Divisive Denominations?

Continued from The Invisible Glass Wall…

“I asked for a cloth dipped in cool water and gently began pressing it upon the child’s forehead and body even though it made him cry out. I explained this must be done to help reduce the child’s fever.”

That evening, I managed to catch up with Billy and Mary (the couple that devotes their lives to mission work with the Chorti Maya in Honduras and for whom my friends and family helped me raise a $1000 donation). The couple was out dining with a Baptist mission group that was visiting from the States. Mary welcomed my travel buddies and I to join the group in its visit to some indigenous villages outside of Copan the next day. It was a given for me. Of course I would be going!

The next morning only Daniela was able to rouse herself early enough to come join me for a day out in the countryside. The boys stayed behind and eventually returned to the ruins to see what they had missed the day before. It was quite interesting to be out with the mission group. Last time, I had gone out with Billy and a Habitat for Humanity representative. On that trip I was able to take charge as the resident journalist, firing away questions and learning all about the people and the projects. This time, I felt it would be better to take a step back so the group could accomplish what they came to do. They had traveled from the U.S. to Honduras to conduct prayer walks throughout many of the Chorti Maya villages outside of Copan. I have a strong spirituality and I believe immensely in the power of prayer and meditation. Yet, I couldn’t help but think that about how this group came a significant distance from an incredibly wealthier country and brought nothing more materially relevant. Billy and Mary have been building dozens of schools in the past few years for these communities. School supplies, desks, books etc… would have been just one of the many projects this group could have raised donated goods for through their local community. But then again, the group’s parish seems to be rather involved with Billy and Mary. Perhaps, they’re sending donations often. I don’t know.

A lot of the missionaries where newbies, but, honestly, even the veterans didn’t seem to find the comfort that Daniela and I had with the locals. I’m absolutely in my element when I’m surrounded by new people in new places. I want to see, touch and learn about everything. I want to talk to everyone. I want to hear all the stories. Thus, I hopped out of the truck and popped smiles as I popped photos of the children who raced over to see the caravan of “Gringos” that suddenly appeared. In my much less than perfect Spanish I greeted the children, tickled them and wrapped them in hugs in between portraits. Daniela, an outgoing woman warrior herself, followed my lead and was soon hand in hand with the children. Since she is from Colombia and speaks fluent Spanish, I tossed her my audio recorder and told her to find an interview if she was interested. In no time, she was speaking with the local teacher at the one-room schoolhouse that Billy and Mary helped the community to construct. (I need to try and translate it all still… working on that!)

I couldn’t help but notice, however, that the mission group tended stay in a clique. I watched how they looked at the locals and the locals looked back… but nobody seemed bold enough to break a barrier and try to communicate. And, communication makes a world of a difference. Daniela and I had children crawling in our laps. Beautiful Chorti Maya women permitted me to photograph them while they nursed their babies. But, the mission group seemed to me as if they felt like “outsiders.” I know they didn’t want to be outsiders. Of course that’s not why they were there. Yet, they didn’t seem to muster up the courage to truly connect with those for whom they came to pray. In my experience, establishing a connection is key when trying to reach out to anyone. If you want to share something with someone you will have much more success if you first let them share with you. Take an interest in their lives. Ask them about who they are. Ask about what they like. Build a relationship, especially with these wonderful people, and they will open their arms and their homes to you.

This truth couldn’t have been exemplified better on that very trip. After a community meeting in the schoolhouse with Mary and Honduran aid workers speaking before the locals, the Gringo caravan split into groups in an effort to reach all the houses in their prayer walk. I accompanied Mary’s group first, while Daniela went with a group led by Obando – a Honduran aid worker that helps Mary and Billy. At each house, Mary made the connection first. She would ask about the family and about their health. She would ask about what they needed. Then, she would lead everyone in prayer. One family we visited had a child suffering from diarrhea. While that’s a mild illness in the States, it can often be fatal in these communities where the people hold onto superstitions, haven’t been taught proper healthcare and who live off less than a dollar a day. Varied nutrients are lacking as these people eat corn-based tortillas, beans and rice… every meal, every day. Only recently have this community had access to clean water resources, thanks to Billy, Mary and others who visit to help them. Mary was patient in her instruction of what the family needed to do to help their child find relief. She repeated the proper care several times and asked both the father and mother to repeat it several times. She didn’t get frustrated when the young mother seemed as if she didn’t care. Mary understand that these people have years of tradition and superstition. Only patience and care and connection will overcome such deep-rooted beliefs.

After visiting with this family, I split off from Mary’s group to try and find the others. I wandered around the hillsides, stumbling into the wild backyards of many of the village’s families. I met no resistance when I wanted to photograph and all tried to help lead me in my pursuit to find the next group who had taken off further up the hill. I couldn’t seem to track down the group though. So, I decided to simply hang out with one particularly large family. There were at least four generations living in a three room hut no larger than a kitchen in a typical suburban home in the States. When I walked up the grandmother was eating corn on the cob in nothing but a bra and a skirt. She was laughing with the younger men and children in her family. One young boy was climbing a small tree. A little girl, who later informed me by her cute little digits that she was four, rushed over to show me how she could wash the family’s clothes… by hand. Another young girl, who couldn’t have been older than 14, scooped up her young child, grabbed her husband around the waist and happily posed for a photo. I peered into one of the windows and met a young boy, in the midst of growing into a man, studying for school. He was writing words in the local Mayan language and then he wrote their translation in Spanish. As I wandered around the corner of the house, I found a woman who seemed closer to my age preparing tortillas – mashing the corn, rolling the dough, forming the round tortilla patties and laying them upon the hot stove. Another woman was picking through one daughter’s hair, while also nursing a son on her lap and keeping another son close at hand with her free arm. A few other kids ran over to show off the family chickens. The entire scene was perfect snapshot into the daily lives of these wonderfully open people. After taking some photographs outside, the grandfather of the family invited me inside to see his small shrine with incense burning around figures Jesus and Mother Mary – two very familiar figures for me since I had been raised as a Catholic. That was all I needed to see to realize this family was aware of God and Christianity and believed. I can’t comment on how well they understood their faith because we didn’t have the chance to talk about it. But it was certainly apparent they had faith.

After I while, I wandered off. I didn’t want to be too intrusive. Shortly after, though, I spied one of the prayer groups heading to the home of that very family so I headed back. Upon my return, I found the Gringo prayer group to be quite upset. “Will you pray with us?” one of them asked. The problem became apparent through the outspoken prayer. The Chorti Mayan family wouldn’t let the prayer group pray for them and that had offended the group. The group insisted in their prayer and prayed just outside of the family’s property. In the prayer I heard the group asking God that he find a way to turn this family’s hearts towards Him and make each of them believers. I heard the group ask for God to find a way to reveal Christ to them. And then they ended the prayer.

“But they are believers,” I quietly informed after they prayer. “I was just here and the grandfather showed me his small shrine dedicated to Jesus and Mary.”

“Oh then they’re Catholics,” the group pastor explained. The group was Baptist and the manner of his response seemed to imply that he thought being Catholic was no better than not believing in God at all. He added that in the days of the Conquistadors the Catholic representatives told the indigenous people that if they wouldn’t be Catholics they would die. I don’t know how much of that is true. But now, for me, it’s a mute point. I don’t align myself with Catholicism anymore, but I was disturbed by the entire encounter. A group had come wanting to share their faith in God. Yet, because they didn’t fist try to connect with who they wanted to share with, they developed a misunderstanding for what the people they wanted to share with believed. Furthermore, they didn’t seem to want to share in the huge amount of common ground they did possess with these people when they found out the family did believe. The group simply focused on the small differences and I hate to say “wrote the family off” as being no better off than non-believers. It was as if it had to be the “Baptist” way or the highway. This is simply not what any of this is supposed to be about. And what a difference! This was a group that had simply wanted to come and pray and they had been shut out. I was a photographer who had a big, fancy camera that I used to prod into their daily lives and they welcomed me openly. I feel the difference lies in the fact that the group came to “teach” and I can’t help but say “bestow” their faith upon the locals. I, however, came to “learn” so that they might teach me. Ironic how, at the end, I was to share the very thing with the family that the prayer group had wanted to share, but couldn’t: God.

There is a reason why I profess to be avidly spiritual but no longer religious. My experiences have shown me that spirituality brings people together, while religions divide them.

At the next hut we found Obando and Daniela’s group. Again La Colombiana and I were surrounded and distracted by beautiful little Chorti children. In the midst of giggling with the swarm of kids, however, I noticed that two of the women with the prayer group were crying. “What’s going on?” I inquired. The women were upset because one of the villagers had a baby that was very ill and it didn’t appear the villagers were too concerned with properly caring for the child. It was also evident that the baby had Down Syndrome, though we were unsure if the villagers knew. The grandmother of the feverish baby was holding the child in the direct heat of the day, wrapped in blankets. The child was in desperate need of fluids as evident by the yellow, alarmingly dry skin that hung loosely from his little body. The baby’s head lolled on its shoulders, his eyes rolling behind his lids, snot webbing his nose and mouth. The mother, who should have been feeding the child her vital breast milk, was nowhere to be found. I now understood why the women were so upset. I’ve never encountered such negligence before and, like them, I couldn’t understand it.

“We tried telling them what they should do,” the women heartbreakingly explained. “But they just won’t do it.” And they watched, upset.

I couldn’t bear to watch the negligence to continue, however. In my faltering Spanish I asked the grandmother to join me in the shade. I asked her to help me remove the blankets, explaining what the two other women explained before: that both the sun and the blankets would only worsen the fever. I asked for a cloth dipped in cool water and gently began pressing it upon the child’s forehead and body even though it made him cry out. I explained this must be done to help reduce the child’s fever. I told them if they wouldn’t do it, I would. The grandmother slowly began to take over in cooling the child with the cloth.

“Where’s the mother?” I asked. “She needs to give milk to her child.” Eventually, the mother appeared. Yet, it was obvious she didn’t want to feed her child. At my insistence, however, she took her son. But… there was no milk. The mother hadn’t been nourishing her baby. My spirits sunk. Not much else could be done. As a last resort I showered care on the child, calling him “precioso” and “cariño,” hoping that my lead might free something in the woman’s heart. As we left, I told the mother that I wanted to see the treasure healthy and well when I returned. Again, I felt as if I had my nose smashed up against an invisible glass wall…

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 3:28 pm. It is filed under activism, alive, Charity & Aid, Honduras, Latin America, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.