Sin and grace

Wednesday, July 4, I spent much of the day with Sor Ines, a Spanish Franciscan sister who has been here at least five years.

In the morning we went to a neighborhood, just below the main highway in the lower part of town. Sor Ines spends two mornings a week there at a kindergarten.

Near the kindergarten I saw a number of fairly new houses that looked very nice. I asked her if these were “casas de lujo” – “luxury homes.” No, she said, they are houses of the Aldeas Infantiles, the Children’s Communities. (But then, I guess, poor children deserve the best.) Abandoned or orphaned children, or children whose parents cannot take care of them, are taken in by this international organization. Five to eight children, of all ages, live together in a house with a housemother and so children from a single family are not separated. The housemothers are carefully chosen and trained and are expected to spend many years working as a mother to the children in the houses. One housemother spoke of her role as a “vocation.” The idea is to be a place where the children grow up in as normal as household as possible.

After speaking to the director we went to the kindergarten, where many of the children are from the Aldeas Infantiles. Sister and I took the four year olds on a walk where we passed by their houses. In one we stopped a saw a 10 month old who had newly arrived in his new home.

After this sister took me on a tour of the neighborhood – Colonia Divina Providencia, the Divine Providence neighborhood. But one must wonder if the Divine Providence has really arrived here.

We passed a site at the side of a stream of “aguas negras” – sewer waste – where the city had wanted to put the kindergarten. Sor Ines was one of those who fought against it, suggesting at one point that they should put offices there.

A little further along we saw some houses at the side of the stream, mostly made of bamboo and mud, tin, or adobe. There are ninety households in this area. About 41 families now have cement houses but many houses are very provisional. The community now has water and electricity is slowly arriving, but this is a very poor area. there are also some problems of drugs, prostitution, and occasional murders.

Yet I felt very safe here for Sor Ines is well known, having worked here for about five years. She must know almost everyone and always asks if the children are in kindergarten or school. What a light she is for these people, a true sign of Divine Providence.

After lunch I met Sor Ines and another Spanish Franciscan, Sor María Jesús and visited the jail. It is quite a ways out of town and holds about 550 men and 12 to 15 women. The sisters are among a number of people including a local priest and some Missionaries of Charity who minister in the jail. The sisters are responsible for setting up a carpentry shop in the jail as a way for the men to learn a trade and to earn some money. Sor María Jesús works a lot with the carpentry shop. Sor Ines has a literacy class twice a week. I ended up helping two men – one a 22 year old who could not read. (I don’t find this totally strange after finding out that the teachers in El Bálsamo usually only teach two days a week!) During a break he told me that he had tried to enter the US but had been caught at the Tijuana border and returned to Honduras.

Before I left one of the men showed me around the prison. The men were playing pool, weaving hammocks or fishing nets, playing cards, washing clothes, or just hanging out. He also showed me the room where he and 16 other sleep, with at least four levels of bunks.

As we left the prison an Argentinean-born Spanish woman who had come with us said to me – these two sisters are saints; they are always working and helping. I don’t know if they are saints, but they are signs of grace and God’s love. I am glad that I will be living in their neighborhood.