Buganvilla grows in hot and relatively dry places. If you want this plant to remain outdoors all year, The best thing is that you sow the north direction if you are in the southern hemisphere and south if you are in the northern hemisphere. Sister Dolores always said they are very delicate plants, even quite demanding and who need at least seven hours of sun every day to grow. The first buganvillas that I tried to plant in zinder, Dolores taught me that I should water them enough for the earth to be a little wet but not so much to soak up at all. On the other hand, If I wanted them to climb up, he had to hang spins or colored wires from the wall, The plant would get entangled in them and grow straight and proud following them as elevators to the roof. Sister Dolores taught me that and some other things.
Sister Dolores taught me that and some other things
His first stage in Africa was Ivory Costa, But soon I would change a jungle for desert and the rest of the time would pass it in Niger, He said that here people were different. 35 years in Kara-Kará a neighborhood of leprosy from Zindergiers, The last dry stain of that immense pile of nothing that for many people represents the Sahel. There he left his youth, the childhood of his nephews and some of the certainties he brought. He watered the thirsty earth with a million tantrums and the crash that many dreams make when they collapse. There became one of the happiest people I have met in my life. When every day I read the newspapers full of articles, definitive advice and lists that give you the way to happiness, I always try to remind me that I want to be happy as Dolores. Happy in short and trying not to bother, With that discreet and evanescent smile after which sister Dolores hides her happiness.
During all the time we agreed, he did not give up in his efforts to go to Mass, more for professional zeal than for real interest; in the end, even, got a couple of times to appear. Actually I imagined it evangelizing anyone, His was rather work. That woman seemed able to wear the watches to get the hours and stretch them at will. I could see it in a thousand places at the same time, Chapurreando that slow Frenchman with Astorga's accent, While the city was tiny to the back of its SUV. The dust stained habit when you put bandages on the leprosy dentelladas, chatted with the residents of Kará Kará, He counted sacks from millet or pulled his microcredits shine. The ladies of the market that used to give me smiles and dates, They also began to let me go first in the tail when they learned that I worked for the "white African".
It belonged to the Ewee ethnicity and was the youngest of six brothers
There was also sister Joseph, ninety kilos of smiling and excessive togolesa. Unlike pain, In Joseph everything was excessive, The same could explode in some risotes that bubble the soup dishes and hide the dogs of the mission, As seconds later, frown and trigger an angry sermon invoking God and all the demons of hell. It belonged to the Ewee ethnicity and was the youngest of six brothers, Raised in some Lomé Arrabal. As a young man suffered some love disappointment and instead of cleaning the underpants of the first togolés that luck or his family cross on his way decided to serve only God. He turned ten years in Kara-Kara and with sister Dolores was the soul of that neighborhood. For her, the days were also fractional in twenty -four hours of wild activity, He lived in a state of outburst that woman, Always halfway between laughter and thunder. So it was her and we all wanted her.
They had seen the neighborhood grow over the years, Since its polvorient suburb condition to privileged enclave in the city. Well equipped with dispensary, Nursing and school, Kara-Kara finally seemed prepared to resist any plague, disease or famine that tried to besiege it. And also there he went to class, If there is something that I remember from that place is the blue and smiling tide of Unicef ??portfolios that flooded the streets on the way to school every day. Kara- Kara went from being a marginal shelter of leprosy to be able to look into her eyes without embarrassing the rest of the city. From the beginning they working with their inhabitants were always, as indefatigable notaries that will raise foundational act of that magical place. I ever asked them if they were able to go back they had chosen something else, instead of leaving life in the small Catholic community of a country with a 98% Muslim. I think it was Joseph who released one of his laughs, Then he shook the swarm of little girls that hung him from the skirt and ordered me to take my pills against malaria and stop saying nonsense.
Frightens to see the ease with which they fly 35 years
It is curious how memories twist. A few weeks ago when I saw the photographs, The first thing I thought is that I remembered everything much bigger. As if the walls had shrunk to try to collect the accumulated helps and debris in school. I noticed a bedroom, The brass sheet of the roof had combined like a tongue until almost touching the carbonized bed, The walls that gave the patio seemed tiny covered by the soot and the chilies, Among the disorder only some pots were left, ordered in a row as desolate chroniclers. The whole impressed me even more for its size than for its sadness, incredibly small and fragile without them. Frightens to see the ease with which they fly 35 years, scattered throughout the air like a breath of ash.
Internet said they were well and safe, Some residents of the city were able to alert them, in time to take refuge with other Christians in the military barracks in the city, that the worst was over in a few days and could take a plane bound for Togo, A Burkina that a Benin. During the following days the people of the city was dedicated to bring food and save some belongings of the Mission. It is possible that some of them were the same ones that came that day, The same ones who thought that the fire can erase the stroke of cartoons drawn thousands of kilometers away. Someone had to pay the invoice and at that point everyone had already started from the city, They were only.
I have not tried to locate them until a few days ago, I don't know if for modesty or cowardice. It is not easy to face that one of the best years of your life no longer exists, I prefer not to imagine how that feeling should be to multiply by an entire existence. When we talk they were already in Burkina, The telephone line razed by interferences barely let me distinguish the hasty memories and laughter of Joseph. The conversation was a bit confusing and was about to cut a couple of times, Even so, I had time to ask Dolores what they planned to do now.
– Return as soon as the congregation gives us permission.
I sent them a hug and hung. With Africa even in the ear, I started thinking about many things. For the first time after many days I remembered that despite everything there are things that make sense. There are things that make sense and sometimes dreams rise on human stupidity and pull some people. Like those colored threads on the buganvillas.
