48 days of Pen on Fire

Inspired by the chapter "load the basket, fill the jug" from Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's Pen on Fire.


Chapter Take-Away: Attack your project daily, doggedly-- gather kindling from conversations overheard, newspaper articles, candid photos, facebook posts, and situations that pin you down and tickle until your fancy cries "uncle."

Candid Photo fodder--

The bus rumbles and bumps through the green El Salvadorian landscape, winding through the verdant mountains and out of town, away from the respectable neighborhoods to a plain of refuse. Some would label the inhabitants along the same lines as their surroundings: waste. Broken aluminum, tires and tarps lean at crude angles to supply shade and shelter. Occasional mismatched shoes and grimy shirts clothe the dust-covered little ones who roam about the garbage that is their home.
We've arrived, but it feels as if we aren't really here. We dismount the bus and the smell of rot, of dry and dirty trash, of urine, assaults our senses. This is real. This is poverty.
The children gather and sing songs of praise to Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord who Provides, and eat rice and chicken provided out of the visitors' abundance. A five-year-old girl with eyes round with innocence and caution waits to eat until she's sure her younger sister has had enough, and my heart collapses. I don't speak in the same tongue as her, but her language of selflessness and love breaks through with perfect clarity. And a simple sweetness embeds itself across the memory crying out that this day has not been wasted.