Walking With the Poor - Notes From the Field

INAUGURAL MISSION AWARENESS TRIP TO JUAREZ

July 16-23, 2005

Onward to Northern Mexico

Today we travel almost in the same direction as Hurricane Emily. This strong and persistent hurricane prevented Bernardo, CFCA-Merida project coordinator, from being with us for the beginning of the mission awareness trip. Bernardo opted to remain in Merida and “ride it out” at the side of his young family. We are hoping that Bernardo will be able to join us in a couple of days. Our solidarity and prayers are with all of those people in the path of this Category-5 storm.

We board some very full flights on our way north to Mexico City and on to Juarez, a telling sign that the Mexico City Airport serves some 250,000 passengers per day. Sometimes this anthill of human activity feels more like a busy bus terminal with entire families traveling, grandmothers, little children, high decibel levels of music and talking and an abundance of smoke.

In spite of the late hour, we are kindly met at the Juarez airport by Angelica, CFCA-Juarez project coordinator. She is accompanied by our youngest son, Robert Jacob, who has driven down from Kansas City with CFCA’s International Programs Director Paul Pearce. I thank God for the goodness and nobility of both of them. After we finish up here in northern Mexico, Jacob will return with us to Guatemala and then travel back to Kansas for his second year at the university.

Because of airline problems, one sponsor, Delvis, arrives a day late in joining the group. Delvis accepted the challenges very well. She appreciated the special care from our MAT team in Kansas City. We are all here now and ready to celebrate this inaugural trip to Juarez and the High Sierras of the Tarahumara.

Smiling little Socorro Jacqueline traveled with her mother 22 hours by bus from Tecate in order to see her sponsors, Mary and Robert. On Sunday morning, at the parish church located one block from the CFCA office in Juarez, we sing Alabaré and reflect on the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven.

Wild Juarez

On our first morning, we enjoy the gathering of children and mothers from the three projects located in the western section of Juarez. We are treated to demonstrations of musical, poetic and artistic talent. In most of the art, I sense the children’s struggle with their very challenging neighborhoods and living situations. The children shower us with small gifts they had made in preparation for our arrival. Staff and parents do their best to share with sponsors the realities of this border area: unemployment, domestic violence, alcoholism, insecurity, oppressive heat in the summer (102 degrees today) and cold in the winter, families of six to eight people per household, the average family income of $40 per week with over double that amount needed just to survive. There is stark poverty in the Western section of Poniente but posh malls in the East. With both parents working or searching for work, children and youth are often left to their own street entertainment. Two live karate demonstrations by the children highlight the need for personal self-defense. One boy limps off the stage.

There is a certain wildness about Juarez; perhaps it is related to its history as a south-of-the-border party nest for recruits from Fort Bliss, Texas. Taverns and night clubs abound amid loud cars and dog-eat-dog driving.

In stark contrast to this cacophony, we stay this night in a home for retired nuns in Chihuahua, 400 kilometers south of Juarez. After a mechanical delay, we begin the trek to Chihuahua which includes a lunch stop in Ahumada, famous for its cheeses and foot-long burritos. Bean burritos have become a staple food this week.

After being lost in Chihuahua for some time, we finally enter the large compound of the Siervas de los Sagrados Corazones y de Los Pobres (Servants of the Sacred Heart and of the Poor). I understand the Sisters have 20 mission sites in this high country, 17 of which are CFCA projects. Most of them are boarding facilities related to schools. This offers the children and youth from remote homes and rancherias (villages) the chance to attend school. Two groups of students had traveled early to Chihuahua to greet the sponsors and to perform some of their dances, songs and poems--beautiful nervous children making valiant efforts to recite memorized descriptions of the programs. They come from the Madera project and Matachi, another project in Juarez. Among them is Juan Carlos, sponsored by Greta Ryan, CFCA project director for the Caribbean region, and her family. The story of their mountain towns is sad and true. It is the story of the unbridled cutting of the pine forests and the subsequent economic collapse when natural resources are finally depleted.

Marta, a CFCA project community contact and a native daughter of Matachi, who is also the poet laureate of her mountain town, laments that six out of ten homes in Matachi are now abandoned.

We spend a short and warm night in the convent and are up early to make the 6 a.m. train to Creel. All of us were really looking forward to this train ride. It wasn’t to be. The small train station is a beehive of travelers, so many that we are forced to drive to Creel. It turns out to be a pleasant trail and we have breakfast in the town of Cuautemoc, which appears to host a Mennonite community.

The reality of Creel

We arrive just fine in Creel to find a dozen or so children waiting for us together with Sister Luz de Maria. They have come up the mountain from Batopilas. By experience, I know it’s a trip of six hours among many rocks and curves. Sponsors and staff very much appreciate these gatherings of sponsored children, especially considering that the children at this time are on their school breaks. The families of most of these Tarahumara children live in the countryside. Students stay in the boarding homes of the Sisters during the week and walk home for the weekends. We learn that the mountain trek home can take five hours and sometimes even all day.

They are hurting for rain in this entire area. It is no wonder with the truckloads of logs being hauled out of here. Manuela, the loving cook for the children in Sisoguichi, mentions that the corn in the ground now will be lost because the cold weather will come before it can flower and ripen. The poor families will be very hard-pressed to purchase corn for their tortillas. Both in Creel and in Sosoguichi, Paul and I team up with our music and antics in an effort to build bridges of communication.

The small children are excited to take us on a tour of their school and boarding facility. The condition of the buildings speaks volumes about the harshness of the climate and the hard use that the facilities receive year after year. We meet the director of the secondary school, David, his wife Maria Elena and their youngest of three, Carolina. Eight years ago, the Catholic bishop of this area invited David to take over the direction of the secondary school. Little Carolina stole the afternoon show with her enthusiastic and precise rendition of four Mexican folk dances. It comes naturally for her as Mom is the dance instructor for the school.

Breakfast and Bengals

What a surprise this morning at the restaurant overlooking Creel! In rather flimsy cages and within breathing range of visitors, three adult Bengal tigers reign apparently well-fed and healthy. The owner of the restaurant likes animals; he also has deer and ostriches.

After breakfast, we borrow a room at the Marist Seminary and watch a presentation from Gabriela (“Gaby”) about CFCA’s involvement in Tecate, Ensenada and Hermosillo. A lawyer by profession, Gaby now coordinates these three small projects, serving 92 sponsored children.

Sight-seeing at Copper Canyon and bidding farewell

We drive the very curvy road from Creel to the famous Barrancas de Cobre (Copper Canyon). It is such an impressive marvel of God’s creation. Unfortunately, this is the height of the tourist season so after trying two attractive restaurants overlooking the canyon, we must drive back to Creel to find a place to have lunch. As I write this, we are on our way back to our convent posada (lodging) in Chihuahua.

Next morning, after Holy Mass and breakfast, we enjoy a short presentation by 12 sponsored children from Carichi, a small town high in the Sierras that serves 48 sponsored friends. Sister Nadina, accompanied by two parents, expresses gratitude for the sponsorship programs which “help our children grow.”

We bid our mission awareness group farewell and Godspeed.

Monday, July 25, 2005

We will now celebrate two days of staff formation for our CFCA co-workers in the Juarez project. Staff and sponsors strive to model the community that we preach. Greta will now fly back to Kansas City, Kan. Paul will cross to El Paso, Texas to claim his little truck at the long-term parking lot for the drive back to Kansas City. Cristina and I will fly to Guatemala and prepare for the MAT for 35 sponsors beginning on August 6. Heartfelt thanks for your solidarity and prayers.

Bob Hentzen
Juarez project - Chihuahua, Mexico
July 25, 2005