Pecha Kucha Invitation

Playing with Children in Mexico is the title of our Pecha Kucha program to be presented November 9 from 7 to 9 PM at the Riverview Cafe in downtown Brattleboro, Vermont. The event is free and open to the public.

What is Pecha Kucha? (It is pronounced pe-chá ku-chá.) Good question. A friend recently explained that it is like adult show-and-tell and then recruited us to participate. There will be ten presentations each consisting of twenty slides shown for twenty seconds each for a total of just over six and a half minutes. It's a chance to see and hear a little bit about a lot of topics, expand your mind, meet folks with similar and dissimilar interests.

Why is it called Pecha Kucha? The words mean “chit-chat” in Japanese. This entertaining art form was developed in Japan to pick up the pace of professional presentations. Six minutes of something boring is bearable. Six minutes of something inspiring can motivate you to make contact with folks who can help you learn more. It is now a social fad that has spread around the world - all the way to southern Vermont.

So, we invite you to come be inspired about our work as cultural ambassadors with the children of rural Mexico. If you live too far from Brattleboro to attend you can contact us here for more information.

Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards

In May, 2009 we left our home in Papagayos to help lead an RV tour to Alaska and planned, God willing, to return by August or September at the latest. The H1N1 influenza was still new at that point and there had been questions about border closings, so we included in our packing some things not needed for a simple RV tour – interview clothes, many of our important papers, all of our songbooks.

Apparently God had plans for us. We have continued to be in the US for almost a year and a half as one thing led to another. My father died in August; my daughter asked us to stay in Vermont for the 2009-10 school year; we bought and renovated a tiny house; a new grandchild was born and has celebrated his first birthday; I spent a month helping my sister recover from major surgery. All important events in our lives.

We have sung and danced, laughed with and loved many people, earned many a day's wages, torn out more lathe-and-plaster and knob-and-tube wiring than we had ever imagined doing in our lives. And through it all we have missed our southern home and the people we consider our extended family.

In January, we flew to San Luis Potosí for a visit and spent most of the time perched on our friends' chairs sipping sweet, milky instant coffee and exchanging the details about our lives in Spanish. When we left Papagayos to return to Vermont our amigos consistently wished us safe travels and let us know that they would be waiting for us whenever God was willing for us to return.

Almost daily our hearts fly south to roost on the branches of our friends' guava trees. When we are in Mexico our hearts fly to Vermont their roost in the maples. The songs of our hearts truly make a bittersweet harmony. We have created two homes. Our intention was to double our true security by doubling our base of dear friendships, but it also created a constant longing for being with loved ones in our other home.

It seems that now our tasks in Vermont are coming to a close. By mid-November we plan to begin our drive south and, God willing, we'll cross the border safely and arrive in Papagayos in time to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with Chuy, Chayo, Hector, Simón, Rosa, Tere and Ismael and many other dear ones.