I'm sitting and looking at a desert...
Sr. Patricia NTOAGAE
'm sitting on a rock at the top of the hill and what is before me is a desert. But there are people in this desert, wandering around, wondering where to turn. We will visit some of them.
There is a grandmother. She has buried a son and a daughter, young professionals in their thirties. They died of HIV/AIDS and the grandmother knows this, acknowledges this. But her remaining daughter will not believe it: it was TB, it was a heart condition; not Aids. The deceased daughter's three children are with the grandmother now, living with her meager pension. Sometimes there is only food for the evening meal; there is no money for transport, so school has become a dream - something that they enjoyed in those happy days before their mother died.
The deceased son's children are with their mother. They can go to school, but the eldest girl often misses because her mother is sick. She watches her mother grow thinner as her father did, and fear comes. Will her mother die too? Will she ever be able to complete school? She is a good student and in her second last year. What will happen to the other children? To the baby? Where will they find food? Already she sees some of her friends having to become head of the household, to care for younger siblings, and with no income. Already she knows their temptation to find money by prostitution, though they know this will lead them down the same road as their parents. But what do you do when there is no food?
We move to visit the woman. She does not really want to communicate with us. She is huddled, hurt in her body, mind and spirit. She has been cruelly beatenby her husband and she does not know where to turn. The police? Risk another beating? Run away, and risk starvation for herself and the two small children. But can her body bear such another beating? Would'nt death be better? In any case, if as she suspects, her husband is HIV positive and there will be death.
We visit another woman, she too has a dreadful secret. She looks at the retarded teenage daughter. She used to have violent fits. Now she is sitting quietly and serenly. But the secret is eating her mother. Her husband has consulted a traditional healer about the girl's problem; he was told his daughter would stop having fits if he slept with her. It turned out to be true. But what a secret! What a weight for a good - living church woman to carry!
We visit the girl who is pregnant. She is only sixteen years old and has just written her exams. Her friends and herself thought it was a grown up thing to do - organise a party for themselves with plenty of alcohol on to celebrate the end of school. It was great fun. But she woke up on the floor of the party venue, with her clothes torn and herself pregnant. Her parents have stated clearly that they will not be looking after the baby. She has a university scholarship for next year. What about the baby? Will she have an abortion? What responsibility does she have for it?
At the farthest end of the desert is the girl - child. She will never be a woman. She will never be able to know tender sexual love, she will never be able to have a child. She has been so violated that this most precious gift will never again be hers. Yes, a fully grown man, a member of her family, violated her, believing that he would be cured of AIDS by doing this. Her mother kept quiet. How could she bring disgrace on the family by reporting this to the police? She even bribed the hospital authorities not to.
I am looking at the women religious in the desert. They are in the desert. They are sharing in the pain of the people, especislly the women and children. They are there, in the midst of it , responding in so many womanly, human ways, trying to bring the compassion of Christ into this desert. Trying to challenge the encroachment of the arid desert - sands.
But they too are experiencing their own desert . They have to accept the possibility of a new form of religious life, the loss of the present kind of religious life. The familiar ways, the familiar response are all being challenged by the new needs. And they are being challenged at a time when there are fewer young religious.
I am sitting and looking at a desert. And I remember that deep down under all this sand, there is water. We know that water in the desert is underground. Far away from here, the underground streamemerges again and produces fertile land. I have to sit and look at thisdesert, believe in the underground stream and wait. Wait. Wait for the right time and the right moment. Wait and still generate life in the face of suffering. That is my calling now, as a woman and as a religious.
Hence this picture of a woman at the well with a calabash is a sign of hope for us. Once we have waited and listened well to what God says we will be able to drink from our own wells but also share.
|
CURRENT EVENTS |