Beautiful days

The weather has been really beautiful here the last few days! Yesterday we had doors and windows open and it was sooo pleasant.

I hope readers of this blog have been following Sandy's blog at sfeutz.blogspot.com for updates on her condition. In brief, she went, she was seen and she is conquering cancer! The Mayo's analysis of the tissue samples showed four spots, each 1-2 mm, instead of the 1-2 centimeter spot previously identified. In other words, Sandy's cancer was barely Stage 1 and no hormonal or radiation therapy is called for!

She will have radiation, but it will only be for four weeks in May. We go back to the Mayo for an appointment Monday, April 25, and then the chemo will begin on May 2, be done May 27. Five days a week for four weeks. Wonderful prospects!

On the way over, we stopped and walked around downtown Globe, AZ, where I liked this juxtaposition of signs that seemed to be from a former era. A little further along, the ocotillo and cactus were in bloom, as well as around the Mayo buildings themselves.

Last Saturday I went with another Friend to the town of Palomas, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, just across the border. We were looking for ways in which Gila Friends Meeting could most effectively help the population there.

The dominant visual feature in Palomas today is The Wall ... a 10-foot high palisade of steel posts, shown here from the Palomas side. In addition to being ugly, it is (to me) an expensive exercise in futility. In addition to its ease to be topped by an ordinary extension ladder, walls have never worked ... the drug trade will continue as long as there is a demand in the U.S. and money to buy the products the cartels are selling.

However, there is a deeper story. There was almost no traffic at the port of entry. We walked over and back with no delays. The effect on the town has been devastating. There is widespread hunger; there are no jobs, as one of our contacts put it. There are unfinished mega-houses scattered around the town ... owned by members of a cartel that apparently doesn't have much of a presence in town, but the houses can't be sold or rented because the new occupants fear attack by members of a rival cartel. The high school kids we worked with on the playground project shown said that life is okay if you don't get involved in the drug trade ... or witness anything going down. The previous mayor was kidnapped and killed. It's not as bad as Juarez, to the east, but it's getting worse.

We enjoyed working with the high school kids on the slide and swings in one of the town parks. You have to pay to go to middle school and high school (250 pesos a month one student said ... about $21), so these kids come from more affluent families. After three hours of work, we were invited to the home of a high school science teacher for lunch. Interesting experience ... we appreciated the hospitality, but it wound up taking about two hours, while more propane was sought, etc. The chicken pieces, shoe-string potatoes, sweet white onions and whole jalapeño peppers were fried in about two inches of lard, so the chicken tasted a little like pork rinds.

One of the projects we saw involved making papercrete bricks the size of adobes. They're a mixture of newspapers and concrete ... very light, very insulative.

Most of the streets in Palomas are wide and dirt. I was impressed that every couple of blocks there were things for sale ... used clothes hanging on fences, little mom-and-pop stores, two ice cream bar vendors on bicycles. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive ... it has to be!

Back home, we're enjoying the first roses! I got a new pair of loppers yesterday at Ace Hardware ... the joy of lopping! The 10-foot bushes look lots better now. We had a lot of tip-frost from the episode of subzero temperatures we had this winter. The experience left me bleeding (didn't armor myself before doing battle with the roses), but it was nice to be outside. TV