24 Intense Hours

Saturday evening found me at the local parish for their evening Mass. The church was full. People participated well and the priest did a great job. It was a beautiful reverent Mass, and am thrilled that I will have the opportunity to celebrate here on the weekends (he is alone and overloaded with Masses, and so I will help him out- we only have the one Sunday mass at NPH). One of the things that will take some getting used to is the women’s outfits: there is a traditional dress that they wear, and many also wear what appears to be a folded up towel on their heads. (Some wear more traditional veils, but the folded up towels remind me of the stories of pre-Vatican II women who had to wear veils or beanies, and if they found themselves without those, would sometimes just put a piece of Kleenex on their heads for Mass.)

Afterwards, as I was leaving, I was invited by a man from town to accompany him to his house for dinner. I knew that his 16-year-old daughter had died about a month ago, and so my assistant and I agreed to join him. What I didn’t realize until we were a couple of blocks into the walk was that we were leading a procession of about 300 people who were also coming over for dinner. It is tradition here that 40 days after the death of a loved one, the Mass intention is for the deceased, and the family then holds a dinner. At the entrance to the house (which was cement floor, concrete block walls and some pieces of corrugated steel for a roof), they had build a shrine with a large image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Onto the image was taped a photo of the girl who had tragically died (brain embolism). The image was surrounded by numerous candles, flowers, and so much incense was burning that as we approached I actually thought that there might be a fire.  It was a great meal, and everyone was sitting in rented white plastic chairs like those we buy at Home Depot- many were out on the street.  All throughout the dinner time, various groups of people took turns going into the area where the shrine to the girl was to pay their respects and pray in song or just in words.

I was back at church by 5:30 am (after a good night’s sleep- I have been going to bed by 9:30 or 10, as everything here pretty much shuts down after the sun goes down) to help hear confessions before the 6am Mass. The church was full for Mass (I figure it seats at least 800 or so people).  It was another nice Mass and afterwards I headed back to NPH for Mass at 8 with the kids here.

It is going to take a while to get the kids used to participating in a meaningful way at Mass. They all like being there (they ask me all the time about when the next Mass will be), but they are at a very basic level from a catechetical standpoint. We had more go to communion, since I was able to get around and hear a decent number of confessions over the past few days. The key will be to get the adults and the older kids on board.

After Mass I went with a group of about 20 older kids who are part of a leadership group to some of the poorest areas in the outskirts of town. They loaded up a microbus and pickup truck with all sorts of donated clothes as well as dolls and balls. (I think that they have more clothing donated here than they can use, and so they make trips out to give it away to those who are worse off than they are.) We made two different stops, and the areas we went to reminded me of scenes I have seen in National Graphic magazine. The poverty was extreme- dirt roads, of course. Few cars. Horses and donkeys used for transportation and for transporting goods. Women walking around carrying large pots and other items on their heads. A large communal concrete clothes-washing area (concrete washboards and communal pool for rinsing). Thin cows in the street munching on weeds. Women in their traditional dresses (I’ll have to find some pictures of these).  Once we stopped our vehicles, word got around and suddenly we were surrounded by what must have been a hundred kids all longing for the candies and toys and clothes that were to be passed out. Kids were all very polite and excited to receive what they were given. We also had some items for mothers to use with their kids. It reminded me of scenes I have seen on television where the United Nations goes into refugee camps and tries its best to maintain order while being swamped by those desperate for the items being handed out. One of the cornerstones of the NPH philosophy is sharing- and having the kids participate in this hands-on experience with others in much worse shape than them was, I think, important for them.

After I got back from that, a group of us went to visit one of our high school boys who was in the government hospital because he had not taken care of a soccer injury, and it had gotten badly infected. Visiting hours are only one hour/day- and so when we arrived, there was a line of people waiting to get in. We found his room- it reminded me of the hospital ward from the television show M*A*S*H- four to ten people to a room, not what I would call sanitary conditions, various kinds of sheets and blankets on the beds. No lights on- only the natural light coming in from the open windows. He is going to be fine, but it was amazing to see the way the hospital was basically “invaded” by hundreds of visitors paying their visits for that short window of time- many brought food for their loved ones, as the food provided there must be even worse than our own hospital food. I had been there earlier in the week to visit a woman who had had her gall bladder removed (the cousin of my assistant).  The recovery room where we saw her reminded me of the basement of an old house.

Then I spent some time at the house of the girls in the college prep program- they live on a separate campus (as do the boys for this program, in their own house which I will write about at a later date). Their facility is a rundown concrete building with a small courtyard. This is also something I’ll need to get some pics of- 36 of them live together with an adult to keep an eye on things. They are all lively and animated and happy to get a visit. We are going to spend time together on Friday evenings, and we talked about where we might find a place to meet  (inside or outside) where there is electricity and a working light bulb.

 Finally, in the late afternoon, I thought I would pay a visit to the “baby house.”  At the moment, I don’t think they have any infants, but there are twenty or so two- and three-year-olds. They were spread out in a fairly comfortable room watching Shrek  (someone must have donated a flat-screen TV they can use to show movies).  A bunch of the little ones crawled onto me as sat on a couch and watched the movie with them. They called me “Padre Wasson” (the name of the priest who founded NPH- there are pictures of him all over the place, and he is revered like a saint here. He died in 2006. The kids must have thought I was him because I was dressed the same way he is in the pictures.)  At one point a little girl came up to me, put her head on my chest, and said, “mi mamá murió.” (“My mommy died.”) After this two other little ones, who seemed as if they had only learned to speak, came up and said the same thing, “mi mamá murió.”  They weren’t crying, but seemed sad and just wanted to let me know.

It was a lot to take in in one day...
(I posted some pics on the pic page of the group distributing food and toys)