4/17/08

I ate breakfast with 3 chickens and a turkey. Two chicks and a hen pecked around my feet as I scooped my forkfuls of rice. The turkey gobble-gobbled by the front door as the chickens hopped from tables and benches, milling about in the kitchen in search of left over food. Morning breakfast with Esteban consisted of a hard boiled egg, plate of rice, and some fresh lemonade. After this meal we began his exercises and tried out the new crutches. The crutches worked beautifully and Esteban was able to not only walk outside on the damp earth, but up and down the stairs in his main house.

“El primero vez en diez y siete meses”, he kept repeating over and over. “The first time in 17 months.”

Needless to say he was overjoyed. We took a picture from the second floor window to record the historic moment. Esteban had been living in the kitchen for about a year as he couldn’t climb the stairs to reach his room on the second level. Now he planned to move back into the main house tomorrow. He didn’t want to leave. Fresh breezes blew through the house and the air was clean. Back in the kitchen everything smelled of smoke and accumulated a light dusting of ash.

Upon leaving for the return trip to Makuma, Esteban and his wife Rosa presented us with gifts. She gave us two beautiful hand made clay bowels and a necklace made from the seeds of fruit. After kissing them on the cheeks, we headed back through the mud to Makuma.