Muisne

We lingered on the wooden benches, absently pressing sticky grains of rice—unintentional leftovers—onto our fingers and eating them slowly … rubbing itchy arms, and failing to notice the red welts of fresh mosquito bites blooming like so many morning flowers on trellis-arms. We talked beneath the thatch roof of the restaurant-cabaña, and, surely-unnoticed, night descended on us thickly; however unspoken, we delayed the necessary exodus. 

But we did, eventually. We left the patio-restaurant and, still animated, there was hardly a hiccup in our conversation as we parted the seamless night.

We didn’t remember that no one knew the way.

We didn’t realize, even, that we were following.

We didn’t notice, in fact, the two slender figures that preceded us, walking us back to our primitive Island lodging.

 One of the figures, I was soon to learn, was named Mateo, the other Achli. In the four or so days that I spent in their community, they became friends. Probably their mother, or an aunt, or perhaps merely a neighbor was one of our cooks, so they spent a lot of time at the restaurant. In any case, every time I walked back to where we ate that first night (and where we would continue to eat for the next four days), I encountered them, sometimes buried in a hammock underneath the fountain-foliage of a low-hanging tree and rising to follow our group to its next meal, or hanging on the wooden rails of the restaurant as we entered. I encountered them, and others, nearly every time I ate, and I fell in love with their shy smiles and timid greetings.

Some memorable moments:

• After breakfast one morning, a group of youngsters sat down with us at our table and, as we smiled along, dipped dirty fingers into the jelly-jar, taking turns, faces and laughter alight
• Another night, the tide rose to the raised beams of the restaurant, such that a boat had managed to enter the once-dry stream-bed and was moored to the rail on one side of our restaurant. The kids climbed in, then I climbed in with them, and we briefly played at “sailors”—my first time in a long time!
• On our last evening in Muisne, some of the townspeople prepared a traditional dance. We all sat in a group in the middle of the cement court to enjoy the spectacle; the kids from the community also came, dragging plastic chairs from home or sitting, like us, on the hard cement. I fear their appreciation was far more evident than our own: their laughter was raucous and infectious, and I think many of us didn’t know whether to watch the dancers or the children watching the dancers.

I fell in love with Muisne because I fell in the love with the people of Muisne, its ragtag children. Really, I can’t imagine a more perfect childhood—albeit shadowed by poverty or want or uncertainty at times.

 It was evident, it was obvious, that the children in this community were loved—by parents and neighbors and the microcosm of their tiny barrio—and that’s what I wanted. It’s what I want for the rest of my life: these people, this place, this pace … Tranquilo, they call it.

The word, oddly, has no English counterpart: tranquilo, regrettably, doesn’t translate.