Sitting there...

At the top of a hill, under a shade tree, I recall sitting and eating a military issue MRE. The tree grew at the hill crest, giving me a view of either slope. To my left, less than a hundred meters away, the structure that would soon be a clinic was taking shape. Twelve to fifteen hours per day for two months, you could sit there and see US soldiers at work. Further down the hill a bit, I recall seeing the baseball field that Sammy Sosa paid for and maintained. Every once in a while you would see some organized teams come out and play. Thinking of the baseball field reminds me of the merchandise that Sammy’s PR guy gave us on our arrival. In thanks for our humanitarian effort, every soldier got a t-shirt, a baseball cap, and a miniature baseball bat. Near the work site gate, the tent we set up for the guard was always occupied. Night and day, a soldier from the Dominican Republic would sit there, cradling his M-16. He secured the stacks of lumber, cinderblocks and construction equipment from locals. I would occasionally see locals gather in groups outside the fence near the tent. I suppose they would watch and talk about what those strangers were doing on the hilltop. Sometimes the guard-soldier would talk to the locals. I never spoke to the locals who lived there; I just watched them watch me. To my right, with my back turned toward the clinic, I could see thin tendrils of smoke drifting into the air, as cook fires burned among the rows of one-room, wood and tin shacks that stretched down into the valley below. That was the view that mesmerized me. The way the small houses were perched there, bending precariously with the contours of the hillside, hanging in poverty together. It was such a powerful sight. On the edge, they were so beautiful, so alive, so exotic, so scary, so sad, so infuriating, so confusing, so many things all at once. I took in that view each day I was there. That view has shaped me; it continues to shape me; it continues to occupy a part of me. It is part of my biography, part of my experiences, and somehow it is part of why I study what I study the way I study it.