5 Light Supper

Archimandrite Andres  came walking slowly onto  his porch, leaning heavily on Mauro, his cell attendant. He was thin and frail, and I could see fatigue and pain on his face.  Then he turned and looked at us with an amazing sparkle in his eyes.  I found it truly astonishing how lively a personality was housed in such a frail body.  He greeted us warmly and we all sat on the porch and had coffee before moving into the dining room for supper.

There was chicken and rice, fresh fruit juice,  and a salad of radishes and cucumbers.  Fr Andres likes to eat radishes since he believes they contain iodine.  I didn't know at the time how rare it was to be having chicken.  (Usually the rare appearance of meat consisted of a withered little hot dog, or a bone in the soup, I guess it is expensive to feed so many growing boys).  There was also the ever-present black beans and corn tortillas.  I was going to refuse the tortillas since I have never especially liked corn tortillas and there was plenty of other food, but something about the almost reverent way Mauro handed me the plate of steaming tortillas carefully wrapped in a cloth to keep them warm told me I should eat one.  So I took one and began to rip pieces off of the tortilla as Mauro was doing and using it to push the rice onto my fork.  This earned me a grin of approval from Mauro and I knew we were now friends.

Two weeks later when we were having our last supper together before our return to the US Mauro asked me if we had tortillas in Buffalo.  When I told him we could buy them in the supermarket he was horrified.  "Can't you find someone to make you fresh corn tortillas every day?" he asked with real emotion in his voice.  I was so touched at his sincere concern that I be fed properly.