Degradation and marginalisation can be overcome. The redemption of populations, even the humblest, is possible. There is much to do, but with humility and determination, every obstacle can be overcome. This is the lesson of a missionary who, for more than thirty years, has lived with thousands of (formerly) very poor people in the town he created: from a landfill not far from the capital Antananarivo
The experience of Father Pedro Opeka – an Argentine born in 1948, a Vincentian missionary – on the Red Island, is divided, as he himself tells us, into two parts. When, at the end of the Seventies, he was sent to Madagascar, his first destination was to the south-east, where he worked among communities of farmers who grew rice, and where he learned Malagasy. There, however, he fell ill and was sent to the capital, to direct the seminary in Antananarivo. It was 1989, and at this point, his life changed.
“I was working as a teacher and I wanted to leave”, he said. “I felt a bit rebellious from a spiritual point of view; I couldn’t fit into any model. The Gospel is life; it has no boundaries or limits. It is the strength of the Spirit of God. When I left for the capital, I came across this picture of thousands of children on piles of garbage. Seeing them live there, fighting with the animals, fighting over scraps of waste to eat, shocked me. I couldn’t speak anymore. I fell to my knees and prayed to the Lord to help me do something with his children.”
Father Pedro decided to roll up his sleeves and propose that the population work together to change their destiny. “We started without money, which came later”, he recalls today. “We had the passion, the faith, the conviction that God never abandons the poorest, especially children, who are innocent, in extreme poverty. We involved the parents. ‘Do you love your children?’ I asked them. ‘Of course we do,’ they replied. ‘Then let’s go to work. We will help the children attend school and, to be able to live together, we will establish rules for our community.’ Everyone said yes to work, to school, to a common law and to discipline.”
That was how the idea of exploiting the granite quarry that stands next to the landfill came about. Father Pedro knew how to use a hammer and chisel. His father, a Slovenian bricklayer who emigrated to Argentina to escape Tito’s communist regime, taught him. “We took pickaxes and hammers in hand, we opened a mine to extract granite” he explained. “We sold the stone we produced to construction companies who then helped us build our houses.”
The mine is growing and needs an ever-increasing number of workers. But in Akamasoa, this is the name of the new, complex social reality that is emerging, there are no labour problems. The mine provides work to many and finances a large part of the collective services. Today 25,000 people live in Akamasoa, which some call “City of Friendship.” The adults work, the children go to school, play sports and frequent social facilities. Places of prayer have been created, which the Malagasy Episcopal Conference has also used for its retreats. In thirty years, eighteen villages have been built, with brick houses and paved streets. Each of the villages is home to a thousand people, who now have shops, workshops, fountains, lighting, schools, nurseries and health centres, a hospital, administrative offices, meeting rooms, sports fields and places of worship. All the inhabitants work and in each village the community manages its own local government.
“I remember when we celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Akamasoa”, says Father Pedro, “and the boundless joy of 30,000 people, proud of their work, proud to stand tall in front of government representatives and diplomats and to show their joy for life. The communion we felt that day is yet another memory that will stay with me forever. We also have deeply sad memories, linked to the children and young mothers who died because of the lack of proper medicine.”
The people of Madagascar have a special talent, explains the Vincentian religious: they know how to laugh, but you can laugh without being happy. “In Akamasoa”, he continues, “the children laugh because they are happy. We are a country with great wealth, which remains poor because of the corruption of its leaders. How many powerful people in Africa lie to the people! We must rebel, not with violence, but with the heart, and with justice, which trumps the law. Often the laws are made for the rich, and the poor continue to suffer. Let us not fool ourselves: people are not always laughing and happy. My friends are. The governments in Africa are not afraid of missionaries, who are good people. I want to honour all the missionaries who work in the woods, in the forests and in the villages, who keep the people’s hope alive until one day justice and work arrive. Without them, Africa would be in a worse place.”
Father Pedro’s name spreads across the continent and the world (he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times), and even to the Vatican. During his 2019 trip to Madagascar, Pope Francis went to Akamasoa. On 28 May 2023, the Vincentian repaid the visit. “When the door opened, he said to me: ‘Pedro, how are you? The bishops of Madagascar told me about you. Have you thought about who will replace you?’”, he recalls. A question that also says a lot about Francis’ relationship with life: death does not scare him. “We live to carry out a mission and we must think about who will succeed us in the fight against injustice.”
“With Akamasoa we have shown that poverty is not inevitable. We must believe in it and commit ourselves to the poor”. Despite his fame, Father Pedro continues to live a humble life. He gets up in the morning at 5 and starts working. “You have to set an example to convince people and give them confidence”, he said. “Without the trust of my poor brothers, you won’t get very far. You can reach the poor with three words: work, education and discipline. They are not simple words: you can disagree about discipline. When you ask and demand without setting an example, it is just good advice.”
Fr. Pedro concluded: “The world is full of people, even important ones, who speak well, but don’t do what they say. If in Madagascar, in a landfill, people followed me, it happened because they saw that I lived what I asked, together with them. And I am a white man in Madagascar. But in landfills, there are no black people and white people, only brothers, because we feel the fire of the children of God who are equal among themselves.” (Enrico Casale) – (File swm)
