paul's buddy........jose

the very large gentleman in this photo is a man named paul. beed don't remember his last name. he is country as hell and from paducah, kentucky. he is also good hearted as hell and beed will never forget him as a person, beed is just terrible with names.

the boy squatting in front of him with the blue bandana is named jose. every other kid in central america is jose or maria......joseph and mary......catholocism has a pretty big influence in that part of our world.

when we would roll into any village it creates a fervor, an excitement unrivaled....the fair has come to town. our crew would usually be around 60 gringos (white people) and at least 20 locals from the mission house, cooks, interpreters, pretty much anything you need to successfully set up a clinic and see 1,000 folks a day free gratis.

the adults are just as interested in us but the children are a little more bold and have more free time to run around making friends with the gringos. what generally happens is every gringo ends up with a special little friend for 4 and a half days and both of them will be slinging snot as we leave the village. yes, it's very possible to fall in love in 4 and a half days.

beed has worked in every department of the clinic. dental......beed has pulled sixteen teeth in his dental career but that is a story for another time. beed has scrubbed instruments for the dentists. beed has worked crowd control.......a job he personally doesn't like to do but beed always worked where the jefe (chief) needed him the most.

ya'll remember carlos from the beed loves womans post? anyhoo, he told beed what u need to do is find the biggest meanest sonofabitch in the village, the guy who has bitten off someone's finger in a friday night drunken brawl. every town has a baddest guy. carlos told beed to find him and tell him you will give him 10 dollars a day to keep the line straight and make sure nobody cuts. though beed agrees with carlos that this would probably be the most effective method for crowd control he doubts the baptists would agree.

beed, has taken hundreds of blood pressures in a day. your damn ears get very tender from puttin' that instument in and out of them a hundred times. this trip, the jefe came to beed and said "beed, i need you to work in the construction crew.....right now they are in disarray and i need a veteran over there"

beed will tell you why they were in disarray.......they had an asshole running the show. he's a general contractor here in bowling green and has the personality of a f'in hemmoroid . so beed heads over there and axes what are we doing. well, we needed to build a ton of new pews for a new church the mission had constructed.

we built some jigs and in no time were hammering and gluing church pews together at a rate that would have made henry ford proud. but dickweed is still causing turmoil by yelling at folks and pushing people around verbally. beed told the jefe, "u need to get this jerk out and let us work on our own and we will get them all done" the jefe said "i know, you're not the first that has told me that but it's a delicate situation."

beed promised to hold his tongue for the good of the trip. anyhoo, jose was following paul around like an adopted child. he was a really good boy. but the whole day would pretty much consist of jose saying something and paul turning to beed and saying "what did he say?" beed would translate it and then paul would say something and jose would look at beed and say "que dice el?" the same question paul axed beed, "what did he say".

but beed didn't mind. jose was a good boy and paul was a hard working sumbuck and beed liked him. paul is one of those guys that is just country strong. you don't want to get into a rumble with someone like him as the outcome will usually come out in his favor. there were a couple times that he wanted to go after the guy mouthin' to us but for the good of the trip he didn't.

anyhoo, it's our last day of work, the next day we would run the clinic for half a day and then leave. beed who had been on many of these trips has always walked all around the village just so he gets his bearings. beed knew which one of the stores would have the coldest coca colas and beed would always take enough breaks to enjoy them.

we had really worked our asses off that week and beed looks over at paul and told him "c'mon paul put your hammer down, we're gonna go walk all over this village" this was paul's first trip and he looked and beed and replied "are you sure man, can we just do that, there are still some more pews we need to finish"

beed said, "come on, we're going, lets go visit jose's house" paul just got a big ole country boy shit eatin' grin on his face and said "alright, if you say it's okay, let's go" beed, paul and jose walked all over that damn village with jose as a tour guide. paul was as giddy as a teenage girl on her first date.

early on beed axed jose "donde esta tu casa?" (where is your house) he kind of dismissed beed a little bit and just waved his hand in a direction and said "alla" (over there). beed said "vamanos a tu casa, yo quiero encontrar a tu mama" (let's go to your house, i want to meet your mom). jose said "ahora no" not now.

so we toured more places and it was almost time for supper and beed really pressed jose this time "vamanos ahora mismo a tu casa" let's go to your house right now" beed could tell it was paining jose and beed didn't know why. he knew immediately when we got there. it was a stick house and jose was around 14 years old, an age when you never want to be embarassed about anything, and especially not where you live.

growing up poor, beed knew the feeling well, while all of his friends at school lived in nice subdivisions we grew up on 15th street and then 14th street in rough houses. beed's pop always fixed 'em up but beed knows the anxiety a young guy can feel about his casa.

jose's mama was inside sweeping out her dirt floor. the three of us went inside and she being a humble host offered her plastic chairs to beed and paul. beed wouldn't think of refusing as it would have hurt her feelings. beed told her that she should be very proud for raising such a fine son and how helpful that jose had been with beed and paul all week in the construction crew.

bein' a parent, you can never be told how good your kids are too many times. beed has heard it countless times about his two boys and it's true. and beed wasn't blowing smoke up jose's mama's ass. he was a good boy and he had been helpful. we stayed for only about 15 minutes of just basic chit-chat. we had put jose at ease about his casa by showing no reaction to it at all. when we left jose was practically skipping with beed and paul. all 8 of those kids belong to that senora on the right of the photo. that is not unusual at all down there.

hope you enjoyed the story of paul and jose. two salt of the earth people, one from the u.s. and the other from nicaragua. beed bets that those two still remember the time that this big ole country boy left paducah and made a new friend.

sorry beed hasn't been blogging but the sunbelt tournament got in his way. and since we lost last night beed couldn't bear posting anything on haven so he needed a release for his words and blogspot took the brunt of it. beed might follow this one up with another central american story.

your buddy,

the world traveller,

dahbeed magellan.