“In my community, we decided that this year I would dedicate part of my time to reaching out to dozens, perhaps hundreds, of men, women and young drug addicts who wander around the Charco Azul neighbourhood in Cali. I started by approaching a bench that they built under a tree.” Father Franco Nascimbene, an Italian Comboni missionary, tells us about it.
In that place, at any time of day or night, there is always a small group of people sitting and taking drugs. For a month I sat with them two or three times a week to listen to them and chat. Sometimes it is not so easy. One young man talked all the time and never said a sentence that had anything to do with the previous one: with him the dialogue failed.
Another man spent more than half an hour insulting me because ‘I was full of money that the Vatican sends me and I do not want to give it to him’. Then there was the fellow who kept asking me to invite him to lunch. Other encounters are more pleasant: like the one I had with three teenagers whom I asked where they got the money to buy drugs, and they admitted to stealing, but explained to me that they were “good thieves” because they don’t steal in the neighbourhood, but in other areas… I also spoke with a young mother who explained to me that she had been taking drugs for 15 years, but that since she had children she had given up “hard” drugs and smoked only “marijuana”. When I asked her why she hadn’t stopped, she told me that she couldn’t.
We also spoke with “theologian” addict who went on about the rosary and devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the difference between praying and asking. What is the meaning of these encounters? I don’t know exactly. For the moment, I think that in an environment where everyone feels despised, it can be “Good News” for them to meet a priest who is not ashamed to sit among them and listen to them. What will come of it? I don’t know… time will tell and the Spirit will inspire…
The generosity of the poor never ceases to amaze me: a few weeks ago, I visited a house where three elderly people between 75 and 90 years old live. They are brothers, they are very thin, and have never had children or a partner. They no longer have the strength to work. When I asked them how they manage to eat, they replied that there is always a neighbour who brings them something.
So, I joined the neighbours who bring them food from time to time. It is infernally hot. Everyone complains. People sleep naked and with their windows open. But no one asks if it is also their fault. Global warming depends largely on the gases we send into the sky every day. Our Comboni community has decided not to have cars or motorcycles, I stopped driving 35 years ago, but even among the poor there are many people who use taxis, without thinking that a car pollutes. This year I may have used the car twice: once, for a trip at 4 in the morning, when the buses were not yet running, and once because I had to transport a small table and twelve boxes of books.
I know that talking about these things is a taboo subject, because asking an Italian not to use his car is like telling a cow to live without eating grass. Recently, I was reading a biblical text that said that anyone who contemplates Jesus crucified is saved. At Mass, after reading the Gospel, at the time of the homily, I went to sit in the middle of the church with the microphone in my hand… and I invited everyone to look at Jesus on the Cross.
