Living in the shade of an infected citrus tree.

What is written here is a fleeting glimpse of an impossibly intricate tapestry of life which will take me years to adapt to and many more to grasp. However, sometimes I am witness to a moment, which gracefully ties together these loose strings into a veritable knot of understanding; by no means Gordian. Today, after returning to my host family's house from an afternoon spent cleaning a garden and seed bed, I sat down to dinner. The plate placed before me was of rice topped with a single well done egg. As I thankfully and quietly put down the food I noticed a slight shuffle and whisper amongst the 15 or so people present. My attention was raised from my plate to the humbling presence approaching. The boss of the house, the oldest and wisest male, the yucca-winner, was returning from harvest. Senior Timoteo arrived at dusk on horse back. The horse, the beast of burden, is a weathered mix breed, a son of a gun. It has carried two generations of Timoteos family to harvest and back. On either side of the horse, who has no other known name, are the fruits and vegetables of today's harvest; a sack of platano on the left, a sack of corn on the right. The man appears shrunken atop the beast. He looks like a simple gust of wind over the peak of a great mountain. I think to myself, as he approaches, that this must be a shining moment for Timoteo amidst his heartbreaking poverty. A man, returning from his encarceration to the land with several months worth of backbreaking labor packed into two sacks on his downtrodden horse. This food will not last more than a week for it must feed 10 people three times a day. However, this man is triumphant upon return, for he has once again defeated the deamon of powerlessness, the haunting presence of poverty that pounds at his shoulders has been lifted, if only for a few twilight hours. Yet, he also returns defeated in his struggle to tame the steep and perilous land. For his corn is small again this year, and the platano's are not yet ripe; and in the back of this poor farmers mind is the gnawing knowledge that his saving grace, his cash crop, is infected with a fungus, which he is unable to rid. Another years citrus crop must be sacrificed to the gods of fate; a peakless, troughless, horizonless fate of undereducation and resourcelessness. Still, he proudly rides atop his chariot of poverty, past the children who greet him as peasants do kings. abruptly stopping play and parting to make way for the majesty of perserverence and his beast. He strides through the open air, dirt floor house, past the dinner table where I am frozen in a thoughtful gaze, a spoonfull of his rice teetering on my spoon, as I make eye contact with humbleness. His solemn and silent presence halt all conversation, play and work. He has returned. Glory and gloom belong to this poor man who brings home the harvest.