www.bobkull.org
San
Cristobal Courtyard
Frank Bob Kull
1995
San Cristobal
de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
In the
small, enclosed courtyard outside my window, the high-mountain, cloudy Mexican
sun falls soft and easy on warm, red, adobe walls. I hear a soft splash as the two hours of
daily water fill the concrete cistern in the near corner. Beyond our walls I hear fireworks and
clanging church bells announce the coming fiesta in the town plaza down the
hill.
A small fig tree,
reluctant yet to bear fruit, shivers in the morning breeze with ragged leaves
cupped upward to catch the falling light, and the young native woman, quick and
brilliant as a humming bird, fills her bucket at the cistern to wash my dirty
clothes.
Her four children troop in
from outside, the eldest of the girls, no more than eight, carries her tiny
brother strapped to her back with a worn blue rebozo.
They stop, dark eyes peering, at my open door to wonder at my
strangeness.
“Bananas,” I say, “do
you like bananas?”
Shy nods and grins as
I hand them over.
“You,” I demand of the
tiny one,
“are you going to eat a whole one?”
His outstretched arm
and clutching fingers answer me succinctly.
“Thank you,” the three
small girls smile at me;
the tiny one too busy trying to peel his plunder to notice me
further.
And now they sit in my
vibrant courtyard quietly chattering and munching and singing to my
heart.
The tiger-striped
kitten tumbles and plays in the sand-pile, left over from building a new
chimney;
no, not playing. He
just took a dump and then decently hid it from my view.
An arched doorway in the
adobe-brick wall opens onto muddy path that leads to the chicken yard, compost
heap and outhouse. Walking intently back
and forth along the path, my landlord’s cousin. Her awkward movement shifts the flow of
the morning as she paces out her inner need. Framed in the doorway, she halts and
stays staring down; mouth working around a single snaggled tooth jutting out, Her hands push repeatedly
downward--warding off invisible intrusions--as she inaudibly chants her secret
incantations of hope and protection.
“I’ve finished” the woman who
washes my clothes tells me.
“Thank you,” I say,
“can you come back in two weeks?’
“What
day?”
“Is Thursday OK?”
“Yes, two weeks, thank
you.”
“Yes, goodbye.”
“Yes.”