Street Roots • June 10-16, 2016
News
U.S. standards. According to Dave Reilly, “We’re
used to working around good equipment and
technology. This was manual labor. It was
Delightfully eccentric, he. doubled as a clown and
frustrating at times because this is not the way
a unicyclist, enchanting the children and
we do i t ”
permanently imprinting himself on the hearts of
“El Porvenir’s focus is on making the water
the Nicaraguan people. In 1987, while peacefully
clean. It’s not a tool provision organization,” he
“turning water into light” in a remote village,
said with a smile. And the volunteers come to
Linder became the first American citizen to be
villages like Camoapa to work alongside local
killed by the U.S.- funded Contras.
people, doing things the way they do them, not to
The 2016 St. Michael’s team was drawn to
bring in bulldozers and loaders to do everything
Nicaragua for several reasons. Gillian Butler had
for them.
been aware of the struggles of Central Americans
In between the labor were other rewards,
during the 1970s and 1980s. “I remember the
including hearing from Aynn Setright, her history
(Sandinista) Revolution, and how excited all of us
and politics.
were on the left,” she said. “And then I was
Setright had first gone to Nicaragua with
appalled that the U.S. was supporting dictators
Witness for Peace in 1985. She spent two years
and death squads.” Gillian was a member of the
driving an ambulance, picking up wounded from
Portland Central American Solidarity Committee
either side, both Contras and Sandanistas, as well
(PCASC). She marched in protest of U.S. policies,
as people with ruptured appendixes and victims
and her car wore a bumper sticker that read: El
of farm accidents. She ended up falling in love
Salvador Is Spanish for Vietnam.
with the Nicaraguans, one in particular, and now
Marili and Dave Reilly, being recently retired,
lives in Managua with her husband and adult
wanted to do something worthwhile for those not
children.
as fortunate. “Clean water should be available to
The Nicaraguans seemed to reciprocate the
everyone as a human right,” Dave told me.
love of these hard-working gringos. The group
was interviewed on local TV three times by two
very serious newscasters. Local children, who
n his previous trips to Nicaragua, Hjalmer
were on a school holiday at the time, also enjoyed
Lofstrom had observed that in rural areas,
the S t Michael’s group. While the adults were
women and children relied on creeks and river mixing cement and hauling the huge blocks, the
water for drinking, cooking and washing clothes.
kids “helped” by sifting sand and jumping off the
Because hauling water would take a significant
piles of dirt. At the end of the visit the volunteers
portion of their daylight hours, the children would returned to the barrio where El Porvenir had
be taken out of school to help. But after El
arranged a piñata party. All the homeowners,
Porvenir had been to the village, things were
neighbors and kids were there. The North
different.
Americans handed out bags of candy to the
“As we returned to former village projects we
children, and the homeowners gave their guests
learned there had been a significant reduction in
little multicolored strawfans as mementoes. This
children being ill,” Hjalmer told me. “With a
time everybody got to play.
closer clean water source and improved sanitation
You might ask why anyone would want to go to
the women have more time to give to their
a poor, hot, mosquito-infested Central American
families. They’re now finding the time to add to
country and haul cement blocks, especially if they
their family income by making and selling their
have already reached the age when they can take
handcrafted wares. Some of the young women
life easy. This adventure certainly isn’t for
who dropped out of school are now returning and
everyone. But working together with people from
graduating.”
another culture offers unique opportunities. It
In this way, these clean water projects can lead
involves learning to work their way rather than
to economic stability.
ours and letting go of the American obsessions.
A project begins when a rural community
This kind of opportunity can go a long way toward
identifies a need and makes its proposal to El
opening a person’s eyes and heart. It also allows
Porvenir. Sanitation projects usually precede
U.S. citizens the chance to make a gesture of
wells and lavanderías to make sure that the water
apology for the suffering our nation caused the
will not become contaminated. In the case of the
Nicaraguan people over so many decades. In the
Camoapa barrio, the home owners were required
Episcopal worship service we sometimes confess
to provide the tools and to dig a hole in their back not only the evil we have done but “the evil done
yard 4 x 6 x 8 f t deep. Seventeen holes awaited
on our behalf.”
the St. Michael’s group, who carried cement
Except for the occasional controversy about
blocks weighing from 30 to 70 pounds to each
possible privatization of its water system,
hole. Then the volunteers set about mixing sand,
Portland residents continue to enjoy the pristine,
water and cement powder into a grout A team of
unfiltered water from the federally owned Bull
professional masons hired by El Porvenir worked
Run Watershed. Clean water certainly is one of
down in the holes, receiving the cement blocks
the most important public health
and the buckets of grout and forming the walls of accomplishments in the Western world, yet it’s a
the latrines. The latrines consisted of two vaults:
blessing many of us hardly even notice.
one would be used for 10 years while being
After four trips with El Porvenir, Hjalmer
treated with lime, at which point it would be
Lofstrom has many memories and enduring
capped and the other used for the next ten years.
relationships with families in Nicaragua.
By that time the first vault would be safe to use
“When I turn on my shower or open the tap for
again.
a drink of water I am reminded of their needs,”
The construction process was challenging for
he said. “But also I’m reminded of those villagers
the St. Michael’s group. Tools were always in
whose lives have been permanently changed by
short supply, often broken, and inadequate by
something so simple as people giving to people.”
FRIENDSHIP, from page 10
O
Page 11
Requiem for Steven
by Walt Curtis
I like to believe
you rode the wave out -
Thd redemption of Easter and Springtime.
The blossoming trees have become you!
Steven, you wanted a new life, you were brave enough to exit this
painfully unbearable one.
I am proud of you!
To make the decision to end suffering with no place to go.
Homeless, fighting heroin addiction. Methadone and food stamps your
solace.
I thought you’d make it!
The .22 rifle across your feet.
How did the weapon end up like that?!
Yet you looked peaceful. Released. Free at last!
I am stunned. Myself and Markus tried hard for months -
to give you friendship and self-esteem
We were wrong! It isn’t that easy at age 51 to escape physical, sexual,
mental and drug abuse.
Nowhere to go except to the noose in the ceiling and the step, ladder.
Stepdad a military abuser! Raping the kids. The bastard.
We found you on the kitchen floor. Gunshot in the mouth.
Eyes wide-open.
A new cosmic beginning! Strange to contemplate and say.
Every day I pray for your soul to be at peace.
I thought you’d make it! Have a future. I was wrong!
I thought you’d beat family abuse, meth, and heroin addiction.
The homeless have nowhere to go.
It was destined to happen after 50 years of pain, abuse.
Brutal stepfather whipping your ass daily, stealing paper route money.
What an SOB!
Steve, you were only an innocent kid. Now you are in Paradise.
I know your rebirth and cosmic relief.
I touched you on the shoulder not disturbing anything.
Before the police came to examine the suicide scene.
Possibly a “crime scene” - 1 gave Markus a hug and said we must
nurture your soul
and talk to you to bring you rest. Namaste!
I was thinking: “A dead person has nothing to say. The body is a
statement in itself.”
We then call 911, the police.
Steven, your being is bom again in Springtime. You rode the wave.
Flowering trees, daffodils in the breeze - are a new you.
At every Eastertide, I’ll recall the shocking and spiritual exit
you made from this place.
Steven, you’ve shaken and seared my soul till the day I die.
I am not whole with so much personal and social horror
Neither were you. Namaste. Peace.
*This poem is a public obituary fo r Steven A White, who committed suicide
in early March. His life and death epitomize the plight o f everyone on the
street. *
Poverty