(continuing at Georges Marcellus school)

 

Once our “business meeting” ended, two very special people joined our circle.  One was a very elderly and obviously frail gentleman who introduced himself as the “father of the school”. Indeed, he had been a friend and neighbor of Georges Marcellus, and for many years has been watching over and encouraging the growth of the school and the children of the village.  And then one of the staff introduced his aunt – the woman who sold her land to Georges Marcellus to be able to build the school.  Tragically, she shared with us that after the monetary exchange for the sale of the land took place, the money was stolen from her…it was difficult to fathom how this could happen in a community that is so isolated and so seemingly bound together in need.  I was in shock.

We were blown away by what happened next.  The staff of the school along with some local helpers brought out a meal they had prepared to share with us – rice, beans, vegetable curry, bread, cool water and juice.  All of us knew that the school could ill afford to feed us – they barely got enough shipments of food staples they needed every three months from a local charity, Food for the Poor – to feed the students one meal a day (we were told that this was likely the only meal the children got each school day).  But it would have been impolite to turn the gesture down.  We were also treated to a truly indigenous treat – drinking coconut milk right from freshly opened coconuts!  A young man with a very big machete took a couple of whacks at the very large, green fruit (very different than the Hawaiian coconuts we are used to seeing) and exposed the white meaty core. He cut a small round chunk out of the white center and the entire gourd was filled with sweet milk.  Once we’d all had some he chopped the meat into small sections that we could give to the kids hanging around to have some fun digging out and gobbling up.