Of Pines and Papusas

“Write about our walks” – so suggested Axel Quintero, my godchild, when we were sitting on “our stone” outcrop atop the mountain bluff during our sunrise walk. 

Tocayo:  Axel y Axel!

Le Centro de Conferencia

It is the Memorial Day weekend – in the United States, not Honduras.  The pressure to get the centro de conferencia y dormitorio ready for the large June brigade is intense.  More on this in a later post, but suffice it to state the light is getting brighter and larger in this very long tunnel – we can see the future two weeks hence. The workers seem intent on their tasks, and there was a level of confidence that I had not previously seen.  Yet I can do little at this point but observe, organize what I can in terms of punchlists and a two week schedule, ask many questions, and quite simply, hope for the best. 

And walk.

Axel is on his year of service to Nuestro Pequenos Hermanos, working in the Library and helping out at the surgery center when he can.  And he was proud to tell to me he passed his college entrance exams for both the medical track and the Architecture track.  We chatted about life and his new  love, exams and the tranquility of the place.  We talked about family – his family here at the Ranch and what they have meant to him over time.  Hearing this makes me proud to support him and the Ranch.  It just feels good and right.

Gina at work - teaching me

On this trip, another deserves mention – my new Honduran friend Gina (herself a product of the Ranch) – the new Conference Center Manager.  Gina was very stressed about the impending opening of the Center, and though we have communicated often now in conference calls, she admitted to me in our time together – ample with the opportunity working through a punchlist for every room – that she was a bit intimidated to be working with what I apparently have been referred to as “the famous Architect”, thinking now with a wonderful staccato laugh, that she thought the “A” in “A. Peter” meant Architect! And not Axel as it really does. (For that story, see my post on Tocayo)

I did my best to debunk that myth - we talked a lot in the process, and most importantly, ended up cooking together (me in a definite understudy role as sous-chef-in-training) for a group of visitors.  I love to participate in this kind of local activity – for her the “best ever papusas I have tasted” as she was a modestly celebrated “chef” in her recent past (though she preferred “cook” to chef for her modesty does get the better of her when she is around others).  She is a chef, based on her intensity in the kitchen when under pressure to deliver, and trying for an exacting result.  And when it was done, we shared family pictures, stories and laughs – Axel, Gina and me – until late in the evening, doing much to relieve the pent-up pressure.

So it was fitting on Memorial Day that Axel would take me to the NPH cemetery – I had not even heard of this – after his work and mine was done for the day, and before I was to report for a second evening of sous chef duty.  I assumed this cemetery was fairly close by, but instead we walked toward an early evening western sun through a section of this vast ranch I had never seen, and it was a beautiful, though a longer walk than I expected, to a blissfully quiet and peaceful spot in the pine woods, bounded by a low rock wall.  The Government – sadly – no longer allows burials here, for here is resting spot with a reason to exist – on the ranch, overlooking a distant mountain, part of the legacy of the ranch.

The NPH Cemetery

I was expecting the usual arrangement of head stones with a brief semblance of a life’s passage inscripted.  What existed instead were simple steel crosses with a name and the relevant dates.  But what struck me most is that of the 30 or so interred here, only a handful were people of more advanced years.  Most of these markers identified children and adolescents – those passing way too young or at the start of their adult lives.  There is, I am sure, a story for each of these lives, but the simplicity of the marker leaves one only to reflect on these lives passed with a measure of sadness, but pleased that the peace of the place is not wasted on these youngsters during their everlast.

That was a powerful walk.  Fitting for Memorial Day.

The unexpected distance of this walk made me late for my cooking duties, and I was able to verify with absolute certainty upon arrival, that Gina’s self described “messy cook” moniker was very well deserved.  So other than a few simple sous tasks to which I was assigned (slice this ceballo y pimiento “very thin”, stir that sauce), I did fill in adequately as a much needed dishwasher – something of which I do have sufficient experience.  And a great meal was delivered and enjoyed by all.

And not to let a day go by, I took the visitors up the montana for another early sunrise walk the following morning, my final for this visit – cool, crisp and very piney!  La vista bonito!

Sunrise view to the ranch buildings below