When we emerged from the doors of the Friendly Guesthouse Lily stood and smiled and we could feel excitement radiating from the glowing expression on her face - the day previous when she had thrust her tiny notebook of testimonials into our hands, a half dozen hand-written messages, presented to us upside-down in an inadvertant testament to the fact that she did not know what they contained, we had caught a glimpse of the stake her family held in bringing guests to the village - yet it was more than a thirst for a few of America’s finest greenbacks that lit the timeless expression on Lily’s face. What we found in this woman, strong and agile for a grandmother, albeit only in her late forties, was the endurance of human vitality, the ingenuity of the human mind, and the great kindness of the human heart - so rare in the raw competition and consumer slime of the smart-phone kiosk, designer coffee culture - on the surface a seemingly cunning saleswoman of the modern Lily's Kitchenworld, inches below the great and ancient wisdom passed down from vast golden fields - from father to son amongst the dancing orange of a ceremonial fire, from mother to daughter building and maintaining a homestead from nothing but the sweat of the brow - those great secrets never to be bought or passed through something so trite as an entitlement, inheritance or title.
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