* * *
The strong northerly winds whipped into our home, and I coughed because of the dust. I had just come from outside, but it was too cold to remain out there for long. Though our house wasn’t insulated, at least it was a partial shelter from the wind. It was quiet in our house, which wasn’t uncommon, but something about it felt strange.
I went towards my parents’ room and was about to barge in when I fell silent. Thankfully my bare feet were quiet on the ground. I stood just out of sight, listening.
Mom was in the room, Dad, somewhere else. She was quiet, her voice hushed and quiet. When I listened closer, I realized what she was doing.
Praying.
Frozen in time, I wasn’t sure whether I should bolt and pretend I never heard or stand and listen. For better or worse, I chose to listen. The words were quiet and quick, and there was emotion laced in with them. Was she crying?
It must be something big, I thought. I couldn’t tell the words apart, and I didn’t want to be caught. At any moment a sibling could come walking by, and the game would be over—even though it had been accidental.
I heard the telltale sounds of Dad coming home and knew I had to move. Dancing away quietly, I stayed out of sight as he came into the house. He went straight to Mom, and I couldn’t help but creep closer.
“Did you get any?” she asked.
“No,” Dad responded. From my vantage point I could see him put his hands on her shoulders from behind. He stroked her arms, and she continued to cry softly.
“Nothing?”
“We have no more credit. We haven’t produced enough.” I knew now what he was talking about. We didn’t really deal in money all that much in the settlement. Instead, a running tab of plus or minus would be kept at the store. When we had peanuts or other produce to sell, our number would go up. Then when we bought, it would go down. Apparently it was so far down that they wouldn’t give us any more bread, any more food.
We have no food, I realized. Disappearing from their door, I went to the kitchen (a separate building) and decided to check it out for myself. There was some sugar but no flour. Without flour, you can’t make bread. It was winter, and we weren’t harvesting anything. We have no food, I realized. Fear gripped me and hit me harder than any of the north winds ever had.
I heard something and had to look. Hiding beside the door, I saw Dad heading to the barn. His head was hanging low, and his stride was stunted, and—I wasn’t sure how to describe it. Somehow he looked small, as if the weight of the world was pressing his shoulders down into the ground.
Mom hadn’t left the house, and as soon as Dad made it to the barn I made my move. Scrambling out of the house and running full tilt to the other side of the barn, I moved into position to watch. With his back to me, he headed to where we kept the horse food. It was called kafir, a grain grown specifically for horses. Its grey-white cob wouldn’t do for human consumption.
But—what was he doing?
He was pounding the kafir into a powder. His work was laboured, deliberate and methodical. It was an act born out of desperation, an act of submission that a father never wants to have to resort to for his own children. But when there is no other option, the food for horses can become food for humans.
Baked into something resembling bread, the kafir tasted awful. It was a dense consistency and could probably have been used as a hammer. In order to make it even remotely palatable, Mom sprinkled it in water and added a half teaspoon of sugar. It was the only way we would eat it, and for the time it was the only food we had. When it hit my belly, I realized just how desperate we were. No produce. No credit. No flour. Nothing but kafir. I didn’t resent the situation we were in, but seeing Dad’s concession made me realize that God cares deeply for his children and wants to give them bread to eat.
* * *
Our homestead was one of 20 in the village of Friedensfeld, a kilometre-long stretch of road divided into farms 100 metres wide. Each farm was one kilometre deep, though some had land beyond it. It was modeled after the Russian settlements from which the families had all come, and how much space you had for agriculture depended on where the bush started on your land. Over time the bush would be brought down and the farms expanded, trying to push the amount of food we could produce. This village—Friedensfeld—was in the settlement of Fernheim in the Chaco, a small section within the country of Paraguay. It was (and continues to be) a country that knows what it means to be poor.
* * *
Before Dad owned the world’s first hybrid truck (a Chevy motor with a Ford body can be considered a hybrid, can’t it?), our family had only one bike. It was a beautiful black Heidemann single-speed adult-sized bike. As a young kid I would see my older siblings hop onto it and pedal off, and I was desperate to copy them. Not one to take labels (like adult-sized) to heart, I decided that I was going to ride the bike, no matter what came in my way. The problem was I was five years old and much, much too short.
But that wasn’t about to stop me.
An adult would climb onto that bike by swinging a leg over the bar, sitting on the seat and pedalling the way it was designed to be done. Not me. Since my head was barely higher than the seat itself, that wasn’t an option. But a bike isn’t a completely solid object, and the middle of a bike happens to be a large hole. For me, this was my opportunity. Slinging my leg through the triangle formed by the bars of the bike, I could get both my feet on the pedals if the bike was tilted 20 degrees to the side. My back end would be sticking out in the air, my head was under the handlebars in order to be able to see, and my arm had to stretch across to grab the opposite handlebar, but I was biking.
And that was all that mattered to me.
It was 500 m to my grandpa and grandma’s house down the dirt road, which had more bumps and potholes than anything I’ve ever seen in Canada, but I was determined to get there using my bike. With my body positioned like someone doing yoga, I pedalled as fast as my little legs would take me. One of the older men in the village couldn’t stop laughing as I rode by, shaking his head.
“That kid has determination like nobody else I’ve ever seen,” he’d say. It was uncommon for a kid to ride a bike—never mind an adult bike that was far too big for him. My determination set the stage for more struggles, challenges and victories to come in life.
* * *
The horse’s hooves beat the ground beneath us in a rhythm that I had become familiar with. The reins were gripped tightly in my hands, my brother hanging on to the horse without his hands behind me. The kafir fields stretched out before us, and we leaned forward with excitement. We hit the beginning of the kafir and started screaming. Galloping beside the field, we let our lungs take control of the situation. Sometimes the yelling was words, sometimes it was just noise.
As soon as we began yelling, the horse pounding the ground beneath us, there was a reaction. From amongst the stalks, hidden until now, came the sudden whooshing and beating of the wings of hundreds of pigeons. Afraid for their lives, they took off into the air. They had been sitting on the tops of the stalks, pecking away at the kafir. Since it was the food for our horse and part of our livelihood, it was our job to protect it.
Not to mention that it could also be a lot of fun.
We got to the end of the row and pulled up, turning around. They had settled on this side now, and we went back at it, leaning forward and making our throats hoarse. More pigeons took off. They usually fled at our noise. I pulled the horse up short, reining it in with instinct. We stood still, beside the kafir. My brother didn’t have to ask or speak; he knew what I had seen. Up ahead was a flock of parrots, still on the kafir. They didn’t flee as quickly, but that was OK. We didn’t want them to. Art leveled his slingshot at the bird, taking aim. He was shooting over my head, and with action born of experience I ducked down so the bullet wouldn’t hit me.
The