I watched Anita march her fair-skinned, ruby-haired
self into that kitchen with confidence and open arms. As flies buzzed hungrily over the rusted pot
of gallo pinto, billowing smoke enveloped this small outdoor cooking fest
resembling a campfire more than a kitchen, Anita didn’t flinch. There is something instilled in your fellow
human when you approach them with unconditional positive regard. Something is instilled in these women every
time Anita travels to these communities as something far from a gringa or an foreign aid worker. She enters like an old friend ready to share
laughter and spoons, tickle babies and taunt little brothers, and dig her hands
right into the masa with which we
will be making the day’s tortillas. 
Me? I was
scared. I was intimidated both by the
power of my colleague’s “work” and by the intensity of the Guatemalan women
surrounding me. My brain fatigued on
Spanish failures struggled to express a single sentence. My heart fatigued on an explosion of
philosophical questions of human dignity struggled to control its
emotions. My well-oiled machine of pride
told me to be strong and feign confidence and professionalism. But questions
flooded in to that private space about my right to be here, sitting on this mud
floor trying to connect with this corner of the great Universe. This is different than all of my past
internships or volunteer experiences – this is my job now. I should be doing
something, I should be speaking better Spanish, I should be funnier, smarter,
better with the women, more educated on nutrition, more comfortable with eating
beans out of a rusted bowl… Within two hours of reaching my first community
visit of my first real development job, I was in full break-down mode with
passionate pangs of self-loathing insecurities.
But break-downs are necessary and welcomed in the
world of change. Break-downs bring
revolutions. Trini, our Guatemalan
Agronomist, was fortuitously placed in my path that afternoon to hold my hand,
ease my pain, and whisk my worries away.
It seems my pride had somehow forgotten that this was in fact my first day of my first week in a collision of incredible amounts of change in my
life. I guess people are right when they say I’m hard on myself.
 |
| Trinidad Recinos, the heart and sould of Semilla Nueva |
Over the next few days in the field, Trini
illuminated the spirit of the work of Semilla Nueva, transforming a simple
categorization of agricultural development into a dynamic interplay of
community, relationships, trust, open minds and open hearts, equal exchanges
and mutual development. The beautiful Spanish phrases that so
eloquently and liberally roll of the tongue of this man are incredible. He expressed confidence in my “clean heart”
and belief in my ability to be that confident, loving, smart, funny gringa comfortably working with women in
the kitchen someday; it will just be poco
a poco. He finished with a phrase I scribbled on the back of a bus ticket
as the truck navigated the terrifying terrain of potholes along the highway –
luckily, it came out legible:
“Mantenga
expectivas buenas cada dia; No pierda la illusion. Cada dia trae cosas nuevas. Cada dia sembramos una Semilla nueva”
“Keep good expectations every day. Don’t lose the illusion. Every day, brings new things. Every day, we grow a New Seed.”
