Poco a Poco

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

And the masses were right when they told me that Trini is the heart and soul of this organization.  Of all the wisdoms whispered to me on that thatch bench overlooking endless rows of Maize glistening in the sunlight, he repeated a memorable phrase that has come to define my first week here: poco a poco.  I have been bursting at the seams with an overload of new things: new language, new city, new friends, new food, new work, new cultures, new sleeping patterns and new challenges.  No matter how well I thought I prepared for this step in my life, all these new things require new commitments. In order to rise to the occasion of this endeavor I have desired for so long, I must take these things poco a poco. Little by little, I must cultivate a spirit of patience, humility and dedication.

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.”