255/365

Mid-week, and the visits for prayer and to drop off bags of simple groceries from the church continue. Our first stop comes just yards down from the entrance to Boys' Town, La Zona Tolerancia. And tolerance sounds like a nice thing except that this is the place where prostitution is knowingly permitted. We stand next door to the curandero, next to the tire shop in the wall, and push the button and wait, not knowing what to expect behind the gate.

Our dear little friend opens the gate and ushers us in with smiles and handshakes and kisses. She leads us into the courtyard, and then to her little apartment. Actually, "apartment" would be generous; really, it's just a little room divided by a curtain. Later she will tell us how much she pays weekly for rent and we shake our heads. Surely it should be considered much too much except that "fair housing" has not yet come to this neighborhood. We start to sit inside her home, on the bed, on a chair, and then she decides we should go outside. More room. More breeze.

We gather around in plastic chairs and sitting on the wall and find out how our friend has been. She tells us stories of her health and of her family. All the while, activity goes on around us. The toddler in pigtails, not yet even talking but already running to and fro in the patio, always trying to escape from adult grip. The faces that peek from the doorways of rooms above and beside us, surely checking out the visitors as much as we sneak glances at them. We hear the sounds from just beyond the wall, of water vendors and of the horse hooves of the trash carts and of car tires screeching on the busy entrance road. Our friend grows plants in old paint buckets, certainly for use in healing, certainly to bring a little green to this dusty place.

We pray and the farewells bookend the greetings, handshakes and kisses and hasta luego, Dios le bendiga. We leave with smiles and venture back into the center of the neighborhood, another visit to make. But this address, we just aren't sure exactly where to find this place. We know we are close, so close, but not quite there. Mario calls, and the lady tells us she'll meet us in the street. We make a U-turn and backtrack, and sure enough, there she stands, near the corner but in the street, her back to us, hand waving as she talks to us. We tell her we are just behind her. We watch her look in all the wrong directions. Finally she turns and sees us so close and we all laugh. All the while she continues to talk to us on the phone, leading us to her home a few houses down the street.

Again, her enthusiasm is contagious and we greet each other like lost family. She, too, invites us into her small home. Our eyes adjust to the dark and we smile. Al Pacino hangs across the room from Freida Kahlo; small knick-knack statues fill a short set of shelves. We perch on the low couches and she pulls up a plastic chair. One story blends into another, smiles morph to tears and then back to laughter. She tells us about her health and dramatically pulls up her shirt to show us exactly where her abdominal pain hits. She tells us about her neighbors and her life in this neighborhood for many many years. She tells us about witch doctors and black cats and half-cooked eggs. She tells us she wants to know more about Jesus; she wants to know more about the Bible. She wants us to place our hands on her as we pray over her before we leave. We do.

And always, people are people, no matter the language, no matter the income, no matter the career. People who hurt from relationships and from life. People who need more than anyone can possibly provide. People who long for more. We leave smiling, but overwhelmed if not for our hope in He who is enough.