All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [149]
Each of Sexto Sentido’s intense story lines revolve around social issues. There is a gay male couple, a girl who has been sexually abused, a hero character who becomes HIV-positive, a virgin who is betrayed after marriage, and more. The stories are forthright and dynamic, and they present both real problems and real solutions, along with dispensing medically accurate reproductive health information. We were there to make cameos and film a public service announcement about HIV prevention. They filmed a bit of an episode, and after the director yelled, “Cut!” (a woman director, unusual even in Hollywood) the camera pulled back to reveal Salma and me sitting with her at the monitor. We then addressed the cameras, trading lines in Spanish, saying that it’s a lot easier to talk about safe sex on TV than it is to practice it consistently in real life, but it’s critically important. The only bad part of the morning was seeing my tired face and that one huge pimple in such close shots on TV and wincing every time I flubbed an especially hard word in Spanish.
I speak Spanish fairly well, and pick up momentum after a few days’ practice, but for some reason I kept tripping over the same words on every take. It was embarrassing to hear the director yell, “Otra vez! Again!” over and over. There was a time when I might have been flustered, but the new tools of my recovery helped keep me from overreacting. It was a perfectly imperfect performance. I remembered I could make a mistake without being a mistake, and we all had a good laugh when it was over.
Back at the hotel, Salma and I sat out by the pool in the tropical evening air and rehashed the journey we had taken together (which, as with all my trips, was far more extensive than the space here allows me to describe). It’s so interesting how we each have our own deeply private responses to the beautiful people we meet, the incredible things we see. We compared notes about a stop we made at a drop-in center that offered vocational training to homeless kids as well as those who passed their days on the streets hawking to tourists. I made a small friend who was on my lap or held my hand the entire visit, even when I had my hair braided. He made beautiful, intricate figurines from banana leaves, which he sold at intersections to support himself. He was no more than nine. I was torn up by the pathos of his resiliency. For Salma, the breaking point was witnessing the innocent, creative expression of children in such desperate circumstances. Watching the little ones dancing, twirling with joy, that’s when she went to pieces. She continued to teach me about admiring the positive even in abysmal situations.
The next morning I would be off to Honduras, to visit grassroots programs in a community of Garifunas, or Black Caribs, where adult seroprevalence was a shocking 8.4 percent. It would be another movable pageant of tragedy, resilience, and hope, and it was a shame that Salma had to return to Los Angeles and wouldn’t be coming along for the ride.
“You’re gonna miss me, you know!” said Salma, reading my thoughts. “I’m gonna miss you, too.”
Initially, Salma had expressed some trepidation about whether she had the knowledge and skills required on a trip like this one. I told her how impressed I was with her instant grasp of the concepts and her virtuoso performance in the field. All it really requires is humanity, I said, and she had that in spades. “You have, like, a PhD in humanity,” I said. “You are totally qualified.”
“Did I pass my test?”
Yes, Salma more than passed the test.
Chapter 17
OFF THE MAT, INTO THE WORLD
Receiving a kiss in Daharvi.
What the eye sees better the heart feels more deeply.
We not only increase the likelihood of our being moved;
we also run the risks that being moved entails. Seeing increases
our vulnerability to being recruited