Yestrday afternoon we were invited by coffee by Barbarella, and elderly German lady who is one of the few other westerners living in these parts. Having severed almost all ties with her home country, she moved here 8 years ago with the dream of opening an orphanage. CrazyLady got to know Barbarella pretty well when the latter, sleeping within the shell of the house she was having built, fled here barefoot after being robbed by a band of night brigands. She lived with Crazy for a year while her house was being completed. The place is charming, with a clay tile roof, sweeping verandah, artfully chosen furnishings, and a carefully planned but delightfully unkempt European-style garden.
She laid us a lovely table beneath some trees--her best china, strong filtred coffee, great bowls of freshly whipped cream, and a sumptuous cake on a proper crystal cake platter.
I love the juxtaposition here of the romantic and life's nitty-gritty: painstaking elegance atop the table, but below it the nastiest dustiest assortment of toes and cracked nails you've ever seen; strains of Bach on the breeze competing with the ardent clucks of copulating chickens; your teacup hand poised daintily with pinkie in the air, your other hand wildly flailing against a tornado of flies.
Although I'm baffled as to why a staunch perfectionist and lover of order would voluntarily leave her peaceful home country to eke out a living in a place she where struggles so mightily, I am so glad for her remarkable presence here.
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