The Giant Cosmic Lottery

There are moments when life seems so surreal that you think you must be observing someone else´s from a great distance...that it can´t be your own. I seem to be experiencing many such moments this year. The latter part of last weekend presented me with many chances to step back, take a deep breath and live deeply into these fleeting and oftentimes surreal moments.  

My most recent adventures began after an intense three days assisting with a workshop on Pastoral Accompaniment in Situations of Domestic Violence. After wrapping up the workshop and finally uploading INESIN´s new website (you can check it out here...don´t judge too much. This was my first foray into the world of website design and construction), I decided to take a personal day and traveled with two co-workers, Elena and Dario, to the municipality of Huixtán. Thursday morning found us walking into the parish where Elena worked prior to her time at INESIN. For me, Catholicism has always been shrouded in mystery: maybe it´s the insense that wafts through the cathedral during mass, maybe it´s the Latin, or maybe its because as a non-catholic partaking in the eucharist and making the sign of the cross are not done. Whatever it is, as I walked into the rectory living room (a place I had never imgained I would enter) and ate chips with the joke-cracking priests, I felt like I was peeking into a secret world. My amazement only continued as I jumped into the bed of a pick-up with them and trundled through the forest in search of a laguna which we found after at least an hour of searching.

Later that day, I sat by a river and lunched on roast chicken, rice, beans and handmade tortillas with Elena, Dario and four indigenous sisters (only one of whom spoke Spanish). We settled down to eat only after picking our way, barefoot, through a pitch black cave. In the evening we visited three of Elena´s friends, each in turn offering us coffee and sweet bread. As a rule, I never drink coffee after 6 pm and never willfully add sugar. I broke both self-imposed rules three times that evening in the spirit of accepting hospitality and because, let´s be honest, I´ve been getting far too attached to the daily combination of sweet bread dipped in coffee. I´m sure I will continue to compulsively coffee-dip any cookie, cracker or piece of bread within reach upon completion of my time here.

After crashing in the parish´s dormitory, Elena awoke Dario and me before 6 am to make the trek to her home. After descending from the highway a good 15 minutes on a steep, dirt trail, we reached Elena´s home. It was everything I imagined a Mexican campesino home would be: chickens heating themselves under a roaring fire in the kitchen, beans and fresh corn bubbling away in pots and a kitten weaving its way through my ankles. I even got to grind corn and flip tortillas on the hot comal. We spent the morning hiking through the Chiapanecan highland with Elena´s parents, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. We collected foliage for their rabbits, visited the recently planted corn and beans, hauled wood, shot shotguns, caught crabs and grasshoppers and then rested (quite sweatily) and finished off two three-liter bottles of Coke. After lunch, I spent the afternoon playing duck, duck, goose (I couldn´t remember how to say goose in Spanish, so the game became "duck, duck, deer") with the nieces and nephews. We didn´t always understand each other as I was communicating in Spanish and they, primarily in Tsotsil, but somehow between the sun, dirt, laughter and running, we became friends.

My adventure of a weekend continued on Saturday with a trip to Tuxtla Guitérrez (the capital of Chiapas) to watch my first professional soccer match. The Jaguares (Chiapas´ team and the one I root for along with Gabriel, much to Liliana and Eduard´s dismay due to the fact that they are avid Puma fans) won(!) and I left the stadium to the drumbeats of diehard fans. Saturday evening ended with the baptism party of a family friend. As I munched on tamales and sipped hot chocolate on a chilly patio, the reality of my last three days hit me like a brick. As I listed everything I had done, I realized that very few Mexicans would ever experience this unique combination of activities in such a short timeframe. Many living in communities don´t have the means to attend a professional soccer match (even with the rock-bottom $40 peso pricetag) and many Mexicans with the means to attend this sporting event wouldn´t choose to visit an indigenous community. Everything I experienced in these three days was a Mexican reality, but experiencing them all at once is certainly not common.

Since this weekend, I´ve been reflecting on the giant comic lottery that is life. What luck of the draw landed me in southern Mexico this weekend, seeing the sun-kissed mountains and the cast-aside Coke bottles, smelling the bay leaves and the horse poop, hearing the trickling stream and the roar of fanatic fútbol fans, braiding the thick black hair of Elena´s niece and licking the mole off my fingers? What luck of the draw gave me a birth family with significant economic resources and a home in one of the most "developed" nations of the world? Some would say it´s all part of God´s plan, but I´m more of a fan of the "giant cosmic lottery metaphor."  Yes, I believe that God is all around me, around each one of us. I believe God accompanies us in every step of our journey, but I think our circumstances stem from a variety of factors including a good dose of chance and context.

On Friday, as I hiked with Elena´s sister-in-law, Areceli (me in my tennis shoes and t-shirt, her in her heavy skirt and embrodered blouse), we got to chatting and she asked me how old I was. I responded that I had just turned 23 on December 2. She responded that her birthday, too, is December 2nd. Normally I refrain from asking Mexican women their age (it´s just not done here), but since she asked first and I got really excited about our shared birthday, I took the plunge. I don´t know what I was expecting (I´m a terrible judge of age), but 24 was certainly not it. This woman has a husband, three children, ages 7, 8, and 10 and all the responsibilites that go along with family life. When she revealed her age, I worked hard to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor. This woman and I share a birthday, but in so many ways our lives are radically different. The fact that she had her first child at 14 and I, at 23, have no plans of become a mother for at least five years blew my mind. Yes, I theoretically know that females can give birth at age 14. I know that in many cultures childbearing is expected much earlier than in the culture I come from. But this woman wasn´t a statistic; I played with her children, ate at her table and realized through the process that if one of us had been born in a different context, we could be good friends. But the giant cosmic lottery dealt us different hands. And we will both go our different ways, But I hope to see her again because I liked her and she told me that she loves to have visitors.

We´ll see if the giant cosmic lottery brings us together again. And maybe I´ll stack the cards a bit and make sure that it does.