Today was a great day. Daniel and I are hard at work building a new play set for the school. Daniel is welding the swing seats putting all the grading in place. He’s a good welder, slow and steady is his motto. Each day I grow closer to Daniel. He’s a good man (keep in mind Joe only speaks English and Daniel only speaks Spanish). Daniel and I laugh together and now we have a ritual of doing ten push-ups when one of us makes a welding or cutting error (so far I’ve had to do 30 push-ups and Daniel ten). I’m going to miss him for a while when I have to return to the states. I’m sure I’m going to feel this sadness of missing him for a long time. But when I get home, all the sadness will turn to joy when I tell everyone at home what happened during this trip. I’ve truly been given a gift today.
Below is a poem I wrote that seems relevant to this trip:
Today I cried, and tomorrow I will learn from the tears that have fallen
I will learn that suddenly all the things that I have cried about before will come back to me and I cry about them again
Some of joy, some of sorrow, some of fond memories, some of things I wished to change, some of I wished would stay the same but all of them I have cried about
So let us take the tears that have fallen and place them in the clouds above for every drop of rain is love to every living thing
Joe
