A slow day, with two very short interviews in the morning followed by many hours of typing up notes.
Nothing much to report. Learned today that the one-legged man who takes great pains to rake the hospital grounds each day is not actually paid by the hospital. And that he has been doing the raking for six years. There is so much to think about and learn from each person's story...
Had a delicious pumpkin soup today, with plantains, potatoes, greens, and a surprise hunk of meat at the bottom.
There is a bird outside our window that sounds like a dying vulture that sometimes can scream like a baby. Okay, so my words fail to capture the god-awful racket it is making, but suffice it to say it ain't pretty.
2 comments:
Get the recipe for the beef stew from the restaurant. It sounds delicious. When I was in Florida, Peter made a chicken soup with plantain and it was delicious.
Pumpkin soup........mm
Why does that man rake the hospital yard? To be nice? Or is he a bit crazy?
-Mumma
Well, it is hard to know for sure what motivates some people, and I have no idea whether or not he is crazy. But you have to remember that over 80% of the country's population is unemployed, and that lacking a limb further limits one's employability. Therefore, there is a lot of "take what you can get." I imagine that one wouldn't stay working hard somewhere for six years without some benefit (perhaps the hospital lets him sleep there, or foreign visitors periodically give him charity). However, there are people that work unpaid for a long time in the persistent hope that one day their efforts will turn into paid positions.
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