Tree Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

crawled onto the branch beside her. “Why can’t I make noise?” she whispered.
    “Noise makes the animals afraid of us.”
    Alicia nodded and giggled and started tossing leaves from the tree. I tried to ignore her, but endless energy bubbled from my little sister. Finally, after nearly an hour of trying to be quiet, Alicia looked at me and blurted aloud, “I think we should go home now. Mamí needs help, and we’re just sitting here.”
    Reluctantly, I crawled from the tree and lifted Alicia down. When we arrived home, Mamí met me at the door. “Gabi, tomorrow I want you to miss school. We’re going to the caves so that your father can pray and give thanks,” she said.
    “Give thanks for what?” I said, ignoring the hurt in Mamí’s eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR
    T he next morning, our family left for the caves with gunfire echoing in the distance. Mamí felt sick but insisted on going. She had looked tired and weak for several days. Now she coughed as we walked single file on the trail. Papí led the way, and I walked directly behind him, watching as he picked his footing deliberately on the winding path to the caves.
    Papí wasn’t big, but his body, like a gnarled old branch, carried great physical and spiritual strength. A lifetime of work under the hot sun had toughened and aged his skin like old leather. Living had given him wrinkles of character. Wisdom had given him patience.
    Papí was a simple, honest man. He had no great vision for his life other than to be a good father and provider, and to live as his parents and their parents had. He felt strongly about our heritage and our culture, but the past was not a rope that bound him like a prisoner. He dared to ask why the Indios were treated differently than the Latinos, and always he listened patiently, sometimes smiling and laughing when I explained new ideas that I’d learned in school.
    Not all parents had this courage. My friend Katrina was beaten by her father for asking new questions. She was made to quit school when she asked, “Why can’t I have the same rights and respect as a man?”
    Her father’s angry reply had been simply, “Because you’re a woman!”
    Such new ideas weren’t welcome in Guatemala, but Papí never treated his daughters with less respect than his sons, and always he taught us that being Indio was something to be proud of. He didn’t scold me for questioning our religion and our customs.
    Today, as he did each season after corn was planted, Papí took all of us up to the caves. Each of us carried abasket filled with foods to eat. Papí carried a bundle on his back that held all that he needed for his Mayan ceremonies of thanks.
    Today, our hike took nearly two hours because Mamí walked so slowly. When we arrived at the caves, the younger children explored the shallow caverns while the rest of us relaxed, ate, played, and visited. Papí unfolded the bundled shawl from his back and prepared for the giving of thanks. In front of the largest cave, he lit a large bundle of colored candles bound together so that they would burn as one on the ground. Then he lit small balls of the pine resin, trementina, in a bucket and added incense.
    He swung the smoking bucket in front of the flaming candles and voiced his thanks for hours. I sat quietly beneath a nearby tree and listened to every hypnotic word he spoke in our Indio language of Quiché. Softly, he chanted.
    I give thanks for joy,
And I give thanks for sorrow,
Sorrow makes us strong.
Always we are blessed.
This year we are blessed
With health and food.
And now we give thanks.
Honor to the one who protects us.
We give thanks for all fires.
For fires that burned in our past.
For fires that burn today.
And for fires that wait for tomorrow.
I thank our ancestors.
I respect and hold gratitude
For our traditions.
They are hands that guide us.
    I mouthed some of Papí’s Quiché words in silence. The words weren’t prayers offered to someone who existed only in his mind or on some cloud