Isla Files 2.11

La lengua d’esparanza (the tongue of hope).
The Mexican people are incredible in their ability to make lemonade out of life’s lemons. We watch the young boys sifting dirt and hauling loads of concrete at the construction site. They are wearing sandals, old blue jeans, many do not have shirts or caps. They smile shyly or sometimes are too shy to even meet our gaze. “Hola. Buenas dias.” we greet them. As the weeks go by and we see them in the bodega, some of them even offer the greeting before we speak. They come from Chiapas and other poor areas of the interior of Mexico. Most are Indians, many Mayan. Most speak Spanish as a second language and no English at all. They are recruited from the poor villages with promises of a better future. Many will never return to their villages. Some will work in places such as this for 9, 10, 11 months of the year. Even though they make almost nothing, they send over half of it back to their families in the mountains.
You can see the hope in their soft brown eyes, the squareness of their shoulders, the gleaming whiteness of their shirts as they walk in to town on Saturday night. What is the dream? To return home and marry? To see their children, their sweethearts, their mothers? You can see the tongue of hope caress their souls as they cross the square in front of the church. They trace the sign of the cross on their chests with their thumbs, kiss the thumb, and press it to their hearts. Life will get better, just one more day, one more bucket of sand, one more gringo hotel.