Maube's lesson
I saw my friend Maube do many magical things without even trying hard. He’d hop off of a trail and back on just as a coconut fell where he would have been. He’d walk in the trees from limb to limb like a frog hopping on lilypads. He just knew somehow.
One day we were showing some guests a beautiful interior lake on an island. The path going up was nice and gradual – an easy walk. Maube led the way while I brought up the rear. No problem there, if it had been Texas, I’d have been the one leading the way and telling stories. He was there to guide, I was there to carry the machete and backpack.
We got to the top of the mountain and everyone oohed and ahhhed at the view down to the spring fed lake. It was about an eighty foot drop and while the trail was steep, it was doable. For safety’s sake, I secured a rope to a thick tree and tossed the slack down the trail. It would help when we all came back up. We were all set to climb down when I saw Maube get that crazy grin of his. Without warning, he took three fast strides and leaped off the cliff. He sailed through the air and grabbed one of those Tarzan vines and shimmied down it as if he did it every day. Everyone wowed and I led them down the trail to where Maube waited for us. We all swam in the lake and had lunch before climbing back up and walking back to the boat. Maube was the last one up and as usual, he did not follow us up the trail. Instead, he free climbed up. He didn’t climb cautiously, from handhold to foothold, testing each before he moved to the next. He just hopped, and jumped, and reached, and grabbed his way up.
Maube was a Caribe Indian, born where the Orinoco River joins the Atlantic Ocean. He was a Garifuna shaman like his father and his grandfather, while his uncle plied a trade route up and down the river. Maube often accompanied his uncle and learned the land. When developers drove his people from their hereditary lands, his parents and uncle traveled from island to island moving freight, trade goods, and news. I learned a lot from that man. He was maybe five years older than I was, but seemed decades wiser and more experienced.
The day we came back from the lake, we moved the boat to a spot for the after-dinner night dive. When the day was done everyone sat in the main salon for the nightly movie. Our Captain had a collection of old classics. That night it wasStreetcar named Desire. At the point where Blanche DuBois says, “Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Maube pointed at the screen and said, “She understands.”
“Understands what?” I asked.
“Leap and the net will be there. It’s true, Mon.”
Leap and the net will be there. A man's faith summed up in seven words. And since my faith would never equal his, I felt compelled to ask, “And what if it isn't there? Then what?”
He smiled, pushed his dreadlocks off his neck, and said, “Enjoy the view on the ride down.”