Getting to know the Sisters (and their work) in Argentina

On Friday we said all our "goodbyes" to friends (who now feel like family) in Paraguay.  Much more to come on our feeling about leaving, but for now I will leave it at that.

We took an overnight bus across Argentina and are now in the Capitol City of the State of Buenos Aires, se llama "La Plata."  There are multiple communities of Canossian Sisters here and they have had a presence in this community for over 125 years.  We are spending our last few days in South America getting to know the Sisters and the work that they do.


Saturday, after arriving around lunchtime, we visited the city of La Plata a bit.  Sunday, we went with Madre Ilda (from Mexico) to visit Buenos Aires.  We are planning on going back tomorrow and I will try to post some Buenos Aires photos after tomorrow's visit.

Today, we had a very long day.  We went to one of the Canossian schools (Berisso) in the area, under the false impression that we were just going to sit around and watch classes in action.  Not the case.  We visited 6 classes of students in Jardin, 5-6 classes of students ranging from age 10-18 and 3 different sections of recess.  At all of these "visits" we told the story of our Mission to the students and fielded questions in Spanish.  My head was ready to explode!!!  I have never felt so much like a rockstar in my entire life.  At one point, I was given a microphone and asked to talk to a group of 200 or so kids... totally impromptu... and totally in Spanish.  On the playground we were literally surrounded by students who were shouting questions at us about America, pop-culture, sports and (rarely) our mission (see Chelsey getting swarmed at right).


Highlights included talking with the kid who, after hearing we were from KY, asked us if we knew Nerlens Noel.  I explained that he was one of our favorite players but that I did not know him personally.  The kid was without a doubt disappointed.  After spending the day with the kids in school we went out to explore some of the other areas in which the Sisters work.

First, we visited a very poor barrio that is the Argentine' Sister's equivalent of the barrio debajo del puente.  It was absolutely impoverished and we saw many of the same problems with drugs, unattended children in the streets and shanties that we have come accustomed to seeing with all our friends in Encarnacion.  One distinct difference is the barrio here is much more spread out.  Houses are bigger and have yards (covered in rocks and trash).  Top left is a photo of public housing that was installed in the barrio.  If you look closely you can see where people have built additions onto the houses with whatever materials could be found in the barrio.  Top right you see one of the three chapels that the Sisters have in the barrio.  They were all covered with graffiti but the people in the barrio seemed intent on trying to keep them nice looking.  They were repainting one of them when we visited today.


One barrio, named "Nueva York" was particularly interesting.  It is the definition of an abandoned place.  It reminds me a little of what we constantly hear of Detroit.  At the moment, people live in the stone homes but enter through windows and broken doors.  Tin roofing provides cover for holes in walls and roofs for housing additions.  The architecturally beautiful, ornate stone buildings are covered in graffiti.  People have ripped out the marble floors to sell.  The entrance of the neighborhood has a high standing arch with the inscription "Mansion de Obreros" (Mansion of Workers) with the date 1920.  You can imagine well-to-do people walking the streets and enjoying the shopping and restaurants but, as of now, it is no more.  A factory in the town closed and the city literally died.  The housing now is only for very poor squatters and the streets are covered with drug dealers.  Walking around the barrio called "New York" was probably once comparable to walking around the brownstones in the City but, now, the place is nothing more than an skeleton.

We concluded the day with a visit to the Hospital Italiano which the Sister's founded 127 years ago.  They are still totally involved in the operation and actually live on the 4th floor of the Hospital.  It was amazing to see the kind of operation they run.  It is a privately operated hospital which employees over 200 doctors and 250 nurses!!!  How many Canossians run the hospital???  There are 5 nurses that run the show (with the help of the other hospital administration).  They had pictures up in the hospital showing the founders of the hospital 127 years ago.... pretty neat to know how deeply integrated they are into the communities that they serve.  Another example of this integration --the school we visited today has been in operation for 70 years and many of the students are third generation attendees.

We could not have selected a better group of Sisters to work with than the Canossians.