Some time around 2:00 PM yesterday, the clouds began their march up the valley overlooked by the parish church in San Sebastián Coatán. Their move was gradual, yet steady, obscuring the village on an opposing ridge first, then the valley, then parts of the town just below us. Their final move was to engulf us in a cool soup of white as we continued our work for the day.
Earlier in the day, the medical team continued its efforts in our clinic. Sandy Agne, a parishioner from Sacred Heart parish in Omaha, was profoundly affected by the patience of those waiting to be served. In the United States, a thirty-minute wait might be viewed as a crime, with supervisors being called in and staff being punished. Here most patients waited much, much longer to be seen by our medical team.
Sandy was also impressed by how the children who accompanied their families were able to wait without having a device in their hands. They played simple games or chatted with their families or one another while the line moved slowly forward, one step at a time, similar to those afternoon clouds.
Fr. Damian Zuerlein, the pastor of St. Frances Cabrini church, remarked on how trusting the children had been during the fluoride treatment our education team provided at John Paul II School. The children would be smiling as they approached the fluoride application station, then their faces would slowly twist and contort as the fluoride was applied. The children rose from their chairs with their smiles gone, sour looks matching the taste of the fluoride. After a quick run to the sink to rinse and spit, however, the smiles had returned as they waved goodbye to our team. Fr. Damian felt a simple, trusting love radiating from those smiles as he waved back to bid them farewell.
After the clouds rolled in, the education team went to local villages to plant trees with the parish youth ministry. Enwrapped in the clouds, there was not much to see beyond the friends we were working with and the ground below our feet. The massive hills and deep valleys that complicate the landscape were obscured by the fluffy whiteness of the mist.
In some ways the smiles of the children and the patience of the people are like the white sheet of clouds that obscure the more complex reality that lies beyond them. The extreme poverty that results in simplicity and patience brings with it families torn apart by migration, abuse arising from frustration and depression, illness caused by malnutrition and difficult living conditions. But there isn’t much we can do about these things right now, today. We can only stand on the ground beneath our feet, look at the smile of the person in front of us, and show them as much love and care as possible. This is why we are here.
