This is my day....
|
This is my day.... By Amy Woolam Echeverria As a young, single woman from the United States, I often found it difficult to relate to the Chilean women I met during my time as a lay missionary in Santiago. I worked at a centre called Casa de la Mujer: La Quimera. |
It was a place where women could go and learn skills like baking and sewing in order to gain some economic independence as well as find friendship and refuge from their otherwise difficult lives. The name of the centre, La Quimera, suggests the paradigm of utopian fantasy, a place where women could be free from the domestic violence, economic hardship, and mental demands of life in poverty if only for a few hours a week.
Metaphorically Quimera is used to describe something that comes together from different sources.
 People wait for the Casa de la Mujer to open. |
The day at La Quimera usually began around 10:00am with staff gathering to prepare for the afternoon workshops that ran from 3:00pm-6:00pm. My primary function was to assist with administrative tasks and keep the tea water boiling. While I didn’t know much, I could tell that the women came not so much for the workshops but for the tea and bread served afterwards. They came alive as we broke bread together. I would sit with the women and listen. They would tell me about their families, their hopes and dreams, their struggles and fears. They laughed often, but tears were never far away. |
I will never forget a conversation I had on our way to our end-of-the-year field trip. As a staff member, I remember the field trip was always quite difficult and time-consuming to organize and execute. I was tired before the day even started. However, my exhaustion was put in perspective on this particular trip.
I sat next to a woman who was not that much older than I am now, while we rode the bus on our way to the camp ground. She breathed a sigh of relief and spoke about how this was her one day of the year that she had just for herself. She didn’t have to make a meal, wash a dish or help the kids with their homework. She didn’t have to clean the floor or iron clothes or go to the market. She didn’t have to worry that she would be hit for no reason. She was going to her ‘quimera.’
Though I was happy for my bus companion and her ability to see her glass as half full, I knew that while she had a few hours off that day, she probably worked twice as hard the day before and would work twice as hard the day after the trip. I admired her ability to live in the moment and to be grateful for the good in her life.
Today, as a wife and mother, I am able to relate better with my Chilean sisters - though not entirely, as I do not have the burdens of domestic violence or economic poverty. Now I can appreciate the strength of the women at La Quimera. Their unwavering hope, patience, kindness, joy, and generosity in the face of darkness speak to their deep sense of faith in the Kingdom.
At times I often find myself voyaging back in my heart to La Quimera, to my time with Carmen, Orietta, Monica and Beatriz. They will always be special women who taught me over tea and bread what it means to live in faith, hope and love; what it means to be missionary.
Amy Woolam Echeverria is the Director of the Columban Mission Centre for Advocacy and Outreach, Silver Spring, MD, USA.
[Far East Magazine]