Pt. II - A Peruvian Story of Living Amid Covid-19

from Our CSJ ASSOCIATES IN ZAÑA, PERU

Part TWO

Between August and September 2020, the lockdowns and restrictions were still in place, but by October, the Peruvian Government permitted people to leave their homes 3 days per week, at certain times (e.g., only after 11AM) and on certain days, including children and the elderly, but all citizens had to stay at home on Sundays. Churches would not open until November. However, new cases continued to emerge, especially because of crowding at the markets. Sadly, on October 27th, 2020, Delicia’s father, Armando Romero, died – he was 99 years old, and had served the community of Zaña especially in the agriculture sector, most of his life – a man respected and looked upon as friend by all.

By December 1st, another donation had arrived, which was very much needed and very much appreciated by the people - it helped to provide food before/by Christmas, and again, much-needed medicine. Deaths in and around Zaña however, were constant – isolation and restrictions were a constant – and getting in and out of Zaña or surrounding towns were all hardships (police permission was needed, buying gas for whatever vehicle would take one to the city and then paying for this service); also getting food somewhere was a daily hardship, and not having seeds or enough water to plant seeds etc.

2021:

In January, Peru experienced many strikes of doctors, workers, and many other service providers, who had not been paid for many months – as a result, people all over Peru, as well as Zaña and surrounding areas, were experiencing disruptions of all kinds, especially being cut off from supplies and food, as well as not being able to get into the towns and cities for so many needed services. In late March, Associate Pola Montenegro, whose health had been failing since January, caught Covid-19, and her family was experiencing ill health as well. Associate Cecelia Odar had been helping Pola get to medical appointments in Chiclayo since the New Year; now, together with a Zaña nurse, Cecelia was able to get oxygen for her, as well as some nursing help from the Zana Medical Post. Pola began to respond to medicine and the oxygen, but after 2 weeks, the oxygen supply in Zana and the city of Chiclayo had run out. However, Pola was able to breathe easier, and is still slowly recuperating. In April, Covid deaths in Zana continued, and many friends/people from Zaña, who were known to the Sisters of St. Joseph who had lived in Cayalti, Oyutun, and Zaña, had died from Covid.

However, in the first week of May, the town of Zaña announced that the first vaccinations would begin on Mother’s Day, May 9th, and asked all the women of Zana over 60 to be available for the vaccination process. Afterward, the younger residents and then all the residents would be able to be vaccinated – a miracle that had been waited and hoped for!!

May God accompany always our 7 Associates in Zaña, and all the people of Zaña and the nearby and surrounding areas, so that people may recuperate, and grow together as a community of love and support, becoming as our Associates in Zaña bear the name, “Milagro de Amor”,  translated in English, “A Miracle of Love” (after a phrase from our Founder, Jean Pierre Medaille’s, writings).

Written by Zana Associates,

Delicia Ampuero and Cecelia Odar, and Janet Zadorsky, CSJ

“Milagro de Amor” /”A Miracle of Love” – Associates in Zaña, Peru 

Rosa    Pola   Delicia   Carmen   Iris   Cecelia   Fela

A Peruvian Story of Living Amid Covid-19 - Pt. I

LIVING AMID COVID-19 from Our CSJ ASSOCIATES IN ZAÑA, PERU

PART I

The story of Covid-19 in Peru, as in many countries has many ‘downs’ as well as ‘ups’ throughout January 2020 to the present, June 2021. In the town of Zaña, Peru, there are seven CSJ in Canada Associates who live among their neighbours, and who have also lived through this Covid experience with them. The story in Zaña is one of resilience, strength, hardship, hope, and love; one of caring for families, villages, neighbours, friends, and all those with and among whom one lives; it is a story of being neighbour, helping, serving, giving guidance, prepared to be a voice on behalf of others in need.

Peru has the highest Covid death rate as a proportion of population in the world, according to the latest data. GETTY IMAGES

Through January, but especially by the end of February and the beginning of March, Covid-19 in Peru had begun to show devastating effects. By mid-March, the entire country was in a lockdown, and news of increasing deaths and disease spread was all over Peru. Smaller communities, such as Zaña and nearby Cayalti, were restricted and unable to travel to the larger city Chiclayo. Stringent Government rules and restrictions of trucks/people from outside the communities created widespread problems for workers, truckers, suppliers etc. causing great concern regarding food, medicines, medical aid etc. This also meant that donations from the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph to Zaña could not be received, as all travel outside of the town(s) was prohibited and strictly enforced by police.

By May, there was a growing food shortage in Zaña and Cayalti (nearby) causing widespread hardship for most families who were struggling to survive; as well, the town of Zaña was struggling with outbreaks of Dengue Fever, dangerous and potentially life threatening for people. In June, news about Peru arrived from the Sisters of Mercy (who live in a nearby town) through their e-mail letter: “There is a new crisis emerging. The hunger caused by the coronavirus pandemic is feared more than the disease itself. To add to the complexity, Peru has two experiences of displacement: (1) internal displacement of more than 165,000 people who have requested humanitarian transfers in attempts to leave Lima and return to their hometowns due to job losses, and (2) hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan refugees in Peru who do not even receive the financial support offered to the Peruvian people by the Government. [P.S.: Zana Peru also has numerous refugees from Venezuela].

By June 30th, 2020, Peru had recorded 9,600 deaths. The Health Care system was not prepared; many households could not ‘stock up’ on food as 40% of households do not have refrigeration; market areas were a source of contagion, and 40% to 80% of sellers became infected, thus carrying Covid to their households; working persons had to use public transportation, and so contagion also spread this way, to their households as well; only 30% of Peruvians have bank accounts, so making digital payments OR receiving Government payments was digitally impossible; overcrowded homes also made the spread of the virus/contagion easier. However, on July 28th, the Peruvian President finally lifted the strict lockdown in place since March. It was only in August 2020 that Associates, Delicia and Cecelia could take care of all the people needing medicines and food especially, as donations finally were able to get through the restrictions. Meanwhile, because of the many Covid deaths, the scarcity of food and lack of seeds for growing food, the restrictions on movement in and outside of each town, and the isolation from main trucking routes and food, life was very difficult for Zaña and all Peruvians. 

TO BE CONTINUED

Covid Part I of II, Written by our Zana Associates, Delicia Ampuero and Cecelia Odar, and Sister Janet Zadorsky, CSJ 

Rosa Pola Delicia Carmen Iris Cecelia Fela

 “Milagro de Amor” /”A Miracle of Love” – Associates in Zaña, Peru

Resurrection in Dark Times

These Covid-19 lockdown days are a rollercoaster of emotions, from the blackness of despair to fleeting moments of light and hope. Even though it’s only been a few weeks, the toll on our mental health, relationships and general well-being is very high. It’s especially hard on frontline workers, those bereaved or dealing with sickness, or those families cooped up in houses and flats. I have it easy in comparison. After a ‘honeymoon’ start to lockdown, recently I’ve had to abandon all my high-flying plans for reading, writing and exercise. The last few days in particular have been very tough, even though objectively it seems like the worst is over, often it feels like an endless nightmare. At this stage, it is a question of enduring and getting through, arriving alive at the other side. Whenever that comes.

The experience reminds me a lot of the 30-day silent retreat, the Spiritual Exercises (it also reminds me of my five-week Camino walk), that we do on entering the Jesuits. The first week begins with the joy and wonder of God’s grace, but very soon you hit the wall in the third week with the pain of the Passion of Christ and all seems lost. The wisdom of the retreat is such that you have to arrive to these very dark places of disintegration and loss to appreciate the resurrection; it is God’s world and in God’s time things swing around, our lives are merely an ‘on loan’ gift. The death-resurrection experience (a ‘U’ shaped curve) is a process of slowly coming back to life and recovering the joy of simply being again. The key to it is being grateful for small things. Being in the Passion, the trough or the dip though, robs you of the ‘feel-good’ factor, of the simple pleasures of good sleep, exercise, and being on top of things. The danger is losing perspective and motivation. You have to trust the process, only through arriving at your limits allows for a hard-earned breakthrough.

Some people have written about this Covid-19 crisis as a time of grief. It’s the loss of so many things, freedom, relationships and autonomy. Awful dread days and nights are interspersed with sudden flashes of light. Like the grief process (cf. Kubler-Ross’s 5 stages of grief, a ‘U’ shaped curve), there is isolation and the feeling of dying inside, in an endless night. But like a self-righting buoy, something always brings me back to the light. At the darkest hour the dawn arrives again anew, just like always, but I forget so easily. This pandemic world of sickness and death (watching the news is horrifying) is not the end. It’s not all of reality as it proposes to be but just a temporary place of growth and purification. Unexpectedly, I am redeemed, saved from the grave. I learn about humility, compassion and grace. A person, the Christ, has lifted me up. My true destiny is revealed, to be with the Light, breaking open the clouds of weary, isolated existence.

The life and death of Jesus is not something that happened years ago and no longer relevant. Rather it is the very essence of the lives we live, the dying and the rising is a continual process that marks our lives and especially shapes our Covid-19 world. The experience of the process of suffering and pain alternates with great joy and fulfilment. Especially the last few days when I began to hit the ‘wall’, reaching the limits of my strength and endurance (Richard Rohr calls this ‘liminal space’), I know to hang on. You begin to get down, life loses its meaning and things become grey. It is a suffering of tedium, awareness of limitation and mortality. Nothing seems to happen, move or motivate me… I begin to realise I am drifting away from the life and the source itself, I am deluded by pain and weariness to believe that there is no meaning, no God and no hope… This is the experience that Jesus himself passed through in the Garden of Gethsemane, the ‘why have you forsaken me’ moment which is chilling but inspiring in its raw humanity.

That’s where the radical prayer comes in, the prayer of the cross, imitating the same ‘U’ shaped process that Jesus has lived through. Reaching the limits and handing it all over to God, holding nothing back, stepping into that dangerous mysterious void. It means trusting the ‘passionate one’, the one who has been there before us in the depths, who has beaten the rap and taken the hit for us. To pray using the words of the psalms, as Jesus did in his darkest hour, has an extraordinary power:

Into your hands O Lord, I commend my spirit
Take away this cup
Why have you forsaken me

I begin to see a chink of light, I begin to pull out of the dive, I begin to rise again.

Then, before I know it, I see the spring outside. I hear the birds again, carried and inspired, the world seems all right, the pain drifts away, I can see a way, I walk towards the light, I am walking in faith, hope and love abound. The hardest thing is hanging on in the bottom of the dive and remembering that it’s not about me, that I am being carried and I need to let myself be lifted and freed. The biggest illusion is in the mind, that there is no meaning (the work of the ‘bad spirit’) and that I only deserve the worst. It is a seductive pattern of inviting me to give up… all lies of course.

This cycle can last a year, a month, or even a day. The challenge is to live every day like a resurrection day. To be so fully present, in the moment and living the paradoxical tragedy-wonder of life. It is all about gratitude: to see the absolute giftedness of every moment, the wonder of every encounter, the silver lining on every cloud. The mask of mundanity is pulled away and I see the wonder of things, fragility, and strength, the way we are held in being at each moment. The Gospel of today, the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24), mirrors this exact same process of desolation to hope, darkness to light, and 11th-hour rescue from despair.

-Brendan McManus SJ

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fermanagh-born Brendan McManus SJ works in the area of spirituality and spiritual accompaniment. He is the author of Redemption Road: Grieving on the Camino, a highly-praised personal reflection on healing and recovery. It deals with Brendan’s experience on the Camino pilgrimage as part of his effort to come to terms with his brother’s suicide. (Shared with kind permission from his blogpost Jesuits in Ireland)

First Sunday of Lent

““Your paths, O God, are love and faithfulness” (Ps. 25)”

The first Sunday of Lent is an invitation to examine one’s path. In Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus driven into the desert by the Spirit after his baptism in the Jordan. He was immersed in the waters of cleansing and healing. Did he need cleansing and healing? No, but we might, and Jesus is always leaving an example if we choose to see it.

Jesus journeyed into the desert wilderness for forty days. We have been journeying in a COVID wilderness for much longer than forty days. We feel like we’re surrounded by wild beasts and angry politicians and sometimes feel tempted to impatience with disgruntled citizens. However, we have also been accompanied by angels in the form of committed and kind health-care workers, brave front-line men and women who daily cater to our needs and the needs of society.

When Jesus returned from his desert experience, he invited Galileans and all of us into the spirit of repentance as he announced the Good News of the Kin-dom. To repent, I need to enter into deeper reflection and discernment to recognize the incongruity of my ways and the ways of society. Sometimes I hear challenges posed by the media that stir up dissension and unrest, that spatter others with doubt and worry. Can I use these forty days to consider the invitation to believe and live and spread the Good News?  Can I renew the covenant of faith by recognizing the presence of angels in my midst, and by working to dispel the harm of critical and negative voices? Might I see the sign of a renewed covenant in the beauty of creation, in the wholeness of humanity, in the lower numbers of infections from the pandemic, and in the new life promised by the unfolding vaccination program? May I live in renewed hope and trust?

-Sister Helen Russell, csj

Angels on Earth

Sisters & staff in our Care Centre handmade and delivered paper angels for the staff at University Hospital in London, ON with this note:

Please give these to the staff who are working so hard. Nurses, doctors, administrative staff etc. As a token of our appreciation and love

From the Sisters and Staff,

The Sisters of St. Joseph