Neighbors and Shrimp
Making gestures with our hands. Three women in the family are deaf, so this is how we communicate. Somehow it has been easier than a foreign language.
A fishing net.
Shrimp.
Their work is peeling or cutting shrimp after the fishermen bring them in.
They ask us if we ate the shrimp they brought to our house.
Not yet.. We try to communicate with our hands.. We don't know how to cook them.
They try to tell us how with their hands. Put them in a pan with oil and spices. That's the best I can understand.
Their mother is in her eighties, crippled and sitting in a chair. Her hands and feet are bent more out of shape than anyone I have ever seen before.
They tell us that she had fallen and broken her shoulder at some point. Their father died in 1992. One of the women traces 92 with her finger onto the inside of her forearm.
We are sitting in a two bedroom house, in one of the bedrooms which might be just an entryway. But it's where these three women, their mother, and one of their sons sleep at night. On the floor underneath where our chairs are currently sitting.Their brother and his wife sleep in the other bedroom with their kids. Everyone shares the small kitchen. There is a space outside of the back door covered with a ripped tarp.
The family is not Christian but we try to ask with gestures if we can pray for their crippled mother. We aren't sure if they understand. Maybe we will try again another time.
After a couple hours, we go back to our three bedroom house next door, with our living room space and our extra dining area. Suddenly our house seems big and our life feels a little different.
"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses." C.S. Lewis
A fishing net.
Shrimp.
Their work is peeling or cutting shrimp after the fishermen bring them in.
They ask us if we ate the shrimp they brought to our house.
Not yet.. We try to communicate with our hands.. We don't know how to cook them.
They try to tell us how with their hands. Put them in a pan with oil and spices. That's the best I can understand.
Their mother is in her eighties, crippled and sitting in a chair. Her hands and feet are bent more out of shape than anyone I have ever seen before.
They tell us that she had fallen and broken her shoulder at some point. Their father died in 1992. One of the women traces 92 with her finger onto the inside of her forearm.
We are sitting in a two bedroom house, in one of the bedrooms which might be just an entryway. But it's where these three women, their mother, and one of their sons sleep at night. On the floor underneath where our chairs are currently sitting.Their brother and his wife sleep in the other bedroom with their kids. Everyone shares the small kitchen. There is a space outside of the back door covered with a ripped tarp.
The family is not Christian but we try to ask with gestures if we can pray for their crippled mother. We aren't sure if they understand. Maybe we will try again another time.
After a couple hours, we go back to our three bedroom house next door, with our living room space and our extra dining area. Suddenly our house seems big and our life feels a little different.
"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses." C.S. Lewis
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