BYM Day Six: Widening the Gap
(Father Guillermo M. García-Tuñón, S.J. is leading the 2019 Belen Youth Missions to the village of Vaca Gorda in the Dominican Republic.)
If I wrote a book about it, no one would believe it. It would actually make it onto the shelves of fiction in any bookstore or library. But it’s all true.
The now infamous container finally arrived into the loving embrace of 65 smelly, rancid Belen students whose clothing, in the words of my Cuban mother, “pudieran salir caminando” (literally, could leave walking on their own). What was supposed to be here two weeks before our arrival, made touch down in Vaca Gorda at midnight on the fifth day.
If the container could speak it would tell a wild story. Held up at customs for foolish reasons, when the Dominican government finally gave the okay, it was too late on a Friday night to pay the fees for its release. Bright and early Monday morning, we set out to pay the fees and it took all day. Once the fees were finally paid, it was too late to find the driver and load the container.
Now it’s Tuesday, the day of reckoning. Morning came and the driver set out on the six-hour odyssey to Vaca Gorda. As the container made its way ever so slowly from Santo Domingo to Santiago, it started leaking oil. In a small town 30 miles from the capital, it went for repairs. With that done, the driver needed to have a late lunch (and maybe a nap). Back on the road, it traveled through Santiago without a hitch. Then through Esperanza, then Mao, then Santiago Rodriguez (getting closer!), then El Pino. As it turned off the paved road on to the beaten path towards us, it got stuck in a ditch. (Seriously, I’m not creative enough to make this up!)
At 10 p.m. the call came in. The container was so close and yet so far. Loading up a few boys in a pickup truck and a massive dump truck, we met the container nestled in its bunker. We tied it to a chain and pulled our treasure all the way to the promised land. Its arrival was majestic. Like conquering heroes returning home from a hard-fought battle, there was ticker-tape released from tin-roofed huts.
The boys set up a massive human assembly line, the likes of which would make Henry Ford proud. Until midnight we unloaded the steel crate that originated innocently in the port of Miami and now showing the scars of a harrowing journey.
Ample supplies were now well in hand. Our rooms looked like Walmart had thrown up. Green pop-up tents everywhere made our rooms look like a campground. Bright white t-shirts and socks, gummy bears, Cheez-its, Pringles, Sour Patch Kids, and enough flashlights to illuminate a small city. The container was a game-changer.
As I lay on my sleeping bag with only the sound of crickets outside and the snoring of 65 exhausted boys inside, I had a thought. With one fell swoop, we had widened the divide. For five days we made due and truly lived like the campesinos. Now, with creature comforts in hand, we will live differently.
There lies the danger.
At breakfast this morning, I encouraged the kids to not lose focus. Don’t breathe a sigh of relief. The mission is not over. Our work is not done, the experiences still need to be had, the gratitude still needs to be expressed. The divide has now been widened, we need to bridge the divide with service and love.
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba, by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the school's property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit is situated on a 34-acre site in western Dade County, just minutes away from downtown Miami.