Not all who wander are lost: Muñoces bean delivery

Wednesday, 9-7-11

Today we delivered beans to the community of Muñoces. I hadn’t been to Muñoces for a while so I was excited to go there again. It takes about 40 minutes to get to there. We got to the community before the truck with the beans arrived so Kathy and I passed the time by playing the alphabet game. By the second round Kathy was starting to fade away in the back of the pickup and I decided to hop down to get some pictures of scenery. But soon we heard the rumblings of the other truck so I climbed back inside.

As our truck and the truck with the beans were making their way down the hill the other truck suddenly stopped. We parked and went to go see what was wrong. Well, something had broken. The front right tire was out at an angle while the other tire was facing forward. Uh oh. All the guys had gotten out of the truck and were attempting to fix it. Since I was going to be no help in that situation I wandered around some more checking out the things growing on the side of the road. Eventually they got the truck fixed up and started back down the hill again. Our pickup drove up and I climbed aboard.

We reached the spot where the community had decided the beans would be distributed and the process began. As with the other communities, the people of Muñoces were in charge of unloading and having people sign for the beans. I chatted with a woman from the community I know about how she and her family were doing. Her mother and father have both been sick and she’s not exactly young herself. But she remains strong and was very grateful for the beans.

Toward the end of the delivery I was talking to a couple kids at the house next to where our truck was parked. They kept talking about my hair and the fact that I was white. For some reason, probably because white people don’t often visit the community, this was very amusing. At one point I was taking pictures of a little boy while he tried to “hide” from the camera. I’d take his picture and then show him that I’d taken a photo of him. He’d laugh and then find something else to hide behind. We continued this until it was time to leave.

When all the beans had been distributed it was time to take off. We waved goodbye as we headed out of town. I decided to ride inside the truck on the way home. I attempted to carry on a conversation for a while but ended up falling asleep. I slept peacefully until I was jolted awake when the truck went over a large hole. Yep, that’s the canton roads for you.