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Ora et labora
There were about 80 people on the bus, most of them elderly women. Once they’d pulled their fuchsia, turquoise and chartreuse baskets from the shelves that ran along the circumference of the bus above their heads, they heaved themselves down the vehicle’s steps onto the graveled roadbed. We followed the Bishop out to the beach, plodding through the thick sand to the spot he chose as the altar. He had no sooner began the service when the sky opened and a deluge ensued, forcing everyone to beat a path to the closest shelter, which happened to be Sanford’s Restaurant and Disco Caribe—a Rasta club from which Reggae music blasted into the dampness.
Slogging through the wet sand was tough going and the women clutched their baskets to their breasts as they trundled along. Once we entered the concrete block shell of a building, their faces grew fearful as they skimmed the bar’s patrons. A handful of men with dreadlocks and disparaging stares were draped across battered wood chairs, bobbing to the beat of the pulsing music that boomed so loudly it was as if the village had been given a rowdy pulse. Bishop Wilson was unperturbed as he placed the elements for the Eucharist on a scarred, crudely made table—a peaceful look on his face that seemed to say he’d discovered some secret formula to calmness that had escaped everyone else. Out over the ocean, the sky had darkened to a deadly gray and the rain assaulted the tin roof but the Bishop never hesitated. Slowly and carefully, he stepped onto a cane chair and signaled for the DJ to quiet the music—a Bob Marley tune, which somehow seemed so perfect for the moment.
The relief on the faces of the women, who by then had huddled in a corner, was profound. The Bishop spoke slowly and loudly so that everyone could hear him above the barrage of rain striking metal, instructing us in Spanish and then in English to open our Bibles. He then nodded to a small-boned man, who read the gospel so humbly it brought tears to my eyes. He nodded his way through the words as his staccato Spanish tumbled through the rain-soaked air in the spare space. At that moment, I realized that if there was a God and if he listened to prayers, he was multilingual. Why this had never occurred to me until then, I’m not sure. It was something about the unorthodox place in which we were about to receive “the body and blood of Jesus Christ” that brought this awareness to mind. Bishop Wilson’s sermon was about this very thing. “Jesus didn’t always have what the people of his time considered to be a conventional place to preach and worship,” he said. “The spirit was within him wherever he decided to preach. It should be the same with us. We should carry out our worship wherever we are.”
As he concluded his homily, the rain subsided and the sun returned, coaxing moisture from the pavement in riffs of steam. I stared out into the village that had been scoured by the storm, feeling uncomfortable with my thoughts, which always turned rebellious any time the “son of god” was exalted as a deity. I was berating myself for my churlishness when I spotted a hunch-backed woman carrying a large metal bowl on her head as she made her way down the street. She held the vessel, which was covered with a thin cloth, with one hand—as naturally as if she were born with it sitting solidly on the crown of her head, the expression on her face determined but serene.
I thought of the Benedictine motto “Ora et labora,” which means pray and work. I’d always felt an affinity for the beliefs of these monks because they profess that joining work with prayer liberates the act of praying from God-talk. As far as they are concerned, a well-tended garden, a beautifully made cabinet or a contentedly swept floor is considered a prayer as much as a missive sent on bended knee if the work was done wholeheartedly. As the Bishop circled the scrubby room, placing a wafer on every tongue, I realized that the woman wobbling down the street, so hunched that her only view was the ground in front of her, was acting as prayerfully as any of us who were receiving holy communion that day.
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Lost in Translation
Father Calvin took us to the Hong Kong Restaurant. The menu had two sides: one written in a Chinese-y Spanish, the other in a comical version of English. Instead of chicken breast, the restaurant offered chicken bosom, which was served with deep dry noody. I took this odd-sounding side to mean deep fried noodles when I ordered it, and was relieved when this was actually what was served, as I had no idea what a “noody” might be!
I tried not to laugh out of respect for the earnest restaurateur who was extremely excited to have Americans in his restaurant—not an everyday occurrence Calvin explained—but it was too much. I giggled my way through the gastronomic options, trying several times to slip a menu into my purse because my friends would never believe me if I didn’t have proof. The squat Chinese owner, who had the waitresses cutting napkins into four pieces and refolding them into tiny squares, was vigilant, making it a point of stopping at our table every few minutes to ask if we were ready to order, his hand extended to take my menu. We returned to the restaurant many times during our stint in Germania, but I was never able to get a menu out the door.As we walked back to the parish house after dinner, I couldn’t believe the change in the atmosphere of the small town crisscrossed with roads, many of which were dirt and some of them little more than rutted paths. From two-story lean-tos with screen wire for windows, a number of songs from Michael Jackson’s "Thriller" album competed for attention. While “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'” blasted from one disco, “Beat It” throbbed from another. A block away, the rock superstar crooned “Billie Jean” from yet another smoky room.Bare-chested men holding cold cervezas leaned against the facades of restaurants and bars while women in their best dresses sashayed by. One particularly tall woman stood on a well-lit corner where the streetlight leaned at a precarious angle toward the ground. She was mesmerized by a group of children playing nearby. Her revealing dress in a juicy shade of red contrasted her wiry, dark hair that was pulled back to expose the smooth, sepia-toned skin of her face. I thought it odd that a lone shock of white ran along her hairline above her right ear. She didn’t look old enough to have sprouted gray hair, which made me wonder if the swath could be the result of hardship or trauma. Though I saw her for only a few seconds, I was convinced she’d lost a child. Her expression as she watched the children’s antics was part peaceful wonderment and part agonizing longing.It was remarkable how the inky air had turned the town into an antithetical version of its sun-drenched self. The streets had come alive, which made perfect sense because nighttime was the only tolerable time to be outside in August in the tropics. Like those of the discos, the windows on the parish house were unadorned openings cut into the building’s façade, covered over with screen wire. Until the wee hours of the night, the songs chosen by the DJs congealed into a soundtrack for my drama—a protracted tossing and turning on the single cot with its thin mattress. To their credit, Jacko, Springsteen, Madonna and Aretha held their own against a retrospective of the history of Reggae.If you are new to my blog and you'll like to start at the beginning, here's the link to the earliest post. Reading the "Start Here" sidebar gives you the very first information. Thanks for stopping in!
