Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Cuenca (Agenzia Fides) – It’s my second day in Cuenca, in the Spanish region of La Mancha. Landscapes. Small houses. White. The land fades into the mix of colors of work and sprawl. Mountains of stone. Castles and mills, small villages carved in the rocky mountainsides. All the result of centuries’ labor. Generations of farmers have shaped the land. Work and competence. Crumbling walls. Boundaries and streets. A large bull-fighting stadium, cathedrals, and windmills. The shoots of wheat are still green. The rains will have to come this winter. I stop and observe. I take a mental picture and then another one with the camera. I take out the video-camera. A powerful pair of binoculars to estimate distances. All of the Spain I have loved – in images, in writings, in poetry – is here. Visible. I see it before me. The not-so-sweet scents of farm life. Flowers. Freshly-cut grass. A faint sound is heard from the village below. A bell tolls the hour. The sun begins to set. The orange light is reflected on the walls and trees. The greenery becomes more green. The shadows are more defined. The walls seem whiter. From the point where I am, it seems that I am inside a giant painting. I almost forget why I have come. I almost forget about the migration pressures. Everything is so beautiful. It is all full of smells, the scent of childhood innocence, when I used to run through the fields with my friends back in the day. I even forget what my eyes have seen in recent years: being a slave, as long as you have something to fill your belly. The reality of why I am here and what I have to do wakens me from this dream that doesn’t exist and never has. The Man-God from the Cross, the Risen Lord, reminds us that we are all brothers, all Persons. I am here so that the dignity of these persons may be recognized, using words and images to denounce the fact that their rights are trampled on. Firstly, there is the freedom each of us has to be himself, to choose who he is, and in freedom change who he is, where he goes, for whom he spends his own life – for himself or as well, and above all, for others.
I look at my watch. “It’s past the time for the appointment,” I say to my friends who have organized a meeting with a mysterious Algerian woman. She has asked to remain anonymous. My chair is a huge, flat rock. It must be part of the old run-down castle whose closed door is the site of the appointment. It is an isolated place. It is not a tourist attraction. I wait patiently. It helps that I enjoy being here. I reflect on the history of the place, the arrival of the Roman centurians, the Arab conquest, and all that has come after the civil war: death, suffering, hatred, forgiveness. On both sides; brother against brother. A million deaths. Catholics and non alike. Bishops. Massacred, religious sisters who were raped and assassinated in the name of the ideological madness that in the last century has taken the lives of millions of innocent people. Behind me, in the distance, is a little farming town. I see the colors of Goya. I continue observing my surroundings, looking over a tower that is no longer standing.
Will she come or not? This person who will not tell me her name, who I will not be able to take a picture of...only her story. That is all she will tell. No questions asked. She knows the topic of my research. She wants to tell me about “a female immigrant” and “one that is Muslim.” I was told a bit about her before her arrival. She is a woman who has suffered and suffers. She has come from the poverty of her country and lives in the poverty of an immigrant, and she is a woman, in every sense of the term. She arrived illegally at first, but now says she is in the process of the paperwork. She came because here the birthrate has been dwindling for years now and she is proud of her many children. “You need us, you’re an old population,” is the first thing she tells me. “For you, not having an abortion is for the old-fashioned; for you, life is only worth living if you have money and you make money. If someone is suffering at the cost of your money-making, you remain indifferent.” Her words remind me of the atheist Bertold Brecht, in one of his poems: “Life? Gulp it down, before you lose it.” Today, as well, we forget Brecht and some of his last unedited writings show that he himself, a poet of the regime, was in search of God, this desperate affirmation of his, we could translate into a modern-day version, to be heard from the mouths of many pirates of a savage capitalist culture: “Money? Gulp it down, before you lose it.” A statement that reminds me of one of the frescos of the Apocalypse. The devil devouring man’s dullness. The words and speeches of John Paul II and Benedict XVI come to mind. The words of this veiled woman are pungent and precise. It is a testimony of real-life misery and hopes. Doesn’t life, dignity, and love have a cost? Is it not that of bearing witness with one’s own life that nothing is more important than loving our neighbor? The organizers of the meeting remind me that she is a Muslim woman. I must not touch her, even just to shake her hand. If there has been a wait, it has been so that she will not be alone, but with her husband or a close member of the family. It is her faith. I realize all this and I tell them not to worry, that the wait has not been for nothing.
She comes with a man, probably her brother because the husband must have an illegal status and therefore cannot accompany her. I neither touch her nor look her in the eye; my respect is rewarded and she speaks openly. I offer my hand to the man who has accompanied her. He smiles. I look at the woman’s hands. They are not hands of a young woman. They are beautiful with signs of field work.
The greetings are over. The man that accompanies her steps into the background, as if to say: “She is a free woman and can say whatever she wants. I will not interrupt.”
“Peace be with you. I am Algerian. I came to Spain looking for work. Life in our country is difficult, even if you have a job the costs increase each year. The difference between Algeria and Spain is freedom, especially for the woman. It’s different here in Spain. Here, the woman has full rights. In Algeria, as women we are conditioned by society for the most part, by mentalities that don’t let you be free, free to express your opinions. Here in Spain, I am completely Muslim, but I can take care of myself, express myself, and live free from the conditioning of others and society in general.”
The man who has accompanied her is at a distance, but he is listening. I ask myself how much more I should make an effort in trying to understand Islam in all its forms. There are common denominators that try to divide us. I am more and more convinced of the words of Pope Benedict XVI on the need for an open encounter between cultures. But, they become even more evident in this encounter with the veiled woman. The Pope mentions the importance of overcoming the anterior concepts of interreligious dialogue so as to move with greater awareness towards “the encounter with other cultures and beliefs.” Speaking as the Director of Agenzia Fides, it may be evident that the Holy Father has, with great intelligence, marked the path for encounter between diversities, but now I experience the reality and a palpable interest. This meeting with the veiled woman, read at the light of the Pope’s Magisterium, strengthens me in my faith and makes me see her as someone close, a friend. I realize that I am truly discovering the importance of the thought that comes into contact with another form of thought. Although I hardly say a word, it is a dialogue in complete freedom.
Freedom to think in freedom. This is the first gift that ever person bears within himself.
She speaks. I think. I reflect. I am amazed by her intricate story. Everything is more real than I could have imagined just a minute ago. She continues telling her story. Images of misery. Misery that makes you realize your nothingness in the impossibility of being able to do something amidst all this despair. The more you learn, the more you feel guilty yourself and you want to escape, unseen. But all this exists on all parts of our planet and this makes you feel even more like a foreigner. A dim-witted tourist amidst misery. The only reason you are there seems to justify it, because then you think of the project you are doing and that it could change one person’s life, and then another, and then another... But who’s life? What do you change? Africa is full of tombstones of missionaries who have given their entire lives. The veiled woman continues talking. I almost tune-out, while my recorder tapes every syllable. I think of the immense blanket of misery that covers our planet, a misery that you would rather block, so as to only remember the sunsets. Colors that bounce off the sun-warmed rocks. The palm trees in the distance. The breezes that blow over the sand dunes...or in the storm that sweeps away refuges and human beings. The veiled woman has left. I rewind the tape and listen to her words once more: “In coming to Spain, I maintained my Muslim religion. The traditions. The customs of my country. Why did I come here? I needed work. For me, my children, my family. The four goats and the camel that my husband had were not enough for anyone to live on. The land we have there is just rock. Aridity. Desperation because my children are far from any school. The harvest is just a handful of stones that does not even compensate for the fatigue of working the land. And so, what are you to do? You flee to the places you’ve dreamt of. Dreams of food, of work for everyone... Then you get on the boat, knowing that you may not reach the place, where the rest of your kind are waiting for you with their stories. Then after risking your life at sea, you get there and find that it is all just stories. How many of my Algerian compatriots have I seen wandering around in the desperation of the blackmail of those who rob human lives. It is not easy finding a job that gives you security and then those who steal human lives offer you the markets that take you on the road to perdition, to prison. You become a trafficker for them on the street, selling whatever they don’t want to sell themselves. Others refuse the blackmailing and enter into tough workplaces. Others go back, but that’s not easy either.
What did I do? I went to Caritas as soon as I reached Spain. They helped me and my family members. What I had been told in my country was impossible became possible. For the people at Caritas, I wasn’t an immigrant, but a person. Nobody asked me what my faith was, even when I wore and wear my veil with full conviction. Really, today I no longer have problems. Thanks be to God, I have received the help I needed without expecting it, and moreover, from a Catholic organization. And thanks to this help, I have been able to overcome all the obstacles up until now. I have also discovered that we can speak, that as women we have a dignity, something that should always be respected.”
As I began listening to the words, I asked myself and my friends: Why was it the woman, and not the man who told me all this? I have no response, no response was given me. They probably discussed it amongst themselves and wanted to show that in Islam, too, the woman can speak on behalf of the community. My desire to understand led me to request an interview with the head of Caritas for north Africans in Cuenca.
The next day, at 8:30 sharp, I was there with her. Here, Caritas has a beautiful facility, not far from the river. There, under one of the arches in the bridge, a gypsy girl is sleeping. Later I will meet her. She is one of the many gypsies that have fled the burning camps of Naples, that of the Ponticelli neighborhood. By Providence, I happened to be there just days before the terrible event, watching their dances and collecting their stories. But that’s another story we’ll save for later.
We go to Caritas in Cuenca. This woman was born in Morocco. She is at the door to greet me. We go up the stairs and reach the classroom where they teach Spanish to whomever needs it.
She is Muslim and does not wear a veil, yet she does not feel any less devout of a Muslim than the woman I was with the day before. “Would you like a coffee?” “No, thanks,” I reply. I prepare to tape, and she begins telling me her experience as a volunteer. It is a story of an immigrant become helper of immigrants. She tells us her story and that of those she helps not to fall into depression. “My name is not important. I am from Morocco and I work here in Spain as a volunteer for Caritas. Behind every immigrant is a dramatic story. They arrive in broken-down boats. Many lose their lives on the way, at sea. The ones that make it are almost always arrested by the police, who send them back to their countries. But they keep fighting and come back to Spain to find work, to help their parents and their children. I have witnessed many arrivals and they are always stories of sadness and desperation. I work as a volunteer in Caritas, and in the Red Crescent, so I have first-hand knowledge of the living conditions of immigrants that come here for their children and their parents. The poverty and hunger is what lead them to come to Spain, or any other part of the world. If Caritas were not here, I don’t know where they would be.” She stops and breaks out into tears. One of the stories she just told us has deeply moved her. But she won’t admit it. She is a volunteer, but she is an immigrant just the same. I have observed in my travels that they will never tell you all the suffering that they have seen and lived. For each one of us there are images that mark us for our entire lives and even if we try to erase them, they stay there. They show is that life is tough and the path of hope for those from desperate pasts is rough, violent, and lined with cynicism and exploitation.
And the word love? The more I delve into my investigation work among the different people wandering around in search of hope in the land of the rich, the more I realize that nothing counts until you find the Lamb who has made his life “a mission of love for others.” (from Cuenca, Luca De Mata) (Part 2, to be continued) (Agenzia Fides 30/7/2008)
