The Aldeas (by Todd)

Here is a little piece I wrote about our work in the aldeas.


“They can’t play,” the kids told me, pointing to two 11-year-old sisters.

“Nonsense,” I said (in Spanish). “Anyone who wants to can play Go Fish with us.”

But I soon realized what they meant. The two sisters didn’t know their numbers. If someone asked, “Do you have any nines?” they would answer yes or no at random. They really couldn’t play, because they’ve never been to school.

We were in the aldea of Terrero Colorado. James and I roll into “Terrero” every Tuesday morning, and into another aldea, Los Izotes, every Friday. It takes us 30 minutes on ugly dirt roads to get to the first, and a full hour to get to the second. The towns are small – about 300 people. They have no electricity. Some houses have running water that comes to a valve outside. The vistas are gorgeous – green mountains swooping up to meet a bright blue sky.

James and I have worked on getting to know people and building community. We typically spend our mornings playing with the kids who swarm around as our truck pulls in. Later on we visit houses – just spending time with people, in the Passionist spirit of accompaniment. In the afternoons we run a youth group and an adult group that helps us plan activities..

We are also working on some projects for the future. The two biggest needs that we see are health care and education. We plan to bring doctors in for free consultations and to offer public health education. We’ve set up a scholarship fund so that some of the kids will go to secondary school.

And we’ve hoping to get school supplies donated from Talanga, so that kids too poor to get to primary school won’t have, for example, uniforms as an obstacle. That way, everyone could play Go Fish.