Alberto de la Portilla

Dear CLM, friends and family

Peace and good!

We are writing to communicate you a bit of how we are and live the present moment, after the attempted military coup of December 5, our fears, our anxieties,…

When darkness falls in Mongoumba the silence takes the night, we don´t hear anymore the songs and laughter of children who play. We don´t hear the conversations of the neighbors, the drums that enliven the night … just the sounds of nature, the crickets and some nocturnal birds. It is a silence that anguishes because we know that people leave their homes to take refuge in the jungle. They leave because they are afraid. They have fear of Military Seleka and fear of the Anti-Balaka, the new opposition group to the transitional government. Fear of the night, of what may happen.

It is a difficult moment, a difficult time for the country, but in Mongoumba we are in a different situation, we can say that we live in a small paradise. A little paradise where the difficulties are not lacking, where we try to give continuity to our daily activities, the different projects: health, education and pastoral. At the same time we try to live next to the people sharing with them the difficulties of every day. We talked about a little paradise because the situation of the town with its natural boundaries (the river), allow us to continue to a nearly normal life, nearly normal, but we cannot ignore the situation of war, destruction and death that lives the rest of the country.

We hear of the events that occurred, particularly in Bangui, and other locations in trouble, but in Bangui is where the fighting is most intense and where the number of deaths is higher. We hear the news and hear people who have relatives in the capital, what happens in the neighborhoods, the dead bodies in the houses and streets where no one comes to pick them up. The accesses are difficult and people are afraid to go for help.

The news coming from abroad speak of religious war, but we do not feel that way, for us it is a political way to put against one another and where some people take advantage for revenge and personal vendettas. Both Seleka as Anti-Balaka are destroying a village to catch a power that they are not able to control.

The Anti-balaka calls themselves Christians like the Seleka sais they are Muslims, but not all Muslims identify with the Seleka and not all Christians with the Anti-balaka. Which religion would identify itself with groups that spread death and disorder? It is a political problem that false religious believers try to turn it into a religious problem. From the beginning of the conflict the leaders of the major religions of the country work together in an appeal for peace. Almost throughout the whole country have been organized inter-religious committees for the same purpose, including Mongoumba where there is also a risk that people start to look each other with suspicion and can reach confrontations with devastating consequences for the entire town.

Some of our fears are: The number of weapons in circulation. The French military has begun the disarmament, but how many weapons are gone and how many from unknown hands have past for unknown destinations?

Until now, we have lived as spectators in a war that is ours, but the outcomes have not yet touched us…

Kisses to all and keep up with us

Elia and Tere

Yesterday at the opening Mass of the Pastoral Year I was saying to Christians that the poor are our wealth in the parish and announced that Catherine, Odile and Monique would leave on Monday morning to M’baiki where they shall reside with the Sisters of Teresa of Calcutta.

Catherine, Odile and Monique take over ten years with us. Casually all three are Christian; live in houses of clay in the soil of the parish. None has a family and at the time they were accused of witchcraft, which means death threat, so they found refuge in the parish. They are the “poor of the parish.”

Monique has 95 years according to his letter of baptism, Catherine and Odile exceed eighty. They are very old and deteriorated; we have no strength to continue responding to them with dignity at this moment of insecurity where many, who threw a hand to clean them or prepare something to eat, have fled. They are living in almost inhuman conditions because Monique is paralyzed and blind for years, Odile cannot move and Catherine who was the nurse of the group is with heart problems and cannot fend. Without water, without any hygiene, with nobody to prepare them meal or give them a hand … We decided to move to the sisters of Calcuta where we seek for asylum and they have been accepted Initially faced with uncertainty, they refused saying that they wanted to die in Mongoumba and didn´t want to leave … Then I managed together with Kaos to convince them that it was the best for them … I told them that we will take them, and if they are not happy in one month we will bring them back.

The journey to M’baiki, 90 miles in four hours, has been quite an odyssey. Monique does not stand sitting in the back seat and was lying on top of Catherine, she spend all the journey vomiting. Catherine was scowling and Odile smile every time I asked her if they were going well … it’s probably one of the first times that they have been on the car on a long journey.

Sister Alexandra welcomed us very well when we have reached M’baiki, fully nap time. We have installed our three relics in a room with three beds and foam mattresses, it is the first time they have a mattress. They even have a bathroom with shower and running water in the room… Their somber faces were lit … Monique have been placed on a mattress on the floor to keep her from falling.

We have filled all the forms: name, age, origin, family, diseases, drugs … In the status box sister wrote: “proscribed accused of witchcraft …”. “What if they die? What we do?” I told the sister, knowing how complicated the issue of burying the dead is in this culture, “They have no one I said, they can be bury with no problem, no one will complain …”. Sister asked me to sign as guardian of the three elderly.

Really, we’re going to miss them, but we will remain in touch, they are our treasures, the poor.

Jesus Ruiz (MCCJ in Mongoumba). Pictured accompany the four women, Tere and Elia (CLM).