A life in CR is happening for me. I got the call a few months ago to work a retreat for 5 days. Good pay and people and right in my neighborhood. I get a team together in a most divinely guided way and we kill it. I pull together a nice dining experience for 15 people and see a window of potential open  up for me. I see what a strong team can provide and am grateful for the success in my work. I also see the places where i could improve my business skills. All around it's good for me and…the greatest lesson of all is more about a prayer being answered and a sisterhood remembered (or at least reinvented). 

Coming into this retreat I knew I wanted a rice and beans lunch. Tipico. We all have one, as someone who has parents from distinct countries, I know they all got their thing. In Costa Rica and in the Dominican Republic we have a way of bundling food inside of banana leaves and  I wanted to offer the gifts of my culture, platanos, rice and beans. I envision this lunch being zero waste and ancestral practice, I personally love that wrapping food in leaves from the garden is both. I pray for the right person to teach me. I ask around and hear encouragement about how simple it is but no offers for a lesson. I get to the retreat and start to make peace with the idea that I may have to use tupperware- ugh!

Then it hits me, the cleaning woman. If you read the #firstfriday email then you know, I’m on a roll with this shit… She isn’t actually a cleaning woman, it’s just that this is the easiest job to find. Service work of all kinds is both hard and easy to do. I know that most women like me end up in service jobs… house keeping, etc…I do in fact enjoy my work as a cook and I’m sure she does too. What I really mean to say is I recognize in her a commitment to joy. She is good at all the things she does, because she believes in herself, loves herself. Her smile is wide and true, just like her loving spirit. I see the way she moves and I know she is the kind of woman that cooks and cleans and rears and raises and grows and works. I know her because I am her. 

I have the inkling that she has exactly what I am looking for. I approach, sweet and well received because of course, we are already very friendly. We have, also, of course, already had coffee and toast together…we shared pictures of our kids and life stories. From the jump, I liked her…so I run to her and present my issue. 

She answers with ok, I’ll cut the palms and we can roast them together. Just like that. The thing I was nudging myself about was right in front of me.  Usually it is. 

What makes her good at her current day job is the fact that she is a whole woman with a clue about how to survive and cultivate. The reason I am good at my current day job is because I am too. I knew she knew. It took me a sec… but i knew. More importantly, I knew she would teach me. Sometimes people meet and it’s in an instant that we know we belong to the other. I get the lesson on plantain leaves and zero waste but really its a lesson on the things we learn together in sisterhood and in womanhood. 

This sweet sister brings my attention toward every woman’s issue I wish  I had the power to resolve. For example, the number of women fleeing their countries in south and central america, seeking employment, a better way of life, safety. The rates of femicide in the americas are scary, how is it that we are all still fighting for basic human rights? 

As we roast leaves and bundle lunches I am reminded that we are supposed to take care of each other. We should stand in honor of the other, in full support, her struggle the struggle of all.  I am grateful for the teachings on which palms were best, how to treat the blade and the secret to roasting. It was so dope,  the lunches kept their warmth and the leaves perfumed the food so nicely. I’m so proud. Sweetness from the maduros, cumin black beans and plentiful rice. A lesson on zero waste, on traditional foods, on the generosity of the earth, the strories of a hard life and a resilient spirit.

I don’t know how you feel about it but I take this almuerzo típico as a miracle.