Over the river and through the woods...

I have spent most of my days here traveling to different communities with a woman named Patricia. Patricia is an odd bird…there is no other way to describe her. We have a lot of fun laughing at all the wrong times. Yesterday we lost it when Irma passed gas. Today, we drove the car into a mud pit and couldn't get out. We tried going forward, backward, and the mud was too deep to walk in, so we sat and laughed until we cried as we nervously ate plantain chips.

We finally got out, thanks to a group of strapping young men, and made our way to the home of Doña Nereys Lopez. Unfortunately, you cannot reach Doña Nereys' house by car, so we walked the rest of the way. We followed a maze of tiny footpaths through the overgrown countryside, along a cliff, through the woods, and across a river to reach Doña Nereys. I felt like I was actually part of that little ditty about a going on a bear hunt or the one that says "to grandmother's house we go." 

Once we reached her home, I realized we had endured all of this to ask Doña Nereys if her children, who are participating in the secondary school scholarship program, were going to join us for the meeting in the afternoon….

Honestly, I don't know if I would have done the same if I had been in Patricia's shoes. I know I have said this before, but I am constantly surprised and amazed at the persistence of these people and also their ability to laugh in the face of obstacles and difficulty.