Scraps from the Streets of Lima

by Fr Ned Crosby

"The debt has to be paid first. That's the deal. It's a killer."

Lima? What a lovely name! Ought to be the name of a girl; sensitive and slim. Slim certainly. In fact her bones are coming out through her skin. She is begging her daily bread and knocking at the door of the world; ringing a bell that is out of order. Every day she begs. She sells as well.

Coming home this evening I met her out in the middle of traffic, jammed on the Pan-Americana highway. There she was between the lanes of cars and lethal Combis; all of her fourteen years, pleading me with her eyes to buy a Coca-Cola. An angel, hiding in my shame, kicked me; I bought and gave her two soles instead of one for it. Driving off I saw her in the rear mirror; blessing her face, kissing her thumb and looking up at the gray contaminated sky. Tonight I heard about her again from a friend who knows her well. Her name is Maria Gracia. She too is fourteen. She got a job in a house on the other side of town.

In fact she got a job in two houses because the señora has two houses; one down the coast and one in town. So turn and turn about Maria Gracia went to one or the other; washed, cleaned, dusted, did messages, ironed clothes, washed potatoes, cleaned vegetables from eight in the morning until six in the evening. She was paid sixty soles per month; and what's that in our money? Just under twenty pounds a month. Less than five pounds a week. Less than one pound per day. Chicken in Lima now costs five pounds. So Maria Gracia worked each month for four chickensworth of pay.

'Thirty days hath September
April, June and November..."

Then came the day when señora came to her while she was ironing and said: "Two shirts are missing and nobody could have stolen them but you". Maria Gracia said: "I never did, I never would." But señora said, "Nobody else could have". So Maria Gracia started to cry because the truth is she never did. Then señora said she had no intention of paying her this month's wages: and she gave her half a so/for the bus and told her to go home to her mother.

Poor and dark she was; her weapons poor.

Oh yes! I nearly forgot. The bishops! They got together from all over the continent a few times. They said that the majority of people were not living in poverty; they were living in misery. It is the bitter truth and indeed some people were quite bitter about what they said. Many were called Communists when they suggested some things that should be done to free the people from this misery.

Oul Mother Lima, you and your seven million children; ninety percent of them poor and thirty per cent of them miserable. Why do you always seem to get such a bad deal? The five, the knave and the ace of hearts are always in the other saloon.

A pittance for education and for health! Over forty percent of all moneys gathered from exports go to paying an installment on the interest on external debt. This installment on debt interest amounts to 1,579 million dollars annually. The debt can never be cleared. The capital never comes down and never can. In fact it is increasing. Bishop Casaldaliga thinks it is a mortal sin to be collecting it and a mortal sin to be paying it. Its a killer.

So Carlos, the doctor at the clinic in Villa Maria was saying this evening.
"I write a prescription for an undernourished child and I feel sick inside because I know well that the mother hasn't got the money to buy the medicine and has no way of getting it. Did you know,' he asked me, "that there are between seven and ten thousand teachers in Peru fighting tuberculosis on their feet, going into school every day in contact with children.... ninety percent of undernourished children have worms and other parasites, and diarrhea is twice as bad in an undernourished child." 'Beef' he said, "one of the most important providers of carbohydrates costs fifteen soles a kilo (or five pounds); people just don't have it."

There is no health service to meet all this misery. So people just cough and limp and struggle and drag from meal to meal and die young and watch each other die. The debt has to be paid first. That's the deal. It's a killer. He told me loads of stories of patients who had paid the debt.

Into the earth's dumb side,
The big horse stamped them, waiting
For the next victim, the next master.
Lima, you are a dig in the ribs
a kick in the face
a trial of faith
a sigh, an ache,
a bleeding wound
in the body of the world,
though sensitive and slim
call her not Naomi
which means beautiful,
call her, Drunk with Sorrows
after all the years
swallowing her tears.

Ned Crosby is a priest of the Diocese of Galway. He spent eight years ministering in Peru. Until recently he was Parish Priest of Clare Island and Kilfenora, Co Clare. He is now back in Lima.

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