Once again, I was slain.

I started my day battling a dark cloud that was attempting to set up residence in my mind. It happens. Sometimes it is a little gray poof of a cloud and other days it is so vast and dark I can barely see a pinprick of light. Do I struggle with depression? Does anyone not? I have come to think of it as a rhythm. Most days are up and then a few days go down. 

This day was down.

I climbed on my sturdy yellow motorcycle and drove through town, crying out for a way of escape from my own head. Wishing I could leave it on a street corner somewhere and get on with my day. But no. There was no escape. My head came with me. 

I made my way down to the seaside community I had grown to love: Home to most of the moms and dads working their trades to become successful artisans. This small neighborhood where many houses are built with broken blocks and discarded sheets of tin. Where I inevitably learn best. 

I needed to take spools of twine to Anite, the cotton cord flower maker. She had moved up from sewing patches together to make flowers. I rolled up and parked outside her tiny rock-built home. And soon I ended up sitting on a solid concrete block on the floor in the house of Anite. Though I only came to bring her supplies, she welcomed me in to visit. 

She invited me to taste the yummy dish that I had watched her and her children working on the day before when they were pouding the corn with a big wooden mortar and pestle. It looked like something ancient and brilliant. 

Apparently, it takes about 24 hours to make this dish. 

Did you catch that?

They had been working on this one dish for 24 hours. Starting with a mortar and pestle pounding the corn. Not sure what happens next. But there is no fridge. There is no food processor. There is no electricity or even a table. 

But now it was ready and there was an air of celebration in the anticipation of filling bellies with this dish. 

I don’t know how long it had been since this family had all had sufficient calories for their tiny bodies in a day. “Not enough calories” is the primary cause of illness in this neighborhood. 

She tells me that I have arrived just in time. She and her four kids, one neighbor child, and one more teenage girl welcomed me with huge smiles. She dished up a generous helping of the delicious corn-bean stew onto tin plates for everyone present. She handed me one of the few spoons and watched my face. They all did. “Li Goo!” I cried. “It is good.” It really was. 

She then dished up a bowl for the teenage boy that followed me in. 

Then:

She tried to give me a dish to bring home for my daughter, too. 

She tried to give me a dish to bring home for my daughter, too. 

She tried to give me a dish to bring home for my daughter, too. 

Generosity. 

Out of poverty. 

I was slain. 

That afternoon I got back on my yellow motorcycle and made my way through the city to home. 

There was no more gray sky. 

The dark cloud that had settled in my mind was no match for what I had just experienced. 

Many boxes of free rice had shown up at this house over the many months Anite and her kids lived there. The kind that charitable organizations lovingly pack and ship to needy people. And they were always grateful to receive it. So grateful. 

But this day they weren’t the needy people.

They were the rich.