Pots and Bananas

The door bell rang as we sat down to lunch at the big house.  Margarita, our hostess simply ignored it explaining to us that the school children are always ringing it for fun on their way by her house. As they pass on the way to school they like to bang on the doors to make the dogs bark too.  There is no point in going after them.  I asked how she knew it wasn't someone who really needed her.  She said that then they would ring twice.  This relaxed attitude towards what we consider misbehavior is part of life here on the Mission.  The school children and those visiting the hospital throw their trash on the ground and no one tells them to pick it up.  Eventually the rain washes it away.  It seems like there are some things you just can't fix.  But it doesn't stop the mission from providing them with food and medicine every time they come.

 The Kaiwa are currently involved in a land dispute and have invaded at least one farmer's land. They sent someone over to the mission for food when they got hungry. Without hesitation Margarita went into town to buy meat and delivered it to them in the fields.  "I don't agree with what they are doing, but they need to eat," she told me.

Whenever there is some dispute on the reservation the most irate members of the tribe usually end up on her doorstep.  She and the director calm them down and she feeds the crowd.  "...or else they won't go home," she says.

Drunken men stop by her house late at night on their way home from town.  "They just want food." She always cooks more than enough and keeps the freezer full.  She has started using disposable plates and forks because she was losing so many of hers. 
In her mind true service is concentrating on providing what people need and seeing past their behavior.

Despite her busy schedule as director of the mission school, she finds time to bake me delicious cakes and pao de queijo.  When she asks me if I like something, then I know it will be coming my way soon. And in the evening she will walk down and deliver these treats to my door. We are all spoiled by Margarita's cooking.