Found in Translation (7 page)

“Don’t drop any of that.” I laughed at the muscular volunteer. When he began lifting the first of my suitcases, he strained and grunted so convincingly I thought he’d hurt himself. “Those already cost a baggage handler at Dallas/Fort Worth a couple of his toes today,” I jibed once I knew he was okay.

The stony silence made his feelings clear. He would have preferred helping somebody else—somebody less … troublesome. Somebody more normal. Someone more deserving of help.

But I’d meant it when I said I didn’t expect forgiveness today. Good thing.

“Wha—?”

I was starting to sit down near the front of the bus when Aleesha pulled me by the scruff of the neck down the long aisle to the very back.

I gave her a funny look. “Why here?” I thought she’d come up with some rollicking explanation that would leave me coughing from laughing so hard.

“It’s just, you know, quieter back here. We can talk without being self-conscious.”

Huh? A serious response? Or was it? I couldn’t imagine Aleesha ever feeling self-conscious.

The question mark must not have evaporated from my face yet.

“Kim, I saw Mr. Rob getting ready to sit across the aisle from you up front. I thought you’d feel more comfortable not having him close enough to eavesdrop.”

I nodded without remembering to thank her for doing that. Not even Betsy Jo would have been as thoughtful.

“So, why did you come on this trip?”

“Not for my original reason.” As honest as we’d been so far, I wouldn’t attempt to hide my faults now.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. To make a long story only slightly shorter, my parents were pushing me to get a summer job. I just wanted to hang at the pool and the mall.”

“Tough senior year?”

I would never believe Aleesha wasn’t a mind reader.

“I know you’re right about that, girl.” Or was it “You know …”? I’d overheard black girls at school use the expression. If it was good enough for them …

“So this mission trip would be easier than working?” Her eyes laughed at me.

I shook my head and chuckled. “I didn’t say that, Aleesha. But I didn’t think a job and a mission trip would both fit in the same summer. That’s what I tried convincing my parents of, anyhow.”

“Did it work?”

I giggled. “Yes and no. I got an involuntary, seven-day gig doing volunteer work with migrant children at the House of Bread. That’s an outreach ministry of my church.”

“Seven days? It took you that long to finagle your way out of it? I’m gonna have to give you lessons, girl.”

“Quitting was actually my parents’ decision. They did it for me.” I couldn’t hide my resentment.

“Huh, girl? That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Surprisingly enough, no. Before the first day was over, I fell in love with those migrant kids. When I went to their camp and saw how they were living, I wanted to rescue them from that lifestyle. You know?”

She nodded. “But you couldn’t take them home with you like so many stray kittens and puppies, huh?”

“No. All I took home was a lot of guilt for being so much better off than they were—that and a burning desire to improve the quality of their lives.”

“You a do-gooder, Kim? No offense, but I wouldn’t have taken you for one.”

“Nobody else would, either. I’m too self-centered. But everybody who knows me well knows I go all out if I want something enough.”

I looked Aleesha in the eye. She was listening intently.

“But I couldn’t accept being powerless to help the migrants. To make real changes. So I got depressed and poured myself deeper and deeper into my work with those kids. I went to the HOB earlier every day and stayed later. I stopped wearing good clothes, jewelry, and makeup to work with the kids, and I quit worrying about my appearance at all.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, girl.”

“I almost stopped eating, too. I could barely sleep for thinking about those kids getting stuck in the same endless cycle their parents were in.”

Aleesha didn’t say anything. I’d already discovered that silence on her part was significant.

“So Mom and Dad met with the director of the House of Bread and decided—without talking to me about it—to retire me before my volunteer work did any permanent damage to my psyche.”

“You resented that …?”

“Very much so.”

“You still resent it?”

I hesitated. Maybe resent wasn’t the right word, even though I’d thought it was a few minutes earlier. “At least now I can accept the fact they did the only thing they could do. They couldn’t have talked me into quitting, and pushing at me might have put me over an edge I was already dangerously close to. They had to do their thing as parents and make a decision, no matter how I felt about it.”

“You seem okay now.”

Although her statement was positive, she seemed to want confirmation of my current emotional state.

“I am, thanks. Mom and Dad sent my best friend, Betsy Jo Snelling, and me to the beach for a long weekend of R & R. They hoped that would make me forget what I’d gotten so distraught over. I didn’t expect it to help. At first, the idea of sun and surf, Thrasher’s french fries, and crab imperial at Phillips by the Sea seemed frivolous, but the change of scenery helped, and I finally began unwinding.”

“So you went back to the way you used to be?”

Regardless of how she’d worded the question, Aleesha obviously wanted me to say no.

“I came home ‘normal’ again, if that’s what you mean; but the House of Bread changed me. I’ll never be the same carefree, uncaring person I used to be.”

Aleesha nodded thoughtfully.

“You asked why I came on this trip. I hoped I could make a permanent difference in Silver City. In fact, I convinced myself that God was going to use me in a mighty way. I was starting to get bigheaded about it, too, if that makes any sense.”

“And now that God has humbled you by sending you to tiny Santa María instead …?”

“I’d better start putting today’s lessons about faith, obedience, and flexibility into practice.”

S
anta María turned out to be at least as far from civilization as Rob and Charlie told us and infinitely harder to reach than they had imagined.

Since only one of the three buses had onboard restroom facilities, our caravan stopped frequently after our very filling dinners of whatever was on that buffet table. Aleesha couldn’t recall what we’d had, either.

We rode on the interstate for several hours before turning off onto what was still a relatively decent two-lane road, but the closer we got to Santa María, the slower our progress. After exiting onto a bumpy, unpaved road—calling it a road at all was a sick joke—we slowed to a cautious crawl. Before long, the road disappeared and the buses inched their way along a path of faded tire tracks left by unknown vehicles weeks, months, perhaps even years ago.

If the lead driver hadn’t been using a GPS—a global positioning system—to supplement his photocopy of the hand-drawn map and directions, we wouldn’t have gotten close enough to the village to find it. And we probably wouldn’t have had much greater success turning back if we’d needed to.

His opinion, which he shared loudly, vigorously, and profanely—without regard for the ears and beliefs of the Christian gentlefolk aboard—was that the map’s unknown writer and direction giver knew no one would be stupid enough to undertake such a journey if he knew how abysmal the roads were. He claimed that the map provider had purposely understated the dangers.

Ruts in the earth were numerous, although not necessarily deep. They were almost impossible to spot until we got right on top of them. The drivers, each an expert on “real” roads, must have felt like ship captains struggling to maintain control of their vessels on a stormy sea whenever they had to veer suddenly around yet another rut that popped up out of nowhere.

I quit counting the team members who got so carsick they threw the bus windows open and stuck their heads outside to keep from retching all over themselves and each other. The misery of their dehumanizing condition was so overwhelming I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them.

The few of us not yet afflicted felt desperate about our situation, though. So we prayed more faithfully for our drivers than for our peers.

Two tractor trailers full of building supplies followed us, although a truck crammed floor to ceiling with food, water, bedding, and clothing had taken this same route hours earlier. Even though the ruts didn’t trouble the trucks with their double tires, our ride couldn’t have been bumpier or jerkier without breaking an axle. Each time we rounded a curve without turning over, we shouted, “Praise the Lord!”

Navigating the ruts didn’t slow us down as much as watching for them.

When I stood up to stretch, I went up front to talk to Rob. Years of roller coaster rides at Six Flags over Georgia made walking on a wildly bumping bus seem like child’s play.

“For Pete’s sake, Rob,” I said with equal parts of helpfulness and youthful impatience, “let me off the bus and I’ll walk ahead to motion where the ruts are.” Walking faster than we were riding wouldn’t be a challenge.

Rob looked at me funny, and I wasn’t sure he’d understood me. When he didn’t respond, however, I shrugged and returned to my seat.

But a moment later, the bus stopped and Rob got out. He was gone five or six minutes. When he came back with Charlie in the lead, he looked frustrated. Charlie apparently won the toss for walking bus leader. According to the GPS, we were no more than two miles from our destination.

The first truck driver and his helpers had just finished unloading the emergency provisions when we rolled into Santa María. The villagers had already helped themselves to the supplies they needed most urgently. We’d expected and wanted them to do that.

Cardboard boxes—a few partially full, but most nearly empty—lay on the ground like gift boxes a bunch of little kids has decimated on Christmas morning. Just inside the truck’s open doors, a couple of boxes stood guard over the rest.

From what that driver told us, the villagers had been thrilled to receive the necessities they’d lived without since the storm destroyed their homes. Their homes, but not the small building Rob and Charlie had nicknamed the Passover Church.

Although Rob and Charlie tried talking him out of doing something so foolish, the driver—apparently the only Latino in our group—climbed back into the cab of his truck, insisting that he must leave immediately. Morning would be too late. He’d apparently left his motor running the whole time he and his two helpers—with willing help from the villagers—unloaded the truck.

“Call me superstitious if you like,”—he said through the open window in more cultivated English than I’d expected from a Latino truck driver—“but this unharmed building among the ruins of the village makes me nervous. I am unable to explain why I feel this way, but I and my helpers must not stay here any longer. We are going back now. Do not worry about us. I have a GPS, and my truck’s double tires did not fit into any of those ruts.
Vámonos, chicos!”

While his helpers jumped into the cab, we told him we would pray for their safety. He smiled and winked. I can’t explain it, but I almost sensed his relief that we had reached Santa María safely and would provide the villagers with whatever else they needed.

Could he have had something to do with Rob and Charlie finding out about Santa María’s recent tragedy?

A
leesha and I spent our first forty minutes in Santa María sorting through my four suitcases and putting my most essential belongings inside one. I bargained with our bus driver to take the rest of my stuff back to San Diego for safekeeping. I didn’t want to have it around, reminding me how I’d acted at orientation.

Since my little karaoke unit was battery powered, I kept it with me. Proud of myself for remembering the batteries, I thought somebody could probably use it. Nobody in this crowd of unforgivers would want to hear me sing, though.

But thoughtlessness was still my middle name. I forgot to keep the accompaniment disks.

Setting up a tentless camp in a field of trash—we assumed the twister left it—was tougher than we’d expected, especially with darkness closing in. The other girls didn’t waste any time staking their claims to a few square yards of dry, grassless ground each. They used the last of today’s energy to push litter out of the way so they could spread their sleeping bags out flat. Many of the girls were already asleep by the time Aleesha and I got there.

Although they’d chosen the prime spots, we couldn’t blame them. They’d gotten there first, and we weren’t fussy. Two slots near the deserted, far edge of the field were as fine as any.

A small jungle of basketball player-height cacti surrounded the field on three sides, with the bottom of the
U
facing the Passover Church. The abundance of cacti shocked me because the area didn’t seem arid enough to call desert. Then again, a man in my town had replaced the dirt in his yard with rocks and sand and grown nothing but cacti, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

Despite the variety of other vegetation, however, I couldn’t see a single tree or bush anywhere.

Although I would have considered cactus too juicy to burn, Rob and Charlie somehow fueled a long-lasting bonfire with the cacti they chopped down to make an entrance to the girls’ field. It would be the nightlight in the “facilities” at the open end of the field.

Once he got the fire going, Rob gathered the girls together. He apologized for waking some of them up. “I’m almost old enough to be your grandfather, so don’t ask me to explain what I mean when I say ‘Use this shovel to keep your facilities clean and sanitary’ unless you really want me to tell you. But I’ll give you a hint. This is your litter box, and nobody’s going to clean it unless you do.”

Even in the moonlight, I could see the glow of blushing faces.

But when he added, “Just throw your monthly flammables in the fire,” Aleesha and I almost rolled on the ground. Rob was funny as well as practical.

I might learn to like him a lot.