Last Sunday before church Deanna, Bella and I walked our neighbourhood together, praying and being friendly. At one corner a normally cheerful group were quiet and really sad. The man’s 21 year old sibling had been shot and killed that morning. Deanna sat with the Mom. The corpse arrived a few minutes later. He was beat up pretty bad before he was shot. People here always stay up all night with the body in a coffin in the middle of the room. It is their way of saying good-bye. That was Sunday. Monday they buried the fellow. Ivanildo went. On Wednesday a gunman came to kill another friend. His Mom ran out in the road and stood in the way after the first three shots and protected her son. They are now travelling. On Friday a five year old girl died of dengue in one of the houses we walk past.
As we walked past one of the houses a teen-ager was leaving his home, talking loudly to his family inside as he was closing the gate. “I am going to see if I passed at school this year. If not, I am going to become a drug trafficer.” They talk like this is a profession. Bricklayer. Truck driver. Drug trafficer. Drugs and robberies seem to be the dangerous professions. We don’t really have gangs like you hear about in some cities.
I am surprised at the amount of pain in our neighbourhood. These forty days of doing a prayer walk every day help me understand a little better. And if you are with people in their pain, you earn permission to be with them in times of celebration.
Here are some photos of our neighbourhood.
The first one is the prettiest house on the walk.
The second one is a typical street.
The last two are taken from our front gate.
END.
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