Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Cuenca (Agenzia Fides) – My time here in Cuenca (Spain) is about to end, and I still have a few appointments left. I am forced to chose among them. I return to Caritas, where I am scheduled to meet with Conchita. She is a volunteer and a very special person. It seems that the majority of volunteers are also special people. The volunteers all have that common link: placing their time and talents at the service of their neighbor, becoming humble instruments that are faithful to the Magisterium of the Pope and his Bishops for the New Evangelization of Peoples.
Conchita takes care of those who come to Cuenca as immigrants. She helps to ensure that they are treated as human beings, as persons and not objects that just came off a slave ship.
I have traveled many times in Africa, among the poor crowded inner-city slums and in the impoverished villages, and I always come away with the same impression that I wasn’t walking around on a continent, but on board a slave ship – ships that witnessed and witness still the suffering of our missionaries, their only real friends who had given and who give their lives alongside the most despised in the world.
They were ships of human beings with chains on their ankles, forced to work for the ambitions of those who called themselves “colonists,” but were in fact violent men whose goal was to conquer lands that did not belong to them and kill by the thousands those that lived there and were legitimately defending their own lands, their own customs, their own dreams and those of their children.
Has anything changed since then?
Conchita’s testimony makes us honestly reflect on the situation today. We (myself included) are sure that by our silence we are not accomplices of those who employ this new form of slavery, using desperation and poverty for personal gain, leading entire peoples towards the culture of hate, racism, and walls of prejudice – walls of death!
The opposite of the culture of joy is the cynical selfishness of the man full of his possessions.
Conchita’s story moves us in the very depths of our being, and so...how are we going to let the clock keep ticking while we shut ourselves away in our selfishness and mediocrity?
“I am Conchita. I grew up in the Province of Cuenca, in the Spain of windmills, the land of La Mancha. I am Catholic and I work as a volunteer in Caritas. I am married and I have 5 children who are now grown up and live on their own. I have time and strength to offer.
Instead of spending time seeking means of personal satisfaction, I prefer to spend the rest of the time I have left trying to make my neighbor happy.
Who is more in need of comfort than an immigrant? Who is more in need of someone who listens to them and is their friend? What good does it do to just teach them a language, so they can integrate themselves in society? In my experience, I have taught Spanish to Romanians and Arabs, most of them women. Among them, there is one that really impressed me, and who is now a friend of mine: Georgina. She was a widow from Romania. She left behind a daughter who is married with two children.
She was well-educated. Her story makes me ashamed to call myself Spanish and yet, it is not much different from many others. Hearing her speak, I was amazed and found it hard to believe that our civilization was capable of such things.
Georgina worked for an elderly couple in their home. It would be a perfectly normal story, if it were not for the fact that they did not let her shower with hot water. “It’s too expensive for us,” they said. And so even when it is really cold here, Georgina could only use freezing cold water. And food? She only had the bare minimum to survive on. She was always serving or locked up in her room.
They let her come here only to learn Spanish, as it would be a benefit for them too.
She could not speak and only listened to whatever her patrons said. The servant should be silent and obey.
One day, I saw her crying. I asked if I could be of help. She just needed someone to listen to her. She told me everything, but their was no sign of hate in her words. She was a slave. I informed the authorities of everything.
Now Georgina lives with a different family. She is happy now. Whenever we can, we meet and she shows me photos of her grandchildren who are now happy too, thanks to her sacrifice.
In my opinion, the political and legislative restrictions on immigration, especially in the last 10 years, have been made without a real understanding of the situation. People from all over the world have come because someone has promised them work, when it is really slavery. And this occurs because we turn a blind eye - and sometimes 2 of them – to shut out the reality. This deception should not be tolerated. It is the mission of every government.
All this has led to a lowering of salaries and an increase the traffic of money on the black market. This has given way to the birth of new forms of slavery among human beings. Concrete regulations were needed. And when there were regulations, they were not enforced.
All this did not occur in other times, when the Spanish went to Germany and Switzerland. Today, the person fleeing misery also uses rafts, ......... and boards in hopes of escaping their desperation and reaching the Canary Islands or Andalucia.
‘Systems of fate’ the media calls them.
Who knows how many have died trying to defy fate.
The sea is an assassin that doesn’t pay for its crimes. The non-governmental organizations in Spain help, but the solution is still in the distance. The problems need to be resolved in those countries, not here.
In Cuenca, we don’t have the problems that come with the coast. Rafts don’t come floating in, but buses come in. The clubs here in La Mancha foment this influx, as they protect the prostitution of women brought here from the East by deception. They are young women who are promised an honest employment and then are made victims, slaves of their exploiters and clients. What is the government waiting for, so an end can be placed to this situation?” (Luca de Mata, writing from Cuenca) (Part 4 – to be continued) (Agenzia Fides 3/8/2008)
