The Capotillo Healing

20 December 2001

I had about a three month spell of relative misery. The Yamasa countryside was lush and endless, but nothing was going my way. People would tolerate us once and disappear when we came again. The harder we worked, the less return we received. Doors were shut... I felt cut off. To add insult, I was going on about a month of sickness, hardly able to eat and maintain energy. I slogged through the days, empty and plagued. About a week before Christmas, I was transferred from the mountains to one of the most notoriously criminal neighborhoods in Santo Domingo's inner city.

After work, one of the first nights there, we went to see Don Pedro. We clanged the bolt on the barred outer door of his bright blue concrete house. A voice beckoned us in. Pedro shuffled to a seat near the door in the sparse living room, and we sat down nearby. Don Pedro was perhaps six and a half feet tall, nearing ninety years old. He wore black slacks, a crisp white shirt and house sandals. Cataract silver glazed his eyes, echoing his white hair, contrasting with the deep, earthen brown of his skin. His voice resonated in a gentle, gravel bass. He rocked his upper body in the rhythm of a blind man, drumming his wide hands on his gaunt thighs.

"Bardo," he said, learning my name. "The Poor Bardo... there's a song, the Poor Bardo." I had heard of this song when I arrived on the island. No one could ever tell me much about it. He wavered back and forth a few more times. "It goes something like this..."

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