Maryknoll Lay Missioners

This week we had visitors at HOPE Project.  I asked my students last week what they’d like to do when they come and the resounding answer was drama.  Skits are very popular here as a part of story-telling, competitions or part of events where drama groups get paid for sharing a skit with a certain message. 

These skits often have serious subject matter, although they can also have a bit of comedy.  What I find interesting is how the students’ drama reflects what they experience.  Violence is portrayed as a way to resolve disagreements, which I suppose is all too common in Western entertainment as well.  

The two drama performances had the themes of the dangers of drug use and the importance of education. I was impressed with the number of scenes the children came up with and the layers of issues that came up in the performances: trust, respect for elders (or lack of it with elders without formal education), student bullying and even students’ hygiene!

The Primary Students’ Performance – Scene 1 – Unknowing parents give money to their children for drugs

Scene 4 – Crying about being misunderstood

The closing scene – All ends well when a neighbor pays the fine for the children.

Some issues are not easy to resolve in a 15 minute play!

The other students were captivated.

Our stage is the foyer outside the project office (and the restrooms).

The drama included a Parent-Teacher’s meeting – which revealed a lot about how my students perceive these meetings – and their relationships with their guardians.

Overall, it was a good show!

Our last performance was a beautiful solo about how far education will take you.

After the drama performances, we divided into groups to have reading circles with our guests – as all took turn reading aloud and learning new words – one of the techniques we are using to help improve our student’s vocabulary and reading confidence.

Mary helping two of our girls choose which book to read.

Shirley sharing a story about Patch, a horse.

Jane reading about Junie B. Jones’ adventures.

Fr Bill and the boys read a story about smugglers!

We then divided into two groups to visit the homes of two of my students.

We had an encore performance by one of my student’s younger sister.

A family I am proud to have supported.

Thanks to our visitors for coming and reading with us!

   I’m happy to report that the books that our visitors helped us start are continuing in our daily reading circles.  I have six recent high school graduates who were supported by the project and are now volunteering with us.  They are even helping the students with new words and spelling words!  I love it!  And I hope it helps our young ones learn to love to read.

Fr. Dan explains U.S. Thanksgiving traditions.

I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving — and Thanksgiving itself is one of them.  Every year Maryknollers in São Paulo — the Lay Missioners, Fathers, and Sisters — gather to celebrate Thanksgiving together.   This year we decided to celebrate on a Brazilian national holiday (the Declaration of the Republic, Nov. 15),  invite Brazilian friends, and spend the afternoon hanging out, talking, and playing games.  Everyone was up for it.  All the Maryknollers cooked and prepped and my sisters, who were visiting, brought the cranberry sauce from the U.S.  Everyone invited a few friends — roommates, co-workers, former Maryknoll missioners.  About 25 of us gathered at Maryknoll Father Dan McLaughlin’s house on the northern periphery of the city.

Everyone digs in!

As we gathered to say grace, Dan had each one introduce themselves.  He then explained what he called a very important Thanksgiving tradition in the U.S. — that the men wash the dishes!  The only exceptions would be the dono de casa (the host, himself) and one guest who, upon arrival, had declared himself the best dishwasher in Brazil and had immediately gotten to work at the kitchen sink.

The men, washing the dishes.

We had quite the spread — a total of three turkeys (in Brazil they’re much smaller than they are in the U.S.), stuffing, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, squash, green beans, rice and beans (can’t invite Brazilians and not feed them rice and beans), plus some other dishes which I never discovered the names of.  The desserts were amazing too, including pumpkin pie that Lay Missioner Katie made from fresh pumpkin.

Playing games!

After dinner, the men washed the dishes.  People chatted in small groups, made new friends and new connections, and played games with the kids.  We rested in each others’ company, and were thankful.  One Brazilian friend, Vitória, said, “O evento teve a cara de Maryknoll mesmo — bastante diversidade, sensação de inclusão, e muito amor!” — “The event had the face of Maryknoll itself — plenty of diversity, feeling of inclusion, and much love!”  Just what Thanksgiving is all about.

Today was my first full day back at work since returning from vacation.

It’s fascinating to be back in a culture different than my own.  I’m more aware of the non-verbal communication than what I may do naturally in my own culture.  Here an glance may mean yes, looking away meaning no.  Hugging on both sides or tapping foreheads as a sign of greeting – those are things that are new again, yet familiar since I’ve now lived in East Africa for 3 and a half years.  Respect is shown in words and in silence.  And working with teenagers, I’ve found silence is also a way of avoiding the reality.

About half of the children the HOPE project supports are partial orphans, which means that they’ve lost one parent to AIDS and their remaining parent is HIV+ and unable to support them to school.  These are the lucky ones.  They still have a mother who’s usually willing to struggle to help them, even if she cannot afford their daily bread.

Two of the students I met today are total orphans, who live with aunt and uncles.  Both of these kids are ones for whom most people would say “maisha ni magumu.”  Life is hard. Whether it’s that the aunt is tired of caring for the children of her sister who passed away 15 years ago or that she finds the constant needs too much for her patience, it’s tough for the child, especially for kids going through the tumultuous teenage years.

Eric did well in primary school and his older brother managed to get a chance at going to a good university.  But the last two years have been a tough transition for Eric, with his brother gone at school, his uncle busy at work and his aunt just not interested in him, his performance dropped and he found that being the class clown was more fun than being serious about his studies.  Now with a reputation and being far behind in his classes, it’s almost too late to catch up.

It’s the students who’s guardians don’t show up – whether it’s at parent meetings at the school or when we try to meet with them – that I feel for.  Life is hard enough for a teenager without being loved by the people around him everyday.  Mercy is another girl who’s aunt doesn’t always give her the care she needs – but today she came with another student we support, who’s also studying hairdressing.  Sometimes having a friend is all you need to make the world seem like a better place and that life isn’t so hard.

Having spent a month with my own family and friends, seeing Eric and Mercy again remind me why I’m here.  Hopefully to help them have a life that isn’t so hard in the years to come.

Thanks to all my friends at home that support me in what I do.

In addition to my parish work, I’ve been doing some prison visits as well.  My fellow Maryknoll-missioner Heidi has been working for the Pastoral Carcerária (prison ministry of the Catholic Church) here for 15 years, focusing mostly with women in prison and human rights.  Through Heidi I got connected with the Pastoral, attended a training, and began visiting three different prisons.

Earlier last year I had visited two women’s prisons with other missioners (once for a mass and once for a health class), but on those occasions I didn’t get a chance to visit the areas where the prisoners live.  When I went to a men’s prison with a team from the Pastoral for the first time,  I was completely taken aback when I entered the cell block.  I had seen the film Carandiru (about the 1992 prison revolt and massacre) and thought that the depictions of overcrowding, freedom with the cells and cell-block, decorations, and hanging laundry were a thing of the past.  I could not have been more profoundly wrong.  As we entered the cell-block, I felt like I was walking into a scene from Carandiru.

We entered a court-yard full of men who were just sitting around, with maybe a few playing soccer.  The courtyard was surrounded by two levels of cells, with towels and laundry hanging everywhere.   The cell we visited had eight bunks, but a prisoner told me that 20 men sleep in that cell at night.  The longer you’re there, the better chance you have of eventually moving up to a mattress.  Another prison I visit is CDP Belém, which is even more crowded.  One unit of the prison was designed for about 750 men, but holds almost 2,000.  The cells there have six bunks, and 30 men sleep in each one. (Check out these photos comparing the size and type of cells in Germany to the ones in Brazil).  At Belém I was very impressed with the soccer goals the men had constructed using string and plastic bottles!

“CDP” indicates “provisional,” meaning the men are there awaiting trial (the majority of men I met were in for drug offenses).  But because of nation-wide overcrowding, even those who have been sentenced can remain in a CDP long after they should.  A major downside to remaining there is that unless they’ve progressed to the point where they’re allowed to work (in the prison or out in the community), there is absolutely nothing for them to do all day.  One group of men showed me the paper swans they were making — simply to occupy their hands and minds, they said.

Each time I’ve visited a prison, it’s been a different experience.  One team I went with provided a charismatic prayer service and then spoke briefly with the prisoners before heading out.  Another team spoke with the prisoners first, took notes on questions they had about their judicial processes, and then offered a simple prayer service for All Souls Day.  Before we left the prison, we visited with the lawyers to follow up on the prisoners’ concerns and questions.  Another day, I was with a Franciscan priest who wanted to learn more about the prison and different ways that he and others could help out.  So we chatted with an administrator (who was great about helping me understand some differences between U.S. prisons/justice system and what we have here in Brazil) and he gave us a tour of the garden maintained by the prisoners in the semi-open unit.

I’ll write more about prison visits in a future post.  For now, it’s been good to get started in this ministry and begin to discover the meaning of Matthew 25:37  “I was in prison, and you visited me.”