passionate about Vieques

Friday morning Bill, having the day off, had the great idea to rent a kayak and go exploring the Tres Palmitas area of the Wildlife Refuge. It's a lagoon, surrounded by mangroves, with different inlets you can paddle through. Bill and I paddled for about 2 hours, mostly upwind, with the kids trailing behind us on their boogie boards. This was particularly humorous as we plodded along laboriously, while the yacht owners we'd imposed on the previous day swung by in their 3rd boat, a smaller motor boat, a few of the kids gleefully bouncing on the doughnut behind them. When we passed by the people remaining on the yachts, we called out our greetings and I pointed out we'd brought our own yacht today. Our procession (kayak & tethered boogie boards) was basically the Poor Man's waterskiing method.

You don't want this to happen to you.

Very good food!

Girls Night Out

Crashing the neighbors' party

Friday afternoon, thanks to our runaway puppies (who're now joined by Juana as we're taking care of her for Jorge), we ended up crashing our new neighbors' pool party. They've rented the house next door for a few days. It was tempting to just hang out with them and enjoy their characteristically Puerto Rican (ie superb) hospitality, but I really wanted to get to Esperanza to meet up with some friends and watch the traditional reenactment of the Passion of Christ. I knew it would be quite a spectacle, plus I thought it would be significant for the kids to witness.

We were not disappointed. When we got there we found our friends in front of Lazy Jack's, eating pizza & drinking beer/wine. Throngs of people were out, locals as well as tourists, and there was a festive atmosphere. I did feel a tad guilty when a priest walked by as I stood there with a Heineken. Eventually the show started. Jesus (played by a guy who works at the Cape Air counter at the airport, according to Bill) was being flogged by Romans, and behind him 2 more prisoners were being subjected to the same torture. They followed a truck that had a huge speaker mounted on it, playing Passion music as they walked. They stopped 10 times, during which the recording over the loudspeaker recounted what was going on (Pontius Pilate, Virgin Mary, shroud, etc), with not-so-subtle political and social undertones (just as Mary was devastated by what was being done to her son, the Viequense mothers are devastated by their children who go off and leave Vieques, or who suffer illnesses due to all the military activities here, or who disrespect their bodies with sex & drugs...). The acting was great and as I photographed it all, I became increasingly drawn into the drama. When Mary came over to bid her farewells to Jesus I started crying (she was sobbing), and I thought, I don't care what religion you are or aren't, how can you not be horrified by how atrocious human behavior can be? The children were riveted by it all and Willo asked several times, why did no one help Jesus?

We followed the procession to the end, which was a stage, where the 3 men were hoisted up on crosses. We stayed for a bit, but once Jesus died and they carried him over to the cave where he was to be buried, we left. I found out afterwards that we missed a spectacular grand finale when Jesus is raised from the dead and basically flies up through the sky, amidst colorful lights etc. If we'd known that was going to happen we may have stayed, but the kids were tired, Mary's monologue was boring them, and we didn't want to deal with traffic.

The Passion of Christ reenactment

A very convincing Mary

Once again I taught poolside yoga Saturday morning. As we flowed through the poses, focusing on our breathing, listening to the waves just behind me (in front of the students), I once again was grateful I had stopped to talk to Dave Grasshopper (his island name), who was at the W last week, visiting from Chicago. Dave had taken my class the previous day but had missed that day's class due to a late late night, and was now feeling rather slothful. We looked at the patch of grass between the pool & the beach and thought, what a great place for yoga, and a couple of hours later we, along with a few others, are helping him sweat out his excesses from the night before, by stretching, bending, twisting in the 3pm sun, between 2 bodies of water. Alas, Dave had to return to his Very Important Job the next day, but he left with the resolution to return in 2 years - for good. Bill is going to build his house for him, by the way, and I'm going to hold both of them to that.