Happy Birthday, Nils!

1.27.19

It’s Nils’ birthday! It started with a beautiful sunny day, which we haven’t seen early in the morning for quite awhile. We actually got some dry house towels off the line yesterday, so we were off to a good start.  We got to sleep in past 8:30 today (woo hoo!) and then eat pancakes started by Jesse and Shawny.  The breakfast team eventually picked up the job, especially the sticky cleanup.  We were on high efficiency mode through breakfast, because we had a special appointment this morning: we had an invitation from the Mayor of Loiza to visit one of their cultural sites, so we loaded up and headed to Parque de la Cruz.  

At the park, we first had a demonstration of the traditional headscarf that is worn here, which is considered a form of a turban.  The uses of them are based in African, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures. For men, the scarf is worn pretty much like a headband, while for women, there are a few different ways to wear them, all of which help to manage unruly hair and also communicate specific messages.  The directionality of the knot can communicate that a woman is single, widowed, coupled, or just plain friendly.  

We then visited a small Loiza-focused art gallery, which had quite a few pieces by our artist friend Samuel Lind.  There were also a few pieces by his cousin Daniel, with whom we were not yet acquainted. We learned about the special characters that are related to Loiza folklore, including the villain, the hero, the crazy woman (sadly, there is no non-crazy woman), and the saint.  There are specific images that go with each of these characters and we learned pretty quickly how to recognize them in the mix of visual images in different art pieces.  

We then learned about bomba, the local dance form that we saw on the beach a couple of weeks ago. In bomba, the drummers follow the dancers rather than the other way around.  There are some steps that each dancer is supposed to know, but there can be a lot of improvisation too.  We learned our steps and practiced with each other, even playing the drums ourselves at times. 

We moved on from bomba to a rock formation that they called a cave.  It wasn’t underground or anything, but the limestone formed a big curved arch that we could walk into/under.  There were bees that had established hives overhead and one wall of the rock seemed to have the image of a face in it.  

The park staff served us lunch and then we headed to a beach in a town called Fajardo. It was on a huge curved cove in the sea that helped to break the waves.  We floated in the unusually salty water and sunned ourselves on the coarse sand.  Some of us walked the beach but none of us ventured terribly far.  As dusk began to fall, we realized that we had to go home to the first of two big packing pushes.  We lingered a bit when we should have been leaving, but we just couldn’t tear ourselves away.  We took a million pictures and even flew our drone a bit to capture this last lovely afternoon of momentary leisure. 

We came home and added two new purple bikers: Molly and Sophia.  Molly is completely warm and happy, always willing and able to do the job that needs to be done (even if it involves tarantulas), full of love and happiness, easy to get along with, wise in her observations, and positive in her perspectives.  We have never seen her mad at anybody ever and we have never really detected that she is even annoyed with anyone (which is an easy state to reach based on our living situation).  She just really genuinely accepts each of us the way we are and values whatever that may be. Wow. 

As for Sophia, she exudes transcendent levels of pure joy.  She glories in the beauty of the mundane and sees every experience as a complete privilege that she should cherish.  She is truly happy to do the job – whatever it is – to the fullest extent that she is capable.  She shines a bright light on whatever context she enters just by being the person that she is: warm, loving, giving, hopeful, helpful, eager, and insightful. And she brought and played her ukulele!  Jesse pointed out that every once in a while, a newcomer comes along that just seems like they were destined to be a DIRTy.  Sophia is one of those people.  Lucky, lucky us!

We had one more celebration to hold tonight: the continuation of our enjoyment of Nils’ birthday.  He had mentioned casually today that he isn’t really into cake but likes ice cream cake. We had seen an ice cream store that sold cakes in the first place that we ever ate once we arrived, so Jesse and Jessica made a beeline from the beach to that place and sneaked in a chocolate ice cream cake for Nils.  Before we cut into it, Nils expressed his utter happiness at being in Puerto Rico and especially about being here with all of us.  We say, “right back atcha.”  Happy birthday, Nils!