Doors

I have been fascinated by the doors here in Xela... so I have been going around taking pictures of doors! For one thing you don`t have to pay someone for taking a picture of a door as you sometimes do if you want a picture of a person. But more to the point... they (the doors... and no I am not talking to doors now) speak volumnes about life here in Xela.

Many of the doors are metal and solid looking, painted some drab color... these doors are usually attached to homes or stores that appear to be abit better off. The doors that draw me are the wooden doors... most are brightly painted... red, light green, blue, yellow, pale blue... colors that usually constrast and distinguish the door from the wall on either side. Many are warn down... have chipped paint, don`t hang square on their hinges, have large gaps at their base or even plants growing in their lintels or in the stone wall next to them... invariably when the family is not home or the store is not open they have these huge padlocks on them.

I think about my experience here so far... my frustration at not being able to converse properly with the people I meet. The many barriers I feel here-- language wise but also experientially and culturally. It makes sense that I am drawn to the doors... because I want to be allowed in and to know these people who I am encountering. I dislike all the barriers that I constantly feel here. The one home I am invited into here in Xela... I hardly speak in. I am allowed to be among them in their daily coming and going but as a receiver... they feed me at there table, give me a bed to keep me warm at night, a place to bathe... and I have only my presence to offer. It feels as if for this time... I must simply observe and learn through my senses rather than presuming I understand and speaking... I must receive humbling and with limits that I have never experienced to this level before.

These doors have witnessed much... but the people inside have lived through much more. In my lifetime some of these doors (in other communities I have been in even more so) have been visited my soldiers taking loved ones away in the night never to return... or brought news of death, coup, pain, hunger. The doors are worn but for the most part... still thresholds for much joy, much pain... much life.

Posted for you Steve!