Under the Palapa

In the heat of the afternoon I sat with Chayo under their palapa (a circular, palm thatched, open air sitting room.) There was a slight breeze. We were cool and comfortable sitting in plastic patio chairs listening to the dry palm leaves rattling in the wind. Just breathing was enough. It felt good to be alive.

Every few minutes one of us would think of a comment. A slow conversation, kind of lazy, that was not in any kind of hurry.

"That hen had fourteen chicks, but now only four are left, " she said as she scooped a little ball of fluff into her hand. She stroked its head a moment to calm it before setting it back on the dirt near its mother.

"It's Elsa's birthday today," was my comment as I watched the household across the street preparing for a party. Then my eyes shifted to the clouds building around the Grand Sierra mountain in the distance beyond the house. I sighed with pleasure.

"The weather is changing. The clouds will bring cold. Tonight or tomorrow," Chayo informed me. She is always teaching me the basics, like how to forecast the weather, from her wealth of life experience.

Next, my eye swept the inside of the palapa. Wedged above the beam and below the palm roofing were a dozen books. Chayo followed my gaze.

"There are a lot of books."

"Have you read them all?" I queried.

"All the ones outside the box."

"And the ones inside?"

"I haven't taken the time, yet. I'd rather do my sewing."

We took the box down from the place where it has been gathering dust.

The box of books was from the Mexican government. Inside there were readers about adult health issues and self care; there were related workbooks with questions and blank lines for short answers; there was an atlas of the human body with maps of the nerves, blood vessels, bones and muscles; and also a guide to first aid.

Chayo is in an adult literacy program. She has been slowly adding to the education she got in her two years of schooling as a child. Now she gets the boxes of books and a visit once in a while from a tutor. But reading and writing is hard work for her.

I read and write for fun. I have a pile of books I can't wait to get to read. Ideas for writing are always stewing in the back of my mind. A day doesn't go by when I don't pull a gardening reference, cookbook, or dictionary off the shelf. The next carpentry project will be a bookshelf to contain the tomes that are now stacking up on top of the ones already in the existing shelves of our house. There will be a section of children's books, too, set low and within reach of our young friends. In our village books are a luxury. In our house they are everywhere.

We thumbed through each of the books in her collection. There were lots of colorful pictures, large print, and open space on each page. They looked like second or third grade readers to me. To my friend, they looked impossible.

Maybe I can sit with her, under the palapa, and together we will read.