Testament in Tucson
Watrous, Steven
could carry on their backs, who fled to save their lives. TESTAMENT IN TUCSON "I came...
...I really didn't have a politi- Embassy...
...We worked there - we cal and economic analysis of the country [Guatemala...
...Some of the people had lived in this sparse, dull-looking tears...
...Her look of Many of the children had at least one parent in the camp...
...UN camps in Honduras, those in the church camps in San Eventually, we [sisters] were given a sanctuary in Chiapas, the Salvador...
...That's when I got indicted felon: involved...
...It slowly dawned on me: there was no mirror among Father Frechette, its director, pointed out a small shack on the them...
...That's what we were doing...
...a woman needed medifile:: s a maximum sentence of eighty years...
...Frechette spoke military purposes...
...A young boy was guarding the tools...
...Thinking of his dream of cottages, schools, and me and said, "Can I draw your portrait for three dollars...
...His by the war in Nicaragua...
...Once I got there my curiosity turned into contors, lawyers, and contributing citizens...
...Government military forces] have killed over thirty- which strangers we can welcome and which we should turn two priests...
...Recently, she had to leave home to try to get help husband who was fighting in the Sandinista army...
...Do we ask people in need of help: `What is the color o "The people in the village came and warned us that we your skin, what is your political origin, do you have a green would be next if we didn't leave...
...STEVE WATROUS story turns into the next: `The army came and killed...
...We have already wasted a I met at college," he said, "but that is on hold...
...We religious order...
...The need is so great...
...The lead story of the local newspaper that day had confirmed my fears...
...I was romantically involved with a girl said, "Please send us teachers...
...One founded...
...ESE~11 ep addition to the 100,000 orphans who are already in Honduras...
...I could not forget...
...I had an instant camera...
...The new year...
...that the government considered what we were Masissippi before going to Central America...
...A young men complained they had been given a gun without any daughter stood in for her...
...Kohler, about his future...
...It was called `subversive' to card?' do what...
...Another had lost her was not paid...
...tried to interview the refugees...
...The sisters in the next town had "The refugees who choose a public sanctuary [living openly hand grenades thrown in their convent because they trained lay in churches] are willing to take further risk because they cannot leaders, delegados de la palabra...
...I was at a describes her transition from Milwaukee...
...Many had left their country to avoid a war they did girl living with her brothers and sisters for seven years in a not believe in...
...TESTAMENT IN TUCSON "I came back to the U.S...
...They had lost their We journeyed into the property for about ten minutes...
...afflict those who can do nothing but exist from handout to As we prepared to go further into the property, I couldn't handout...
...She tresses...
...We heard these Americans, our own religious motivation - there's no way stories, these real tragic horror stories, that I'm sure to most they would convict us...
...But I couldn't go...
...was trying to make a living...
...I got sick...
...I went to Guatemala in 1980 to help set up a child-care "I was assigned to my ministry as a church worker by the...
...Guatemala has had military could hear the entire case - what's happening in Guatemala dictatorships since then, each one more repressive than the and El Salvador, what these people were fleeing from, the last...
...road had been carved out of the woods by hand...
...It had rained heavily the night before...
...Rather, they would exonerate us for North Americans seem unbelievable...
...Chiapas...
...But we're not credible...
...A woman with nine children had fled Nicaragua and in their huts...
...leave, no matter how crippled physically or emotionally...
...These kids need me...
...As the two priests were returning home, they picked up four boys...
...Here is something for yourself and family...
...Another asked me for a Bible...
...I lived for about nine months in needed to help others to speak, to voice the truth...
...While there, we became involved with the refugee "People say we're `Communist dupes,' or 'naive nuns,' camps...
...The to catch...
...We look some testimony John McCain from Arizona can spend three or six days in El about why they were forced to leave...
...the State Department to the Pan American Hotel to the U.S...
...Tegucigalpa to see the spot for the new orphanage...
...Everything happened so fast...
...Francis, which was, as Matthew 25 says...
...they were abandoned children left out on the r streets...
...forget those hiding in the mountains of Guatemala, those in the "There was a lot of moving around and a lot of tension...
...That was my own experience...
...our sisters were doing...
...Her sions...
...the money come from...
...She taught school, received a masters degree went and talked to them...
...Because Nicaragua and Honduras share both a border and border wars between contras and Sandinistas, we felt there would be a tremendous need to help orphans from the war in `r...
...If I hadn't been right having acted on the best principles on which this country was there, I probably wouldn't have believed them either...
...two, grew up in Wisconsin, attended Alverno College, and "There was a rumor that Indians from Guatemala had joined the School Sisters of St...
...shack without electricity, water, or sanitary conditions...
...I was `To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to welcome the,: in Guatemala only six months when our pastor was shot and strangers.' I think it's a sad day when our government tells us killed...
...Yet another you going to marry...
...I They had no books or writing material...
...away...
...The land, their security...
...Sister Darlene doing illegal...
...and of the hope that Juanita will find a crib and Jorge will get a Our final day was spent traveling to a refugee camp filled mirror and Father Frechette will get bricks for his orphanage...
...I really didn't these abandoned orphans...
...C Father Wasson and Reinhart Kohler, the co-director of the temporary orphanage in Tegucigalpa, spoke of the potential of with 2800 people from the war in Nicaragua...
...wouldn't be looked on as suspect by the government...
...in Honduras...
...Unfortunately, often she husband who fought for the contras...
...proudly of the accomplishments of the people interested in Just before I boarded the plane, a crippled man approached helping...
...I became involved with the S rsTRR Darlene Nicgorski is on trial in Tucson, Arizona, Valley Religious Task Force on Central America...
...Commonweal: 276 navaca, Mexico, where a thousand children reside...
...Aren't from day to day...
...As we Mothers were asking for pictures of themselves and their entered the 2000-plus acres of land bought by a benefactor, children...
...Yet, they were all orphaned by the war...
...Father Wasson recalled the number...
...I said, eyes were saying, "I'm dying...
...She My first -visit to the refugee-camp left me with two impreshad no skirt but only a towel to cover her ripped slip...
...What he's probably done is go from began to put together what had happened...
...in Guatemala and El Salvador...
...the army (Steven Watrous is director c f the Central America Recame and burned our crops, our animals, and our people.' I source Center and cofounder of the Milwaukee Central saw poor Guatemalan Indians who had no more than they America Solidarity Coalition...
...1983) "We have always said that if a jury of the American public about what happened in 1954...
...I didn't know that in the beginning...
...infirmaries for one thousand orphans, I asked, "Where will Seats hadn-'t been assigned,--and d- wanted to get a good one...
...Some, of course, had lost their parents...
...Francis,, a Milwaukee-based settled in the desert in Arizona and needed a lot of help...
...Nicgorski, forty- cal attention...
...9 May 1986: 277...
...The doctor suggested I stay longer before I returned to Central America...
...It was really then that I Salvador and be an expert...
...Suddenly, I was surrounded by T HAT AFTERNOON we took a half-hour ride outside of boys asking for pictures of themselves for legal purposes...
...I southernmost state of Mexico...
...I sat there and let him draw my portrait...
...My need to help surfaced...
...Many for one of her children who had had a fever for two weeks...
...in 1982...
...The second and unforgettable impression was left by help thinking I would never again see those children orphaned a three-year-old child who would not let go of my hand...
...they didn't have enough food...
...We finally We didn't go to another refugee camp, because we had a plane came to the spot where the first cottage was to be built...
...One person asked me for a pencil...
...I started for six felony counts arising from her work with Central finding refugees...
...The sisters thought an early childhood program School Sisters of St...
...It was then that I learned about in early childhood education, and set up a day-care center in sanctuary...
...There was no river to see their reflection and no window grounds...
...One mother had lost her a nearby Honduran training camp...
...No child will ever be asked to camp for over three years...
...You lived with the people and saw it from the perspective of the can read the story in the book called Bitter Fruit: The Untold ordinary people...
...know why I came...
...As I listened I kept asking myself how many As Father Frechette and I talked, we looked at the beautiful orphanages, cribs, pencils, and mirrors could be purchased scenery surrounding the site of this community of Nuestros with the money we are spending on that airfield - a field for Pequeiios Hermanos (Our Little Children...
...The first was of the suffocating boredom that must brothers and sisters were mesmerized by our camera...
...The first Guatemalans I found needed matAmerican refugees seeking political asylum here...
...His philosophy is simple...
...But Representative had fled over the border to Mexico...
...All they did was exist asked the co-director, Mr...
...It was a shock to read in the newspapers a different version of what was happening in Central America: the talk about Communists, all sorts of things that just didn't jibe with my experiences...
...Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Doubleday...
...She took in wash for the soldiers at They all told heartbreaking stories...
...There were scores of children surrounding us as we orphanage comes first...
...When we left in 1982, more than 45,000 Guatemalans who don't really know what's going on...
...each had the same story...
...I guess I was curious about the war and how of orphans from his Mexican Center who have become doc- it was going...
...schoolteacher to new passage: was I going to continue...
...relevance of international law, what the 1980 Refugee Act "When you experience it in your own skin, having to flee, really says, the futility of applying for asylum by Central being a refugee, it gives you an understanding...
...His eyes filled with cern...
...1 went to visit my parents LAWS AGAINST WELCOME who had retired to Arizona...
...Imagine not looking in a mirror for a year...
...Please help me...
...We cannot allow will keep it to remind me of Honduras, and of its lost children, one more child to be abandoned...
...I "God only knows...
...gratitude was worth a thousand times the gift I gave her...
...They told me how they were building another airfield foundation was there...
...program...
...She was a beautiful fifteen-year-old training...
Vol. 113 • May 1986 • No. 9
