A group of our Maryknoll community including myself went to the Amazon region of Bolivia to celebrate Holy Week with the Indigenous people of Santísima Trinidad parish. It was wonderful to learn about the joys and struggles of the people as well as their cultural traditions celebrating Easter.
During the Easter Vigil, a 7-year-old boy joyfully sang out the word “Alleluia” with all his strength. He had trouble pronouncing the Ls in that word and sang “Ayeyuya” instead.
The pronunciation did not matter. What was more important was the joy of singing that Jesus is Risen and is present in this Indigenous community.
As a Maryknoll sister, I spent my first three years in mission in Guatemala City, where I learned to read the newspaper in Spanish. Later, I went to a town more than 300 kilometers (about 200 miles) away, where the rural population spoke the Mayan language called Mam. There was no newspaper delivery, but the sacristan told me I could get newspapers in a little shop down the street. When I told the shopkeeper I wanted to buy a newspaper, he asked me, “How many pounds?” He sold old newspapers by weight to vendors who used it to wrap their produce on market day. There are things about culture that you don’t learn from books!
I am a nurse currently in mission with Maryknoll Lay Missioners in Tanzania, where access to medical care is nearly impossible for the families I serve. One day I visited a couple who requested that I assess their 6-month-old daughter. They had taken her to the hospital, yet could not understand the information they received there about her diagnosis of cerebral palsy. As I unwrapped the baby, I noticed the telltale scarring on her arms that I see on so many children with disabilities. The child had been taken to a witch doctor before being treated at the hospital.
As an outsider, I’m not privy to this world of witchcraft, and I don’t know exactly what occurs in these sessions. But I do see the permanent scars on many children I work with. None of it will heal cerebral palsy. Education is critical for these families, yet without help, it is severely lacking.
The couple now understands their baby’s diagnosis of cerebral palsy. They have been trained in methods of basic physical therapy for muscle relaxation and administering medication to control seizures. Now they know what can be done to help their child live up to her full potential as she grows.
The sun was close to setting at the end of a very hot and dusty day in the Amazon of Brazil, where I served as a Maryknoll brother. I was still far from home, and exhausted after long hours of uninspiring tasks. As I pulled into a gasoline station, I saw a poorly clad young man by the gas pump. I confess that my first thought was not at all charitable — “Oh dear God, this is all I need right now, to deal with a beggar!” But, when my car came to a stop, I was surprised by his cheerful greeting, “Fill her up?” I got out of the car, while he started to pump the gas.
As I finally, really looked at him, I saw that he had a large misshapen head. Yet his manner was very pleasant, and it was easy to converse. He seemed so open that I dared to ask, “Does your head hurt much?”
His response was gentle and uttered without self-pity: “All the time.” The bone in his cranium, he said, was constantly growing. He had been to some of Brazil’s better hospitals, but no treatment was available. The condition would eventually kill him. At no point in our conversation did he express resentment about his state in life. We parted with friendly goodbyes.
As I drove away, I realized that the real beggar, the truly needy one, had been me — awash in my own self-pity. The young man at the pump, on the other hand, was a remarkable person and a marvelous witness. He manifested the quality of life that comes when one allows oneself to be embraced by a spirit of gratitude.
Featured image: Octavio Durán/Guatemala
