TearDrop Crafts

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By military coup in 1982 General Efraín Ríos Montt came to power in Guatemala. A born again Christian, member of the El Verbo Church, he claimed a mandate from God to clean up corruption and eradicate armed opposition in the countryside. 440 villages were simply wiped off the map, at least 50,000 indigenous Maya were killed in a campaign scarcely paralleled for its savagery, terror, and lack of publicity. 100,000 Mayans fled into exile in Mexico.

The Maryknoll Sisters were among those who supported and worked with the refugees. Sister Peggy Janicki M.M. penned a poem of reflection while living in a refugee camp near Merida, Mexico. In the poem, written during the winter of 1985/86, raindrops and teardrops became an allegory for the suffering and hope of the refugees.

We took the name "Teardrop" from this poem.

It is overcast and cold this January morning here in Merida. You were in my thoughts and prayers as Christmas came and went and one year ended and another began. I share with you now just a short reflection of this morning, fed by moments lived every day in the camp with neighbors, friends and others, once, but never to be again, strangers.

A rain drop caresses the leaf,
the sound so gentle
one has to pause and listen.
So much of life we miss,
running, always running
from one important engagement to another.

Time.
We need to take the time to listen to the rain drops.
If not, we may just all go crazy.
We keep building bombs and guns,
and we don't hear the rain drops.
We fill our days and nights with words and motion
and we don't hear that bird's song, the child's laugh,
the old man's cry.

Rain drops, tear drops, water of the earth.
Make time for the rain drops.
Take time for the tear drops.
Enter into that rain drop.
Enter into that tear drop.
That rain drop holds the world, the cosmos,
the land, the sea, the stars,
all that is outer.

That tear drop holds the soul,
the anguish, the longing, the remembering,
all that is inner.

How many tear drops have I seen?
How many have I shed?

Francisca.
You came the other day looking for milk for your baby.
But the tear drops came when you asked me
with so much longing and grief,
"How are things in Guatemala?"
Can we go home soon?

Juana.
Your son is now fourteen, almost a man.
Four years ago he went away from you to go to school.
Is he alive? Is he dead?
How many tears,
what hope and doubt and fear are held there?

A little son, a little daughter.
Both strangled, hung up outside your home
where once their shouts and laughter filled the air.

Romelia.
How strikingly attractive and poised you are
as you grow into womanhood.
Who could know the pain and fear that is there inside you?
It is four years since you have seen your mother.
You ran one way, two little ones in tow,
bullets flying, houses burning.
One bullet pierces the two year old's arm
another grazes your wrist.
One escapes the bullets only to swell up and die
as you wander through the jungle.
There is so little to eat and he is just a baby.
You tried to save them both,
but you were only twelve going on eternity.
Your mother runs the other way
Six others along with her.
At first the dreams so vivid, so horrible:
your mother being doused with kerosene
and set on fire by the soldiers;
your older sister being tortured.
Thank God the dreams have gone away.
But will you ever see your mother,
your brothers and sisters again?
Have the tears, like the dreams, stopped, or do they,
ever so quietly, fall when you least expect them?
a certain Christmas song you always sang,
or eating that first ear of corn of the new harvest,
remembering the joy and hope and laughter of all gathered
around the fire?

Will these tears be rain for the a new harvest?
a harvest of love and not hate,
a harvest of joy and not anguish,
a harvest of peace and not war?

I don't suppose any of us can answer that right now. It seems we can only hope and dream and do what we can where we are to make it come to be. Please don't miss the rain drops or the tear drops in 1986.

Sister Margaret Janicki M.M.

Teardrop Crafts
2600 Columbia Avenue
Castlegar, B.C., Canada, V1N 2X6
tdrop@web.ca