalan children are expected to provide for themselves. But Edgar is determined that his son's life will be different. And so it shall.

After visiting for about 1/2 hour, we went to see our "first family" we built for last February -- Flore, Tomas, Blanca, little Tomas and Jessica. They are well, and I am happy to say that the 3 chickens we bought last time we were here have not been consumed! They are each sitting on 10 eggs apiece, which will bring a nice income to the family.

Throughout or visit, Abuella kept a keen eye on all that was going on. It seemed perfectly natural to everyone that our "grandmother" from another family would be visiting our other families. When we brought her back home at the end of the day, she bestowed many blessings upon us. She is quite a woman -- I think that with education, there would have been no stopping her.

Happiness is a Goat

Today we visited our family in San Antonio des Aguas Calientes. Getting there was an adventure, as neither we nor our driver had an address. Our family lives on a plot of land carved into the side of the mountains surrounding the village; they don't get mail, and there is no name to their "street," such as it is. But we drove into San Antonio with hope. As we circled the streets, we saw the bright blue house that we helped build shining from afar in the sun like a beacon. As we got as near to it as we could, we recognized the street that accesses the alleys leading up the mountain. There were two women who had just finished washing their clothes in the local well, and we asked them which alley led to Florinda and Blanca's house. In Spanish, they exclaimed - look! it is the family of Samantha! And so we found our way.

It was a joyous reunion, with many hugs and squeezes. We sat in the house that we built, the 9 member family on the bed and floor, and Mariel, Samy and I on plastic chairs reserved for special guests. We gave away clothing and books and toys, and then Blanca (the oldest sister) brought in a baby goat on a rope. With money we had given them on our last visit, they had bought cow and a goat which had just had a baby. So there is milk for everyone and the possibility of income if they sell the baby goat. There was much happiness.

They invited us to stay and make a meal together. It is not easy to sit in the little kitchen -- a separate cornstalk shack in which they make a fire. The smoke is unbearable. Blanca made tortillas, and she, her mom and Abuella had a good laugh watching Samy and me try to make tortillas. It's not as easy at you would think, to roll the dough into a ball and toss it from one hand to the other to flatten it out! Everyone in the family helped make the meal -- the men kept bringing more wood for the fire; the oldest son tended the flames; the younger girls picked limes from the family tree for the marinades; and the 13 year old watched the two little ones. We truly felt like part of the family.

They rolled out a straw mat for us to sit on, and we ate our meal on the floor in the blue house. Churasco, guacamole, tomato sauce, a cucumber salad, and of course, lots of tortillas! It was delicious, and they were very gracious about my foregoing the churasco -- more for everyone else. As we sat with them, I thought about how Mariel and Samy are having some interesting experiences of the world. They are seeing that happiness can be as simple as having a goat.

Find An Angel

Arrived safely in Guatemala after a long day of traveling. I am so proud of my two girls - waking up at 4:15 AM and navigating through changing planes in Miami, customs in Guatemala, baggage claim and the 45 minute ride to Antigua with no complaints. Especially Samy, who has been sick all week and still has a hacking cough -- she pulled her suitcase, kept up with Mariel and me, and was a real trooper. I wonder what people thought, looking us, each with an individual rolling suitcase and backpack, plus 4 huge suitcases. I kept feeling the need to explain that we were bringing things for the poor, lest people think we were "over packers." The girls feel asleep during the ride to Antigua. I have a sweet picture of them nestled together in the back seat of the van, their arms intertwined and their heads facing each other like a ying/yang symbol. (I will post it later.) They woke up as we hit the cobblestones of the Antigua streets, and we were all smiles at the sight of the brightly painted buildings and familiar streets of our home away from home.

We are staying in "Hotel Antigua," which I recommend to anyone coming to do service work here. It is beautiful and simple, yet feels so luxurious. Our room is in the annex, which has a lap pool. After arriving we had our own private swim as there doesn't appear to be anyone else staying in the annex -- at least for now.

At 5:30PM, we made our way through the cobbled streets of Antigua to the office of From Houses to Homes, "FHTH." Mariel and I took turns pulling the enormous suitcase that Liz Contreras donated to us, filled with some of the amazing donations you have given. Earlier, I had separated out all the donations into four groups -- for the FHTH workers and their families, our San Antonio des Aguas Calientes family, and our two Santa Maria de Jesus families. Shortly after we reached the office, the trucks with the workers arrived -- all the men we have come to know and love in our times here -- Hector, Tomas, Louis, Esa, Mickey, and the others whose names I don't really know, and of course, Edgar. It felt like a holiday as we opened the suitcase and the guys separated out the stuff. So thank you to everyone who sent clothing with us. It was very, very appreciated!

We went to dinner afterwards with Joe Collins, director of FHTH, and Edgar. Joe told us all about the new school FHTH is building in Santa Maria de Jesus (SMJ), and the other great work the organization is doing. It is very inspiring to see the life Joe has chosen to lead. He has left behind the life he knew in NJ, and lives in Guatemala now. His life is very simple -- all of his time is devoted to serving the poor here. He has some friends who he meets at the Parque Central on Saturday and Sunday mornings, but otherwise his life is devoted to serving as many people as he can through FHTH.

We had a very tearful moment when Edgar spoke of how hard he is working to help his family. Speaking to Mariel in Spanish, he told us how he used to make 25Q ($4) a 14-hour day farming in SMJ and how grateful he is for his job with FHTH; how grateful he is that we come back to Guatemala; that we agreed to be his son's godparents; that we send support and come to visit; that we have changed his life and the lives of his family. We were all very moved.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that there are two basic routes to happiness. One is through material comfort and material pleasure. This, however, is not a guaranteed route - there are many people who have all or more than they need and are not happy. Look at our country -- people live in comfort unimaginable to most of the world and yet have all sorts of emotional maladies and discontent. Another route is through mental comfort -- there are many people who have very little in the way of material possessions who are nevertheless content and joyful. And yet, if someone is so lacking in material comforts that they are hungry and sick, it will be hard to be content, no matter how peaceful the mind. The challenge is to find the balance; to know that material comforts alone will not bring happiness without mental comfort. And that is the lesson I keep learning in Guatemala. I see people around me with so little, and yet with love and joy in their hearts. So as much as Edgar was thanking us, I was thanking him, although he doesn't understand why.

I am grateful to have found angels who are giving me and my family the opportunity to feel like angels. I urge everyone to seek out those people -- people who give you the opportunity to help them and the opportunity to feel like you are making the world a better place. We may think we are here to help them, but really, they are here to help us.

Namaste