The things you find on the beach

Living on the ocean, you're at the edge of the world, it seems. So when garbage washes up onshore, I like to imagine it could have come from anywhere.

Glass bottle? Dropped in the ocean by a sailor decades ago. Obviously.

A barbie leg? A little girl somewhere in Venezuela is tailoring special barbie pants.

Plastic car parts? Some freighter from Hong Kong lost a crate overboard en route to Brazil or Detroit or Latvia.

Clearly I have no idea how the gulf stream works.

In reality, when the rain falls, it flows down the mountains and through the city streets and sweeps all the debris into the river and out to sea. And shortly thereafter, it washes up on our beach. So while the barbie legs and bottles and plastic debris - and a mountain of bamboo and sticks - could have come from a long way away, odds are they're from down the street in Pastillo or Juana Diaz or Santa Isabel. There are lots of familiar objects in there.

Yesterday, a number of kids were here at camp to pitch in and clean up the beach to earn a discount for our retreats the next few weekends. It's really more for them than for us. We even feed them lunch. We don't, however, give them swim time when it's all said and done, something that made me lots of enemies as I drove them home after we ate.

I spent most of our two short hours of work dragging a few of them back from the water cooler in the shade and encouraging them to keep helping while the others kept working. A lot of them haven't quite grasped the benefits of hard labor in the hot sun.

Builds character. Grunt. 

I'm 27 and still working on my attitude towards this kind of thing. So I don't know why I would expect an 11 year old to joyfully sift through all the junk on the shore. 

You never know what you're going to find.

Almost immediately after we started, one of them found a syringe.

She jokingly asked if it was mine. That's the brand of humor I expect from this particular girl. I shrugged it off and assured her it wasn't.

A minute later, she found a tiny baggie. She knew it had held drugs, and again asked if it was mine. I again denied it with a smirk. She explained to me with a few gestures and some basic Spanish what had been in the bag and what someone would have done with it, then threw it in her garbage bag.

Had I found that baggie, I'd probably have thought nothing of it. And had I found the syringe, I'd have quietly dropped it in my bag and then washed my hands for twenty minutes. It's the kind of thing you don't want kids to ask you about, that you'd rather them never know anything about. You'd like to protect them.

I stood there for a minute and spaced out. Here was a 13-year-old girl who lives right next to a drug point and has had far more exposure to drugs than I have. And she was making jokes. How do you protect them then?

When I was 13, I just wanted to watch Animaniacs and eat cereal.

background noise

Chickens are clucking, roosters are crowing, and dogs are barking around the barrio.

The breeze comes in with no walls to stop it. Fans above rotate slowly and help it along.

Javier stands up to read Psalm 23, in "a strong voice, like David."

From inside the house, a child erupts, crying. 

And it sets the dog off, and he starts barking and howling.

And a car rolls down the street with a deafening sound system, booming dirty lyrics for all of us in church to hear.

And I am the only one who seems to notice.

barrio (part 2)

A barrio is not a city. It's a neighborhood. It's not necessarily a bad, depressed, ghetto neighborhood, it's just a neighborhood. That's what barrio means. This is a diverse place. There are a few really nice houses, and a few not-so-nice ones.

Proper cities in Puerto Rico have a town center that always has an open plaza and a Catholic church. Barrios don't. There might be 10,000 people living in the same area, but it's not a city. There's a highway on the edge of it that has a few bakeries, gas stations, cafes, and other small shops, but other than that it's just houses and people - in the case of this one, packed in between the highway and the sea.

From what I hear, a lot of the barrios sprung up around factories or farms. This side of the island used to produce a lot of sugar cane for rum. The Puerto Rican sugar cane industry isn't what it once was. But they still make a lot of rum here. There's a Don Q factory down the road where they distill it, and it is one of the most awfulest smells you can imagine. A long time ago, everyone lived in the barrio right by the place they worked. But now, all of their descendants are living in the same places long after the factories and farms are gone.

I can't begin to guess what they all do for a living today. I know a lot of them commute to a "proper" city nearby, like Juana Diaz or Ponce. I heard rumors of a guy who makes the daily 90+ minute commute to San Juan. There are fisherman, I know that much because I see them standing out by the highway holding their daily catch in a plastic bag for passers by. You know, "for your consideration." I've heard the story of one of the bakeries, that they started making bread in their house and selling it under an umbrella by the road. They made money, invested it in their panaderia and now it's a successful, family business. One that has really, really good fried chicken.

On the whole, this is not a wealthy place. People here may never leave. Literally, some of them might stay here their whole life without making the 20 minute drive down the road into the big city. Barrio people are different from city people in the same way that back in the States, country folks are different from city folks. They live "out there." They might not get out much.

This was demonstrated to me last week when we took the youth group from John's church in the barrio to a talent show at a big church in Ponce. The scene there was much like any bigger church with a healthy youth group - lots of people, a few apparent cliques, many kids dressed to impress. They dress better than me, but I'm far enough removed from high school not to see that as a threat. We sat down, and all the barrio kids huddled together, hunched over, buddied-up. There were seven kids in six seats, with a seventh chair open right next to them. They were safer together.

Theresa had to point this out to me, otherwise I might not have noticed. I asked what the big deal was, and she told me they saw themselves as different. They were uncool barrio kids. It's kinda like putting yourself in that country bumpkin category. Like showing up to a club in overalls and a flannel shirt. (And what's wrong with that?)

Like I said, I didn't immediately notice the difference. I still ignorantly slap a very general Puerto Rican label on everyone here. But the barrio kids - they stayed isolated, safe like that. Clearly, there are some differences. I don't get all of them. But they're there.

We drive a van through the barrio to pick up kids for Club on Wednesday night. This drive takes us to two points where drugs are regularly exchanged. Beautiful spots, owned by dealers, right on the sea, right by these kids' houses. More often than not, they pass it off right in front of us.

How can you grow up in that and not have it affect you? I often wonder - how many of these kids are going to make it? And what is "making it," anyway? Not dealing drugs? Getting out of the barrio, as if it's a place you need to escape? Economic success? Becoming a pastor or missionary? I don't know the answer to that.

If you can't know if they'll "make it," maybe there's no sense in asking the question. Maybe you just show up everyday and let God do what he does.

barrio part 1

Sometime around 4 am, the roosters start.

It doesn't stop until sunset. Sunset. But they're at their worst around 6:30 am, right as I get up. Then, it's a constant stream of cock-a-doodle-doos.

There's a freshman rooster in one of the yards behind us. His goes more like, "Cock-a-doodle! (doo)" like the doo is an afterthought. He'll get it someday. When I'm first waking up, it's kind of funny.

I moved in here on Tuesday to stay for a week while John and Kerry, the missionaries here, are away in The States. The first night was restless, mostly on account of the roosters, but also the heat and a new mattress. But I'm getting used to it now. Having a whole house and a car for a while is nice.

I'm also taking care of their dogs, Jeb and Maggie. They're two golden retrievers that show me that dogs do, indeed, have very different personalities. Jeb is a moose who is big and clumsy. He's always having to back out of spaces, and dogs are typically no good at this. His brain is attached to his stomach. Maybe it's in his stomach. All he ever wants is food. Maggie wants nothing to do with food. I have to sit with her and force her to eat. I think maybe she fills up on bugs and lizards while I'm out.

The first day I came back from camp to get stuff ready for Club Alas (think Awana) and Jeb and Maggie were inside the gate to the driveway waiting for me. I had an armful of stuff (read: pair of athletic shorts, bag with a donut, keys, books, ice cold soda-pop) and had to creatively maneuver the key through the bars into the padlock. I popped it, slid the gate open, and Jeb immediately bolted down the street. He stopped close enough to lure me without trying to put all my crap down. When I got close, he bolted again. And again. Not funny. I kept a few choice words between my mind and my tongue. He ran into a fenced-in-parking lot and darted between the cars while I chased after. He's got technique. He's done this before. I finally caught up with him and dragged him back by the collar, telling him along the way just how uncool and unacceptable all of this was. I wasn't sure how to punish a dog so I simply withheld petting him for the rest of the day. That'll teach. He was constantly begging for it before. Naughty dog.

Living in the barrio changes my perspective of it. It's this noisy place full of people and their dogs and chickens and horses and radios and cars and houses. I had ideas about it before I came, mostly gleaned from TV crime dramas and movies. And I had been to the barrio before. But living in it for a week, I'm starting to understand it a little more. And at the same time, I realize there's a ton I don't know about it.