WEEKS 2 & 3

Last week was quite calm. Candler battled sickness for many days and now EK seems to have been bed-ridden by the same sickness. I was able to engage in a few conversations with some locals here, one who I shall Phyl. Phyl is an elderly woman, about the age of 76 who expressed her devout faith in God to me within five minutes of our meeting. This god she refers to makes no sense to me, but she seems to believe in his power of healing over her cancerous body. She stated that for 12 years now she has been battling cancer, and despite technology today she refuses treatment. Her skin is wrinkled and spotty, but her smile makes speaking with her bearable. I first approached her at the mailbox one afternoon with Candler as we worked in the yard. Phyl lives across the street and is known in the neighborhood to be the watchful eye. Since her retirement 10 years ago, Phyl finds it difficult to occupy her mind and body during the day, so she practices virtues through her religious freedom. Religion does not exist where I am from. We do not worship these things called God or feel that our "soul", whatever that may be, will continue to live after death. I learned a lot from Phyl that day. Such things as raising her children on her own after her husband's death, and living with a dark cloud in your conscious that you know will kill you - cancer. My understanding of cancer is limited to the idea of it having a greater meaning than sickness. Cancer can be a sickness, but it can also be a means to an end. It can appear as an obstacle in our lives or as a thought that will not fade. Thanks to Phyl, my understanding of the geriatric community has been breached and I hope to continue interacting with them.

I have decided, after a great deal of contemplation, to develop a set of questions that I will present to those I meet on this journey. I need to understand why it is that humans give Candler odd looks when we are in public. Just the other day we were approached in the restroom and they wanted to know why we were in the wrong bathroom. Odd, I know. Questions I hope to propose concern the idea of roles of men and women in the world, and when the "man" or the "woman" are not present, how the world revolves. I heard a man say the other day that women could not exist or live without him. Why then was he not married? Beats me.

I have attached a picture below of Andie and I chilling on the couch tonight. Candler has been working on homework for a few hours now and EK is coughing herself to sleep. It is a good night to sleep on the hammock I believe. Until my next report...

-V

(Andie and V, bonding on the couch!)