A Simple Can
of Tuna Fish
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Are you safe? Are you in the
earthquake zone? Did you feel the quakes? Is there flooding in your area? What
about the hurricanes—do they reach you? The volcano?
What has reached me are the concerns
of many friends. Yes, I am safe. I didn’t feel the earth move. We’ve plenty
rain but the elaborate system of canals, I am told, diverts run-off water
quickly into the lakes and lagoons with which this area abounds. No active
volcanoes live in this valley. Hurricanes? No, we are surrounded by mountains so
what we get are the rains that tropical storms push over the peaks.
Yes, I am safe. But not smugly so.
Disasters pay no attention to boundaries, to known predictions of
invulnerability.
What concerns me is the grief of the friends and families of
the hundreds of people who lost their lives in the earthquakes and tropical
storms in Chiapas and Oaxaca south of us, the quakes in Mexico City and
surrounding area to the southeast. What concerns me is the fear, frustrations,
the despair of thousands who lost their homes and their livelihood.
Add to that the hurricane damage in
the Caribbean Islands, Florida, Texas, and the Gulf Coast.
How do people have the courage to pick up and rebuild their
lives? It seems a dark cloud of despair has loomed over North America the whole
month of September.
What heartens me is the courage of
the People. I’ll give you a small local example. Two days after the earthquake
to the south of us, Leo came to me to see if I wanted to donate food. Canned
goods such as tuna and corn, easy to eat, things that don’t require cooking are
especially desired. Rice and beans and maseca to make tortillas are also
needed. Add essentials such as water, bathroom tissue and baby diapers.
“It is put on my heart to give food.
I’m getting donations from everyone I know,” Leo told me. “The city is asking
for foods. They are filling trucks which go to Guadalajara and from there down
to the quake areas.”
I emptied my pantry and bodega of
canned tuna and chicken, beans and rice and other food stuffs. I added a
donation in pesos.
“They don’t want money,” Leo said.
“Just food. I’m going to buy canned food, tuna, baby formula, that kind of
thing with my donation.”
I knew what he meant. Even the local
government admits the money will never make it to the intended destination.
Mexican people are practical.
“Leo, please go to the store for me
and add whatever you think best to my small pile of food.”
How do people who have lost all pick
up and go forward? I don’t know. What I do know is that small actions mean a
lot.
Maybe a can of tuna equates with
hope. Maybe that can of tuna, small though it be, is shared with children or
with a neighbor.
Yesterday five of us went to lunch
at an isolated thatched roof hut alongside the lagoon out by San Juanito
Escobedo, a few miles from Etzatlan. I walked out to the edge of the yard where
the waters lapped against my shoes.
Summer rains have filled the lagoon. Hundreds of white pelicans dotted
the surface, scooping for fish.
I thought about the on-going food
drives of our little town, by no means a place of wealth. I thought about the
cars and vans filled with my neighbors, going to disaster areas to help with
clean-up, to help in any way they can.
I thought of that can of tuna with
tears in my eyes. That magical can of tuna.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
September
28, 2017
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