Concordia, Argentina, April 2010
After nearly 7 months on placement, the task of summarising my volunteer work here has become incredibly difficult. The person who is writing today is not the same as the person who would have written six, or even three, months ago; one of the effects of working an extended period of time overseas is that almost every day one’s eyes are opened a little more, meaning the images of yesterday are always taking on a new colour. Nevertheless, there is a time for everything. Last weekend I celebrated my 21st birthday, the coming of age here in Argentina; today as a community we will celebrate the coming of the Risen Lord at Easter. It somehow feels like the right time to celebrate, and to reflect.
The Jesuit-inspired foundation for which I am working, Manos Abiertas, or ‘Open Hands’, holds a special place for the people of Concordia. Despite the fact that the majority of its projects are based some distance outside the centre, in the semi-rural district of Benito Legeren, its work seems to be familiar to the larger part of the population. This may be due to the fact that one of its founders, Leonardo Nardin SJ, whose placement here ended just before I arrived, has become something of a local hero. The families of Benito Legeren remember him as the first priest who really ‘walked the district’, spending time getting to know each individual member of this small and previous neglected neighbourhood; their concerns, needs, and attitudes towards each other and the world around, and seeking to establish a project that met with those needs exactly. The members of the Jesuit parish in Concordia praise him as an indefatigable worker, who with perseverance and unfailing, at times incredible optimism, at first attending to their spiritual needs, steadily worked to forge a deep and tangible connection between their faith and social justice. In truth, nearly everyone, however remote their connection with the work of the Jesuits, has a personal story to tell. I would argue, though, that the real reason for the phenomenal expansion of Manos Abiertas goes deeper than this. In Argentina as a whole, its growth, since its humble beginnings as a small group of volunteers working to alleviate the most basic necessities of the families sleeping on the streets of Buenos Aires in the 1990s, at first defies belief. With minimal, predominantly local and ad hoc funding, and growing according to the needs and ideas of individual communities rather than any concrete programme for expansion, it is now firmly established, and continues to grow, in six provinces, dealing with needs as diverse as family nutrition and health; care for the elderly and terminally ill; children’s homes of all descriptions; homeless shelters; schools; and those marginalised from society through mental illness, disability, HIV/AIDS, or any other combination of causes. Its unity derives more from its motto, ‘Amar y Servir’ or ‘To love and serve’, than the particular project in question. Enclosed within this simple appeal is a radical interpretation of the teachings and example of Jesus, looking always to make concrete a deep commitment with the poorest and most marginalised people of society; to do so with respect and affection more than pity; and to develop an organisation whose fundamental structures and methods resemble as closely as possible the intimate unity of a family.
In Concordia, the real significance of Manos Abiertas can only really be comprehended with some awareness of the previous history of the area. Constructed for and by the workers of a meat processing factory that had served as one of the hubs of the local economy, closed (no one has yet advanced to me a theory as to why) in the 1980s by the one of the most disastrous military regimes the country has suffered, Benito Legeren, though in actual terms only about 20 kilometres from the city centre, had become more and more of an island, reflecting on a microcosmic scale something of the fate experienced by the entire province of Entre Rios. As unemployment reached a peak of 70%, virtually all schools, health and community facilities disappeared, including even the local parish; bus services and the dirt tracks leading to the main road gradually dwindled and deteriorated, leaving many families to walk the overgrown route via the abandoned railroad for basic errands. What had once been a thriving industrial focal point became something of a ghost town – except that, in this case, people found it far less easy to relocate than their material resources.
It was in this context that the arrival of the Jesuits, and with them the initiatives of Manos Abiertas, occurred. Their striking adoption by nearly the whole society of a town sometimes reputed for its narrow-mindedness is probably best illustrated by example. Beginning as a meeting point and canteen for children living on the streets, the projects now include two children’s homes, from 4-12 and 12-17 years; a primary and (incipient) secondary school, and a youth centre, amongst all the varied fundraising and publicity that goes on to maintain the organisation with its base of local volunteers and supporters. So far, nothing especially unusual to those familiar with development work, apart perhaps from the rapidity with which they took root; it is the inspiration behind the projects, from the highest level to the most mundane, that gives greater food for thought. The children’s homes, each with between ten and twenty boys constantly supervised by two ‘house parents’, largely accommodate children whose home situations make it impossible or highly undesirable for them to live permanently with their own families. Nevertheless, the aim, as far as possible, is to integrate the family unit, such as it is, into the project, or where this is not possible, at least to recreate a sense of it. At holidays and weekends, the entire house disappears, frequently with a sack of bread over the shoulder, to spend time with their relatives, or a volunteer host family, while within the ‘home’ environment during the week, constant attention from psychologists, volunteer tutors, or simply good-willed visitors ensures that the security and affection often sadly lacking on entering the home is steadily and constantly rebuilt.
The school, San Roque Gonzalez, also reaches beyond the hours spent in class. Taking advantage of the fact that the school day, unlike most in Argentina, includes both morning and afternoon classes, the curriculum is both more diverse and advanced than even in most local private schools, including 5 English classes a week from ages 4 to 13; several hours of music whose successes include a performing choir, flute and guitar group; theatre; art; I.T. and market gardening. As with Jesuit schools all over the world, catechesis takes a fundamental part in forming attitudes of moral responsibility, companionship and respect in every aspect of school life, above and beyond its presence as a separate subject. Furthermore, this expansive attitude towards education insists that the entire family, to a large extent the entire community, is a constant presence. As a way of supporting their child’s education, each parent undertakes several hours of work at the school each week, according to their own skills and abilities, maintaining the buildings, assisting at break-times and for special functions, and, in brief, fulfilling the role of an extended body of auxiliary staff; their frequent community celebrations, fundraising events and get-togethers illustrate that, apart from the work ethic, the school fulfils a deeper need for a community meeting point and solidarity that before had been sadly lacking. The youth centre focuses this ethic upon the needs of local adolescents: its courses, which, as well as a walk-in academic support centre, currently include cookery, organic farming, metallurgy, carpentry and beekeeping, not only provide students with the qualifications to seek employment or create their own incentives within the local economy, but also operate as cooperative businesses selling their products to local consumers and industries with the profits shared equally between the students and foundation, providing a sustainable business model and a tangible sense of dignity and achievement for those who participate. All the more impressive considering what seems to be a chronic lack of funding, and which is explained more than anything by the dependence of most of the organisation’s needs on a massive collaboration of volunteers and supporters rather than outside help.
During my own time spent here, occupied mostly with English classes in the school, but, as with many volunteers, with a willingness and flexibility to provide a pair of hands as and when they are needed, I have been privileged to share in what has really been a pivotal year in the life of the organisation. To begin with, there were the tenth anniversary celebrations of Manos Abiertas in Argentina (in Concordia it is even younger) in October. Following on from this, the end of the school year saw many more events that marked the maturity of many stages of preparation: the First Communion of Year Five; the confirmation of many of the students of the youth centre; some of the first trips outside Benito to the thermal spas, Concordia itself and the local zoo; the first concerts of the flute and guitar group; the ‘Day of Tradition’ in November, where the whole school, together with a good number of staff and family members, attended in traditional Argentinian dress to celebrate their national and regional identity, ranging from folk music and dance, to poetry readings, to improvised drama, to exhibitions of art, craft, household objects, customs, and cuisine. The end of year ceremonies in December, always one of the most memorable moments in the school year, took on a special significance in 2009, as the first pupils to complete the whole of their primary education at San Roque Gonzalez passed on to become the first year of a new secondary school.
This new impulse of dynamism and growth has continued far into the new year. In January, the summer recreation camp, always a lively time for the young people of Benito Legeren, took a new step forward as a young missionary group from the city of Santa Fe, led by the eponymous Fr. Leonardo (now based there) visited to prepare an intensive two weeks of sports, swimming, computation, mathematics, language and English activities, all taught through the medium of play and group work - to any language teacher searching for new revision methods, it is something I would highly recommend! Throughout the time I have been here, the teaching of catechesis at the school has been taking on a greater maturity, and from October began the initiative of a one or two day ‘Encounter with Christ’ specially adapted to the pedagogic and psychological needs of each age group, with moving and often surprising results. More recently, the Lent and Easter period saw the building up towards a powerfully dramatised ‘Via Crucis’ at the shores of the school’s lake, in which nearly every pupil played a part; and, most recently, the farewell celebrations for one of the organisation’s volunteers, who this weekend moves on to Cordoba to begin his new calling as a Jesuit noviciate.
All these achievements despite what, at a first glance, would seem all the conditions bound to set back such an incipient organisation. The increasingly unstable climate of Entre Rios reached a new peak in these months, as Concordia became the national centre of a chronic series of storms and floods throughout the summer period that left thousands of people evacuate, demolished the entire forest on which Benito Legeren’s one remaining timber industry depended, and, in general, struck this district, built in the spaces between the River Uruguay and its tributary streams, particularly hard. As one of its longer term consequences, a plague of poisonous water and land snakes prove a continuing worry, in a rural primary school where even one day of rain leaves the majority of pupils trapped at home as the dirt tracks that serve as the regional infrastructure become impassable. Then there are the varied local, regional and national fits of crisis that seem to form part of daily life for the majority of Argentineans, so accustomed that most of them seem barely to react to events that, in other parts of the world, would lead to outcry or revolution: the breaking or disappearance of many of the organisation’s main resources, including the school van, the telephone and internet connection, and a good number of its volunteers; the almost overnight doubling of prices of basic products such as meat, fruit and vegetables; banking scandals against a background of 30% inflation; the coming and going of politicians, parties and international disputes that, much of the time, goes almost without notice. The supporters of Manos Abiertas, together with many of their compatriots, seem to have decided the best reaction is to carry on regardless, succeeding remarkably – at times almost miraculously – well.
So what are the experiences I have drawn from living, day to day, as a full-time volunteer for an organisation of this kind? Many people involved in education have been heard to say that a teacher should always be as ready to learn as to impart knowledge; as a young person teaching for the first time, and in a very different environment, this learning curve has been particularly steep. As with many volunteers - and pupils - the most enduring lessons have frequently been more about attitudes and ways of living than specific practicalities (although there have been plenty of these, too!) Comparing my outlook now and before, I would say that I have gained a greater openness to the unexpected, and more than this, to see in the unexpected, the events and people that are not planned or controlled but that involve us almost without realising, the guiding hand of God. I have come to understand a little more that the best way to serve is nearly always more about listening, and adapting oneself and one’s preconceptions to the situation, than attempting to impose one’s own ideas on people and situations we will rarely fully understand; that the presence of Jesus, in the face of others, is far more near to the surface than we often allow ourselves to imagine, and that its appearances are constantly surprising and beautiful. That the best guide for the volunteer is, as St. Augustine said, ‘Love, and do as you like’. And, perhaps most importantly, that to act with love is also to act with joy. Towards the end of a temporary period of living in a religious community, the beautiful and (in the UK at least) little known Poor Sisters of St. Joseph of Buenos Aires, one of the oldest nuns made a comment that stayed with me afterwards: ‘The best way of telling a Christian is that they are always smiling’. For all the good things with which life has blessed me, it is probably not the first description that would occur to those who knew me before leaving for Argentina. The experience of volunteering with the Jesuits has been, and continues to be, one of great happiness; and I am left with the impression of being immensely privileged to be able to enjoy this opportunity to love and serve with Manos Abiertas.
The Jesuit-inspired foundation for which I am working, Manos Abiertas, or ‘Open Hands’, holds a special place for the people of Concordia. Despite the fact that the majority of its projects are based some distance outside the centre, in the semi-rural district of Benito Legeren, its work seems to be familiar to the larger part of the population. This may be due to the fact that one of its founders, Leonardo Nardin SJ, whose placement here ended just before I arrived, has become something of a local hero. The families of Benito Legeren remember him as the first priest who really ‘walked the district’, spending time getting to know each individual member of this small and previous neglected neighbourhood; their concerns, needs, and attitudes towards each other and the world around, and seeking to establish a project that met with those needs exactly. The members of the Jesuit parish in Concordia praise him as an indefatigable worker, who with perseverance and unfailing, at times incredible optimism, at first attending to their spiritual needs, steadily worked to forge a deep and tangible connection between their faith and social justice. In truth, nearly everyone, however remote their connection with the work of the Jesuits, has a personal story to tell. I would argue, though, that the real reason for the phenomenal expansion of Manos Abiertas goes deeper than this. In Argentina as a whole, its growth, since its humble beginnings as a small group of volunteers working to alleviate the most basic necessities of the families sleeping on the streets of Buenos Aires in the 1990s, at first defies belief. With minimal, predominantly local and ad hoc funding, and growing according to the needs and ideas of individual communities rather than any concrete programme for expansion, it is now firmly established, and continues to grow, in six provinces, dealing with needs as diverse as family nutrition and health; care for the elderly and terminally ill; children’s homes of all descriptions; homeless shelters; schools; and those marginalised from society through mental illness, disability, HIV/AIDS, or any other combination of causes. Its unity derives more from its motto, ‘Amar y Servir’ or ‘To love and serve’, than the particular project in question. Enclosed within this simple appeal is a radical interpretation of the teachings and example of Jesus, looking always to make concrete a deep commitment with the poorest and most marginalised people of society; to do so with respect and affection more than pity; and to develop an organisation whose fundamental structures and methods resemble as closely as possible the intimate unity of a family.
In Concordia, the real significance of Manos Abiertas can only really be comprehended with some awareness of the previous history of the area. Constructed for and by the workers of a meat processing factory that had served as one of the hubs of the local economy, closed (no one has yet advanced to me a theory as to why) in the 1980s by the one of the most disastrous military regimes the country has suffered, Benito Legeren, though in actual terms only about 20 kilometres from the city centre, had become more and more of an island, reflecting on a microcosmic scale something of the fate experienced by the entire province of Entre Rios. As unemployment reached a peak of 70%, virtually all schools, health and community facilities disappeared, including even the local parish; bus services and the dirt tracks leading to the main road gradually dwindled and deteriorated, leaving many families to walk the overgrown route via the abandoned railroad for basic errands. What had once been a thriving industrial focal point became something of a ghost town – except that, in this case, people found it far less easy to relocate than their material resources.
It was in this context that the arrival of the Jesuits, and with them the initiatives of Manos Abiertas, occurred. Their striking adoption by nearly the whole society of a town sometimes reputed for its narrow-mindedness is probably best illustrated by example. Beginning as a meeting point and canteen for children living on the streets, the projects now include two children’s homes, from 4-12 and 12-17 years; a primary and (incipient) secondary school, and a youth centre, amongst all the varied fundraising and publicity that goes on to maintain the organisation with its base of local volunteers and supporters. So far, nothing especially unusual to those familiar with development work, apart perhaps from the rapidity with which they took root; it is the inspiration behind the projects, from the highest level to the most mundane, that gives greater food for thought. The children’s homes, each with between ten and twenty boys constantly supervised by two ‘house parents’, largely accommodate children whose home situations make it impossible or highly undesirable for them to live permanently with their own families. Nevertheless, the aim, as far as possible, is to integrate the family unit, such as it is, into the project, or where this is not possible, at least to recreate a sense of it. At holidays and weekends, the entire house disappears, frequently with a sack of bread over the shoulder, to spend time with their relatives, or a volunteer host family, while within the ‘home’ environment during the week, constant attention from psychologists, volunteer tutors, or simply good-willed visitors ensures that the security and affection often sadly lacking on entering the home is steadily and constantly rebuilt.
The school, San Roque Gonzalez, also reaches beyond the hours spent in class. Taking advantage of the fact that the school day, unlike most in Argentina, includes both morning and afternoon classes, the curriculum is both more diverse and advanced than even in most local private schools, including 5 English classes a week from ages 4 to 13; several hours of music whose successes include a performing choir, flute and guitar group; theatre; art; I.T. and market gardening. As with Jesuit schools all over the world, catechesis takes a fundamental part in forming attitudes of moral responsibility, companionship and respect in every aspect of school life, above and beyond its presence as a separate subject. Furthermore, this expansive attitude towards education insists that the entire family, to a large extent the entire community, is a constant presence. As a way of supporting their child’s education, each parent undertakes several hours of work at the school each week, according to their own skills and abilities, maintaining the buildings, assisting at break-times and for special functions, and, in brief, fulfilling the role of an extended body of auxiliary staff; their frequent community celebrations, fundraising events and get-togethers illustrate that, apart from the work ethic, the school fulfils a deeper need for a community meeting point and solidarity that before had been sadly lacking. The youth centre focuses this ethic upon the needs of local adolescents: its courses, which, as well as a walk-in academic support centre, currently include cookery, organic farming, metallurgy, carpentry and beekeeping, not only provide students with the qualifications to seek employment or create their own incentives within the local economy, but also operate as cooperative businesses selling their products to local consumers and industries with the profits shared equally between the students and foundation, providing a sustainable business model and a tangible sense of dignity and achievement for those who participate. All the more impressive considering what seems to be a chronic lack of funding, and which is explained more than anything by the dependence of most of the organisation’s needs on a massive collaboration of volunteers and supporters rather than outside help.
During my own time spent here, occupied mostly with English classes in the school, but, as with many volunteers, with a willingness and flexibility to provide a pair of hands as and when they are needed, I have been privileged to share in what has really been a pivotal year in the life of the organisation. To begin with, there were the tenth anniversary celebrations of Manos Abiertas in Argentina (in Concordia it is even younger) in October. Following on from this, the end of the school year saw many more events that marked the maturity of many stages of preparation: the First Communion of Year Five; the confirmation of many of the students of the youth centre; some of the first trips outside Benito to the thermal spas, Concordia itself and the local zoo; the first concerts of the flute and guitar group; the ‘Day of Tradition’ in November, where the whole school, together with a good number of staff and family members, attended in traditional Argentinian dress to celebrate their national and regional identity, ranging from folk music and dance, to poetry readings, to improvised drama, to exhibitions of art, craft, household objects, customs, and cuisine. The end of year ceremonies in December, always one of the most memorable moments in the school year, took on a special significance in 2009, as the first pupils to complete the whole of their primary education at San Roque Gonzalez passed on to become the first year of a new secondary school.
This new impulse of dynamism and growth has continued far into the new year. In January, the summer recreation camp, always a lively time for the young people of Benito Legeren, took a new step forward as a young missionary group from the city of Santa Fe, led by the eponymous Fr. Leonardo (now based there) visited to prepare an intensive two weeks of sports, swimming, computation, mathematics, language and English activities, all taught through the medium of play and group work - to any language teacher searching for new revision methods, it is something I would highly recommend! Throughout the time I have been here, the teaching of catechesis at the school has been taking on a greater maturity, and from October began the initiative of a one or two day ‘Encounter with Christ’ specially adapted to the pedagogic and psychological needs of each age group, with moving and often surprising results. More recently, the Lent and Easter period saw the building up towards a powerfully dramatised ‘Via Crucis’ at the shores of the school’s lake, in which nearly every pupil played a part; and, most recently, the farewell celebrations for one of the organisation’s volunteers, who this weekend moves on to Cordoba to begin his new calling as a Jesuit noviciate.
All these achievements despite what, at a first glance, would seem all the conditions bound to set back such an incipient organisation. The increasingly unstable climate of Entre Rios reached a new peak in these months, as Concordia became the national centre of a chronic series of storms and floods throughout the summer period that left thousands of people evacuate, demolished the entire forest on which Benito Legeren’s one remaining timber industry depended, and, in general, struck this district, built in the spaces between the River Uruguay and its tributary streams, particularly hard. As one of its longer term consequences, a plague of poisonous water and land snakes prove a continuing worry, in a rural primary school where even one day of rain leaves the majority of pupils trapped at home as the dirt tracks that serve as the regional infrastructure become impassable. Then there are the varied local, regional and national fits of crisis that seem to form part of daily life for the majority of Argentineans, so accustomed that most of them seem barely to react to events that, in other parts of the world, would lead to outcry or revolution: the breaking or disappearance of many of the organisation’s main resources, including the school van, the telephone and internet connection, and a good number of its volunteers; the almost overnight doubling of prices of basic products such as meat, fruit and vegetables; banking scandals against a background of 30% inflation; the coming and going of politicians, parties and international disputes that, much of the time, goes almost without notice. The supporters of Manos Abiertas, together with many of their compatriots, seem to have decided the best reaction is to carry on regardless, succeeding remarkably – at times almost miraculously – well.
So what are the experiences I have drawn from living, day to day, as a full-time volunteer for an organisation of this kind? Many people involved in education have been heard to say that a teacher should always be as ready to learn as to impart knowledge; as a young person teaching for the first time, and in a very different environment, this learning curve has been particularly steep. As with many volunteers - and pupils - the most enduring lessons have frequently been more about attitudes and ways of living than specific practicalities (although there have been plenty of these, too!) Comparing my outlook now and before, I would say that I have gained a greater openness to the unexpected, and more than this, to see in the unexpected, the events and people that are not planned or controlled but that involve us almost without realising, the guiding hand of God. I have come to understand a little more that the best way to serve is nearly always more about listening, and adapting oneself and one’s preconceptions to the situation, than attempting to impose one’s own ideas on people and situations we will rarely fully understand; that the presence of Jesus, in the face of others, is far more near to the surface than we often allow ourselves to imagine, and that its appearances are constantly surprising and beautiful. That the best guide for the volunteer is, as St. Augustine said, ‘Love, and do as you like’. And, perhaps most importantly, that to act with love is also to act with joy. Towards the end of a temporary period of living in a religious community, the beautiful and (in the UK at least) little known Poor Sisters of St. Joseph of Buenos Aires, one of the oldest nuns made a comment that stayed with me afterwards: ‘The best way of telling a Christian is that they are always smiling’. For all the good things with which life has blessed me, it is probably not the first description that would occur to those who knew me before leaving for Argentina. The experience of volunteering with the Jesuits has been, and continues to be, one of great happiness; and I am left with the impression of being immensely privileged to be able to enjoy this opportunity to love and serve with Manos Abiertas.