A Future Not Our Own

1.28.19

  

We woke up with a twinge of sadness, knowing that this is our last “normal” wakeup of this trip. One of the tents full of sleepers decided to take down their tent last night because it was dry and there was no guarantee it would stay that way.  We folded it up this morning and closed that chapter of our journey.  The other tent stayed dry in the night, but came down this morning in anticipation of our 4am departure from our house tomorrow.  We got a lot of our packing done, but we still have a lot of stuff to manage.  

We told the San Isidro folks not to prepare too much for lunch, so that we could bring our leftovers and eat them up.  This group has had the strangest tastes ever.  They wiped out their 500 or so Clif bars almost a week ago, but still have loads of Nutella (usually among the most precious of DIRT food items) and peanut butter and jelly.  The Ritz crackers almost lasted through the trip, as did the hot sauce.  

On the non-food front, we ran into difficulties by skimping on our Poo-pourri supply, which ran out in our last 24 hours.  We had plenty available; someone just decided not to bring it all.  This may be the end of our harmonious relations; we shall see how things go up until 4am. We did NOT run out of personal wipes, which is sometimes a near calamity, as we develop quite a dependency on them during these trips.  Megan had made clear rules about how to use them and how not to use them, which seemed to help us conserve them. We will have to remember her spiel for future trips, as it was quite effective.  

Tick Tock Tom got to yell out his time cues one more time, though he might be able to get a little more mileage out of his skills in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.  We all ate oatmeal and cleaned out the caked on pots with ease because that’s another important skill that we have picked up.  

We headed to San Isidro and hit all of our jobs with everything we had.  One set of five women got sent to mix concrete on a site we hadn’t worked yet.  The guy who had requested help said, “Women?” in Spanish and conjectured that they couldn’t do the work.  HAHAHAHAHA. That guy doesn’t know our women, or our “jobs have no gender” agreement.  Our five women truly left no stone unturned (that’s a hilarious pun for those of you who have mixed concrete before) and changed that man’s mind about what women can or should do.  

Others cleared more debris and got more families to zero.  We have worked so many houses now, we have lost count.  And the debris piles out on the edge of the road are a testament to our impact on the land of our San Isidro friends.  

At Jose’s house, we painted every single inch of the interior and exterior walls, even up into the rafters.  He had put most of the roof on the bathroom on Sunday, so he was ready to pour the floor, which meant that this group, too, was mixing concrete.  Happily, Jose had access to an electric mixer, which made that job much easier than we might have expected.  We helped him cut drain holes for the shower and toilet and then poured a floor to the height of the short side of a 2x4 while he smoothed it nearly perfectly.  Once we had poured the last bucket of concrete, it was time to go.  

That group held a little ceremony at the house with Jose, all touching the house and touching each other either by holding hands or laying a hand on a shoulder.  We all talked about our hopes and wishes for that house and we all got really choked up, even Jose.  We hugged and cried and took some pictures, then gathered up all of our water bottles and tools and walked away for the last time.  

We joined the rest of the group back at Jossie’s house for lunch, and learned that the concrete group with the five women still needed a little more time to finish its job. Whoever was ready headed out with them and the rest of us installed our second water purification system at Jossie’s house to serve the community that circulates through her common space, using it as a de facto community center.  This system, too, was donated by Karl and Mary Beutner, parents and in-laws of two DIRT vets.  

We all gathered to head away from San Isidro for the final time, so we did a little ceremony there too, all in a circle, touching some part of the gathering space and touching each other.  We expressed our best wishes for the community and all of the people we had met (and those we haven’t met, too, of course).  They talked about how long they had waited for help and how much it meant to them that finally someone had come.  We cried a bit over this farewell too, especially when Sophia and Molly provided us with some text to help us think about our experience (see below).  

We talked about the transformation we each have experienced personally at that house and we prayed together that the community would have a similar transformation that meant it was reaching its highest aspirations.  We marveled over the strength we developed there and we expressed our admiration for the strength of the community that welcomed us.  

When we left San Isidro, we did our usual huddle and cheer (“Tres, Dos, Uno, SAN ISIDRO!).  As we drove away we were pointing out houses and paint jobs and debris piles and potholes that were different now because we have been here.  

On the way home, we revisited each of our SBP houses from our first weeks here.  At each one, the primary team that had been assigned to that house led a reflection about our time here.  The first house at which we stopped currently has four of our PLs (project leaders) all in one place.  So two of our house teams got to talk the rest of us through the experience with those leaders.  Lindsay helped to guide us through the house where she worked and wished for the love and laughter that we felt and experienced there to live in the walls and the windows and the panels and the paint.  We each wished for happiness, health, and safety for the family there and we expressed our hope that generations could carry on there without suffering another disaster.  More tears fell.  And as we left, we modified our cheer to “SBP!”

At the next house, we showed where we had demolished the second house and talked about how the house had changed since we first saw it.  Related to the demolition, we acknowledged that we hadn’t actually saved the owners from ghosts or snakes by taking down that house that spooked them, but we had at least relieved their fears about what that space might hold. Our young friend Ropniel showed up and we played a quick game of basketball before hurrying back to the bus. While we were there, Viviana (the owner) called her son Giondi, who asked to talk to his “best friends,” Alex and Paul.  More tears. 

The team that had been at the third primary site had already seen their PLs, but they wanted to see the house itself one more time, so we swung by.  The homeowner Ana saw us coming down the street and started jumping up and down and waving her arms in the air.  She ran down the stairs and greeted us all.  We circled up and spoke our blessings to her and her house, including her beloved dog, Chispa.  When we left that house, we changed our cheer to “Tres, Dos, Uno, CHISPA!!”

When we got back home, we decided we had time for one more swim at the beach.  We all went.  The water was strangely more emerald than it has been and the waves were warm and welcoming, not knocking us off our feet as they sometimes do.  Even Kresha went all the way in, which was a first for her. We celebrated, this time without tears. 

People were shooting interviews and reactions for their final videos, and more tears came into play for that part too.  We have heard that there is bad weather in the mainland and that our flights might be affected.  We are fantasizing about getting stranded here . . .

But we will get all of our goodies together and behave as if we are leaving.  Wrangling all of these bags (even when we are leaving food, tents, air mattresses, and lots of paint-covered clothing behind) is a total nightmare.  But we have Megan, Lauren, and Hannah heading up the crew and everyone carrying their weight in supporting the plan.  

Speaking of Megan, we had our final Purple Bike ceremony tonight, with no surprise at all about whom we were honoring, as Megan is the only one who has not yet been celebrated individually.  But we are all constantly celebrating Megan because she has been the most essential student leader of the trip.  She began months ago being Shawny’s #1 support person and has done enormous amounts of work for all of us.  She is incredibly humble in her leadership style, just going along behind everyone picking up the pieces and keeping everything humming backstage.  She was described as a primary role model by many of the women on the trip and all of us expressed our deep admiration for her and for all she does.  Along with her great organizational strengths, she is fun and funny too!  And she can roll with whatever comes, as we saw in San Isidro the other day when one of the kids threw up on her and she just cleaned things up and kept on going.  Today Jose declared her an excellent worker and said that whoever marries her will be lucky because she will do all the work.  We imagine she’ll share the load but we definitely see why Jose was so impressed.  Thanks, Megan, for all that you are and all that you do.  

And now it is approaching midnight here and we need to get up just after 3am to start our scramble for the airport.  No one is asleep yet.  We have a long trip and will no doubt find a way to sleep on the planes (or in the Atlanta airport, where we have a long layover).  But we will be sorry to leave Puerto Rico, where we have experienced big changes in ourselves and in the communities we visited.  We will be happy to return home, but we will be thinking of the palm trees, and the sky, and the mofongo, and the concrete, and Chispa, and our friends here, and their families, and their homes.  And we hope that they will all always feel our love in the paint, the concrete, and the debris piles . . .

We hope to see you on February 20 at 7pm when we will show some of our final videos.  We will clean up our pictures and missing daily videos sooner than that.  Thanks for following us and supporting us throughout our time here!

Here’s the text that Sophia and Molly used to help us think about our role here; it’s a portion of a prayer called “Prophets of a Future Not Our Own,” credited to the late Oscar Romero, a priest from El Salvador:

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.