Hogmeat

Well I have mentioned Herbie from time to time on this little blog and this week he has reappeared with a new request. First, here is a pic of me with Herbie from last November and a few others of Herbie showing our son Mike how to crack open a coconut when Mike was here in December.

Herbie is known throughout the town as being a big 'shady' and I've already shared about his visiting us, begging for food because he has no money, then showing up with 2 cases of Guiness asking Ginni to help him get it to the van he lives in with our Church van. Anyway this past week we had several days of rain. Herbie cooks outside and the rain made it impossible to cook. Consequently he showed up at our door asking if Ginni could cook his hogmeat.

Now let me explain. One of the animals that still runs wild in the swamps here are wild boar. Ginni and I actually saw three of them crossing the road one night about a month ago. Occasionally the locals will hunt one down, or hit it with their car, and a whole wild pig generates alot of meat. Clearly, somehow, Herbie had been given several chunks of 'hogmeat'. I say chunks because these were not pork chops but basically two large chunks of meat that had been hacked off the animal, probably with a machete.

When Herbie asked Ginni if she'd cook it for him she said "Sure", it was then Herbie said, "Thank you, and don't worry about the hair I'll cut that off later." Hair? Yup, these chunks of meat were from a black boar, and included bone, meat, skin and hair - all intact as it had been chopped of the dead animal. While not exactly what Ginni thought she was signing up for, she put the meat in a pot, added some potatoes, celery, carrots and spices and boiled it all up for him. He was a happy camper when he left and not only had his hogmeat cooked, but had potatoes, veggies, and a mayonaisse jar full of the broth as well!

What a weekend!

Well I gotta tell ya - weekends are nutz.
On Thursday we got a call that we would be having a priest with us this weekend. So I take the homily and put it in a drawer. This gave me more time to focus on CCD classes I'd be doing the following week. Saturday at 4, the priest is to catch a flight to Andros and we'd meet him then be off for dinner at the Navy base, followed by the 6PM evening liturgy. Well at 3:45 I get a call from the Vicar on Nassau telling me that the flight is cancelled (remember those earlier blogs about it being windy - it was so windy they closed the airport on our end of the island). Our priest will be on a flight to North Andros and will then take a cab to us in Fresh Creek. This has got to be almost a 2 hour ride so I'm thinking I'll be paying an $80 cab fare, if not more, and there is no assurance he'll be here for the 6PM service. So we wait, and I pull the homily out of the drawer and start pulling it together, just in case. At 5:40 I head off to the Navy Base alone and lead a Eucharistic Service. After the service I stop at the base and fill our 6 one-gallon water jugs with Navy water. (Our tap water is not drinkable so we get water at the base)

When I get home the priest is here, a wonderful Bahamian priest that was a great homilist. He had been to our parish 2 years ago but not recently. Ginni had stayed behind to play hostess and they were ready to go out to dinner. Hank's Place is the local restaurant and we had a nice meal, although the wind made it rather chilly since Hank's has no windows, only screens (Actually it was in the 60's so not that comfy).

The next day it was 8:30 at our home parish of St. John's and 11:15 at Christ the King in Cargill Creek. I had been planning on doing the throat blessing for Feast of St. Blaise as another means of bringing a Catholic tradition to a community of people that has been dominanted by the Protestant influences on the island, and Fr. Forbes went with the flow and didn't miss a beat.

After Mass at St. John's one couple asked if we could drop by this week and do a house blessing so we set up a Monday morning meeting. I'll come back to that.

After we got back from Cargill Creek we had lunch, Fr. Forbes packed, and we went off to the airport. While he waited for his plane I connected with Johnnie and he siphoned some diesel fuel for me to fill my tank for the next week's travels. I then bid Fr. Forbes farewell and went home to watch the Super Bowl.

Monday - today, we started preparing for CCD, then it was off for the house blessing. This was a very nice couple who were able to tell us a ton of history about our parish and the Church on Andros. When we began to start the prayer the husband says, "The reason we wanted to do the blessing after living here for 30 years is to try to get rid of the ghosts." I said, "excuse me?"

It seems he has been seeing ghosts and spirits and would like them to stop. So I explained the power we have with Jesus, that Jesus cast out demons and with the same authority Jesus had, we have power too. We did the house blessing and, using holy water we blessed each room of his house, all the doorways and windows, and prayed together. When we were finished they both seemed much more at peace.

After this little adventure we headed off to Cargill Creek to teach two CCD classes. So far this is the most frustrating part of ministry here. We have tons of experience working with adults, children are a whole other world. We don't have desks so we're doing this in the church pews with kids crawling under them to get their pencil, or leaning across two pews so one kid can whack another kid, or you look outside and you see one of them had gotten outside and is climbing the tree and making faces at the other kids. At one point I started to unbuckle my belt and Ginni gave me one of those looks - enough said. It does make it interesting to plan the next few week's plans as we plan Ginni's departure to help our son Mike with his broken leg.

Actually, I am writing this after just returning from that little CCD adventure so I am not in the best frame of mind. Tomorrow its CCD at the Navy base, then RCIA, then Wed CCD here; hopefully we'll be able to keep them in the church and out of the trees.
Keep us in your prayers.