Maybe I was just an exotic animal from another, unfamiliar jungle.
We nodded, exchanged “Buenos dias,” and then he pointed to a large rock next to the fire and motioned for me to sit. Modeling his half-kneeling position, I watched him carefully pour water from his aluminum pot to a chipped white enamel cup. Foraging around in his lean-to, he retrieved a nearly empty can of powdered milk and measured
two large spoonfuls into the cup. Maintaining eye contact, he stirred carefully until the powdered milk had dissolved. Then he gave me his cup and motioned for me to drink.
“Thank you but I cannot take this. It’s your breakfast,” I said. He insisted, repeating the motion for drinking, pointing first at the cup, then at me. As I sipped the hot beverage, his weather-beaten face broke into the most radiant smile I had ever seen. This man, who possessed next to nothing, looked like my eating his breakfast was the greatest gift he could receive. I couldn’t get over it. His happiness filled the space around the sputtering fire, expanding into the clearing and beyond, to the cloud forest itself. He kept thanking me for taking his breakfast. When I offered him
money, he refused.
I had met the most generous and clearly, the richest man in the world. Fast-forward several decades to the morning after Sandy. I had no idea what to do next. Neither did anyone around me. Without phone service,
there was no way to call for help. But help was already there. That cup of tea affirmed it while simultaneously bringing me back to that morning where I first encountered the gift of humility.
Between then and now, I have started to understand the power of humility, which opens the way for us to embrace
life as it is—like it or not—without regret for what we don’t have. With humility, our sense of entitlement dissolves and we give thanks.
A Different Cultural Filter
In my travels to places where people lived without running water, electricity, phone service, or indoor plumbing, I noticed that despite their difficult circumstances, many of the people I met were able to endure long periods of hardship with relative equanimity. In dusty towns along the foothills of the cordillera, people loved, hated, fought, mourned, and danced on the edges of life and death.
On a consistent basis, they lived with earthquakes and avalanches, fuel and food shortages, violent strikes, guerrilla activity, poverty, and disease. There were two key traits that seemed to give them strength and equanimity despite those difficulties: strong bonds with family, friends and community
and a deep respect for nature and their connection to the natural world. Here, you tell time by the sun and the cycles of the moon and the tides and seasons. So, too, after a disaster, your body rises and sleeps in
rhythm with the coming and going of the sun, rather than obsessing over digital time. You are now living in rhythm with millions of people all over the globe who are sensitized to the natural cycles of time.
On a bright Tuesday morning in the Andes Mountains, a Quichua Indian mother and her teenage daughter walked patiently through the fields, carrying covered aluminum pots to a section where six men were working. Slowly, they unfolded a large blue cloth and laid it on the ground so everyone could sit. The mother ladled rice, corn, and a thick soup into shallow enamel plates, which the daughter passed out to her father, brothers,
and each of the workers. They all sat together in a line, eating lunch under the noonday sun, as they did every day, and as their ancestors had done for hundreds of years before them. They did not have microwaves, but they took time every day to stay connected. In times of trouble, they would navigate crisis together. My friends and I wondered if perhaps they weren’t better off than we were.