Nin@s

One of our weekly routines here is doing laundry by hand. My routine has been to sit outside of our shower in the bathroom attached to our room and wash my clothes in a small plastic tub. Last Friday I was in desperate need to wash my clothes, so after our morning formation time I planned to do laundry in the time before we went to Retiro. My roommate was not feeling well and wanted to rest. Since our bathroom is connected to our room and doing laundry can be noisy with turning the shower on and off I decided to go upstairs on the church’s terrace to wash my clothes. I can’t say I was particularly thrilled to carry my clothes up the two flights of stairs only to carry them back down to hang out and dry in the garden below our room.

I was met upstairs by our friends Kevin and Laura and their two young children. Kevin will stay at the church most weeks working around the church and occasionally the whole family will travel the few hours from their home to stay together. They are some of the oldest friends of Word Made Flesh Argentina and have since been involved with the church. I got to know them well when I was here in 2010, when their daughter was just a baby. 

David, age 5, is talkative and is always ready to greet you with the traditional greeting- a kiss on the cheek, with him it is usually followed by a hug. He met me with many questions about what I was doing and instantly offered his help.

He helped me fill up the tub with water from the hose and would turn off the water when the tub was full. I showed him how we scrub the clothes together with the soap and he was intent on doing it himself, asking for his own ‘jabon’- soap, so I tore my bar of soap in half knowing full well that his half would probably be destroyed by the end of the process. He sloshed water around soaking his feet, occasionally losing the soap amongst the clothes. He would help me pour the soapy, dirty water down the drain so we could fill the tub up for the rinsing. All the while he is asking questions about the process, fetching his soap at the wrong time, trying to turn on the water when the tub is already filled to the brim, and I have to instruct him in the task at hand. But he sings little tunes and I tell him I like his song for washing clothes. His mother occasionally peeks out the window of the kitchen to redirect him, to leave me be, sensing that perhaps he is annoying me, but I reassure her that he is fine.

His little sister, Flor, is shy and often runs away to her mother whenever I so much as look at her, but she stands by watching us. I sense that in her mind she wants to help but is unsure how to make the step forward.  When we are done washing and rinsing the clothes we ring them out and hang them over the edge of a bucket to drain. She continues to stand there watching and I seek to engage her by handing her clothes to place on the bucket rim. She does so and eventually takes the clothing on her own without them being handed to her.

We finish the process and I realize that it has taken me less time to wash my clothes than it usually would in my typical shower routine. Half of my bar of soap is mangled and a little boy’s socks are wet bringing on reprimand from his father, but a fumbling Spanish-speaking girl has experienced joy in the presence of two young ones.

This theme seemed to carry throughout our day. We went to Retiro in the afternoon to spend time with our friends working there. Since school started in March the population has consisted of the young mothers and their small children and babies. On Friday however our little school age friends were there. Since they have started school we do not see them much so it was a pleasant surprise to find them there, waiting for us so they could color and play cards. It has been routine for one girl and I to color a picture together, she will urge me, rather, demand that I help her and will instruct me as to which color to use and what to color next.

The children can bring a sense of chaos to the station scene but on Friday I was simply happy at being able to see them again and appreciated their presence.

For our last stop typical in our routine we went to visit Mary, another long time friend of WMF Argentina who works outside of a local high end grocery store in the Retiro neighborhood. She is usually there with her youngest Daniel, who like her is shy and reserved. She has two older girls who are both in school and hence have not been with her most of the times we come to visit. Having been able to spend time with them the last time I was in Buenos Aires, I miss seeing their faces and being able to play with them. But with circumstantial changes we have not been able to see the girls as much. However on Friday the younger girl Jennifer was there. As we walked up the hill to the grocery store I saw her standing in the sidewalk and I started waving to her. She ran to her mother as if to inform her of our coming.  She, too, is typically shy and needs time to warm up to us. But as we have been consistent in our coming I have noticed that they, especially Daniel, have been more willing to move away from the comfort of their mother and interact with us with more ease.

Friday, they engaged immediately with us. Daniel had crazy amounts of energy and he ran around laughing and screaming so much that I had to keep urging him (while laughing myself) not to yell. We played a little game where we would take turns mimicking each others' action and I got so much joy watching little Daniel follow his big sister’s lead and Jennifer urging her little brother when it was his turn. We laughed and ran around together until it was time for us to leave. As we walked away up the hill heading to the subte station Jennifer stood on the sidewalk gleefully yelling and waving at us. Occasionally I would turn around and return and exuberant wave or duck over and wave upside down through my legs. I heard her yells all the way as we walked before we turned the corner.

I cannot express the joy I received from those little minutes we walked away, but I still carry that feeling, that precious, stored memory in my heart.

I am reminded of Jesus’ freedom with children, His urging “Let the little children come to Me.”. I have been reflecting on the impact that children have in our society. I praise God for their innocence and energy; their ability to express themselves without inhibition, to show love freely. It breaks me to realize that many of the children we interact with have been or will be stripped of their innocence, forced to embrace adulthood as a means of survival in the brutal streets they frequent. What a prophetic statement it is to raise up the next generation, to provide them with an imagination of a new vision of life. And that is why what we do, showing them their value by embracing them and allowing them to express their innocence by inviting them to little activities of coloring or games, is so essential to building up God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven- where children are held in high esteem as our examples of joy, innocence, and love.