Feeding the hungry, Day 316 (Guatemala story)

I was summoned to the kitchen just before the end of our production. This was the moment I had waited for all day. There were about five Mayan women in a small concrete building with very odd cooking utilities that I’d never seen and cannot even begin to describe. They chattered away in their clicky Quiche. Ron introduced me and the two others who’d been pulled away to help. The women clearly had everything under control and we were interrupting their routine. They smiled politely and shook our hands. With motions and pointing they indicated what we could do to help. We had to take the plates of food from the kitchen to the assembly of tables where the people would line up to receive them. The food consisted of one scoop of rice with vegetables and two tiny tamales. Each person would receive one plate and a cup of coffee. I wondered how this small bit of food was even a charity. I’d seen the fruit and snacks the kids consumed upon leaving school. This bit of food was nothing in comparison.

In the blink of an eye there was a huddle of hungry people on the other side of my table. I handed each woman and child a plate, and each said “gracias” to me. I didn’t need to be there at all. Each person could have easily grabbed their own plate from the table without me handing it to them. I was simply an extra piece to the puzzle. The people were still timid and skeptical but their eyes shone of gratitude. Effortlessly I’d smile the most genuine smile I’ve ever mustered and despite the tremendous barrier between those beautiful Mayan people and myself, there in a totally foreign world, I loved each one. I handed a small plate of food with an enormous amount of love wrapped in a gentle smile to every single person who walked through that line. Ever so quickly the plates on the table began disappearing. Families ate together at the outdoor café of tables. People sat eating on the stone stairway leading away from the café. The place was packed full of people who’d come for, and were now dining on the free food. I still wondered at their desire for this small bit of nourishment. I imagined surely they must easily have access to more food than this.

Everyone was fed. We still attempted to be friendly, invoking simple conversations with every bit of Spanish we owned. The high fives continued, a bit more enthusiastically now that everyone had eaten. The strong bashful taps from young boys led to lively games of chase. As people began to leave I noticed little plastic bags being pulled out from their blankets. They had eaten half of their food and then scraped the other half into the small bags. The little bit of food I’d scrutinized was split in half to be saved for later, or brought home to a father or other family member. A regular meal for me would consist of three times that much food. These people had walked miles and miles for this meal; one they partook of twice a week, and they didn’t even eat everything in this one sitting. I was shocked.

That evening our team gathered around the fireplace in the living room at Ron’s house. We had stomachs filled with hot food from the delicious evening’s dinner. We’d taken our hot showers and cleansed ourselves from the dust coating. We were all snuggly in our pajamas and comfy clothing. We discussed the day. Each of us told the story of a child we’d befriended and the revelations of our first day in the mountains of Guatemala. We discussed the poverty, the filth, and all of the shocking sights we’d seen. At the time I’d thought nothing of the way we discussed the day’s events, as if we’d viewed a freak show. There we sat in Ron’s beautiful home marveling at the spectacles, while right outside the green gate the very people we went on about slept in the streets, in the dust, and huddled together in their tiny one room huts on the dirt floors. At the time I’d have never thought that we might have been the ones lacking something.