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As
the
sun sets over the dirt-poor communities perched on Tijuana's dusty hillsides,
it is easy to see the illuminated skies of metro San Diego across the
hard scrabble terrain that divides the United States from Mexico. It is
in spaces like these that grace happens, and Centro La Salle is a grace-filled
work in the heart of Tijuana, not far removed from the teeming tourist
zones of Avenida Revolución.
Centro is
a joint work of the District of North Mexico and the District of San Francisco.
In a small collection of simple cinder block buildings on both sides of
a street barely wider than an alley, six De La Salle Christian Brothers
collaborate with more than 100 Partners from the Tijuana community to
offer a broad range of free educational programs in response to spiritual,
personal, and cultural needs. Programs range from instruction for those
who will become catechists and lay ministers in local churches, to basic
literacy, college prep science and math, cooking, decorative arts, and
computers. There are also classes, like Psicología de Adolescentes (Adolescent
Psychology) and Armonía en la Pareja (Harmony in Marriage), whose goals
are to strengthen family relationships.
Brother Timothy
Ford is a lifelong Lasallian educator who worked at Bethehem University
in the Holy Land before moving on to the School of Extended Education
at Saint Mary's College of California. At Centro for eleven years, Brother
Tim teaches reflexology and massage. He says that he first became interested
in massage while working with a track team at a school where he taught.
His interest in the discipline grew as he served with Brothers who were
providing drug rehabilitation ministry. He says they found that therapeutic
massage provided relief to people suffering from the agony of drug withdrawal.
"I always
start my classes by telling students that they need to be in touch with
God in order to be effective therapists. So I encourage them to begin
their work with a meditation: 'Let us remember, that we are in the holy
presence of God.'"
Brother Tim's
class meets for ninety minutes twice a week for twelve weeks.
"Some of
my former students are now teaching massage or working in doctors' offices
throughout the city. Others are visiting the sick in their parishes offering
massage to people as part of their ministry.
Therapeutic
massage can make a real difference in peoples' lives, but it's not something
that is usually available to those who are poor." And the healing benefits
of massage are not always just physical.
"I had one
student who said that her grown daughter had come to visit, so she offered
to give her a massage. As she did so, the daughter began crying and told
her mother, 'Mama, that's the first time you've touched me in nineteen
years!'"
He adds that
the woman was crying as she told him the story.
"I guess
we sometimes forget how quickly we can grow apart. Massage can be a means
for coming closer together again."
Arriving
before the rush of evening classes, Brother Alejandro tends two small
aviaries, filled with a collection of colorful cockatiels, finches, and
parrots. He is a tall, soft-spoken man, who was born in El Paso, grew
up in Chihuahua, and has lived his life on both sides of the border. Brother
Alejandro has been the Director at Centro for three and a half years and
also serves as Director of the Brothers' community. He says that the number
of people served at Centro has increased from 965 to over 1200 in the
past six months.
The Centro
staff and Community include Brother José Luis Guerrero, a bespectacled
man who seems always to be on the verge of bursting into laughter. In
addition to teaching French, he, like Brother Alejandro, teaches classes
in Liturgy, Sacraments, and Spirituality.
Brother Ernesto
Saucedo is a quiet man with the rugged face of a character movie actor.
He directs the grammar and high school programs at Centro. Brother Lauro
Medina, from the District of Andalucia in Spain, is also a member of the
Brothers' community. Brother Brendan Fitzgerald, an English teacher at
La Salle Academy on Manhattan's Lower East Side, is spending a year at
Centro working to improve his Spanish language skills.
"Today, about
65% of our kids at La Salle are from Spanish-speaking families," he says.
"If I am to be really helpful for them, I think I need to be able to speak
Spanish to their parents, in particular."
Brother Alejandro
says that Brother Armando Garcia from the District of San Francisco initiated
Centro in 1978 with the support of Cardinal Posadas Ocampos, the Mexican
prelate who was killed tragically in a crossfire at the Guadalajara airport.
As we enter
the new chapel under construction, Brother Alejandro poses self-consciously
for a photograph with a group of small children. The sounds of a city
echo off the walls of the yet unfinished building Ð screaming sirens,
barking dogs, honking horns. Already groups of students come there to
pray or just to sit and gather themselves before beginning their work
as learners and teachers. Brother Alejandro points to an open space above
the altar, where blue sky and light filter through lacy-leafed branches.
A teacher at La Salle University in Obrégon (Mexico) has donated the money
for the stained glass window. The remaining six windows will cost $500
each, and Brother Alejandro is hopeful that enough donors will come forward
to install them in time for a Spring dedication, where he wants Bishop
Rafael Romo of Tijuana to celebrate Mass to coincide with the 100th anniversary
of De La Salle's canonization (May 24).
As we cross
the street to the other Centro classrooms, Brother Alejandro calls out
to a woman who is walking just ahead of us. A smile lights her face as
he praises her work. Her name is Francisca Monsivais, and she teaches
basic writing and reading courses. She also takes care of children whose
parents are in classes. Her son, 14-year-old Jorgé Reza, is also a teacher
at Centro, offering basic computer courses to other young people. Speaking
in very precise English, Jorgé says that he wants to become an engineer,
as he turns to help a young girl work on the computer. Brother Alejandro
says that Jorgé has also taught basic computer classes for a group of
nuns. Several of the computers in the lab were donated when Saint Mary's
College updated its technology several years ago.
Moving about
Centro is an exhilarating experience. Through one open door, a woman in
her forties or fifties stands at the chalkboard struggling with simple
addition. Her classmates and teacher wait patiently as she writes and
erases, writes and erases, finally arriving at the right answer. As she
walks back to her seat, there's a smile on her face and on the faces of
everyone else in the room.
Some of the
teachers and students appear to be young professionals, complete with
beepers and cell phones on their belts. Others, their clothes and shoes
covered with dust, clearly spend their days at hard labor in the hot sun
or working 12-hour days in a still hotter factory. "Some of the women's
husbands are incarcerated and their children are in the streets while
they are at work," says Brother Alejandro. He then adds with some sadness,
"Like in De La Salle's time."
Brother Alejandro
points out a nun who is taking high school classes. "She works with immigrants
from Southern Mexico, who find themselves living in Tijuana after la migra
(the US Border Patrol) sends them back across the border." Suddenly, a
police car careens into the small parking lot. Two uniformed men jump
out and walk briskly through the small plaza and into the central office.
Their serious faces give way to smiles as they greet the receptionist
and ask for course schedules before returning to their car and speeding
away.
A group of
women is crowded into a small area that appears to be a kitchen. They
are watching as a muscled and mustachioed young man debones a chicken,
all the while talking with several other women who are stirring a saucepot.
The teacher, Abraham, is actually a warehouse worker by day who has always
enjoyed gourmet cooking. He smiles as we both note the irony of his teaching
cooking and nutrition to a room full of women. A subsequent visit finds
a group of women, men, and some teenagers in a cake decorating class.
They are working intently in a gleaming new kitchen, complete with a restaurant
quality stove.
In another
brightly lit classroom, a stylishly-dressed young woman named Guadalupe
teaches basic reading and writing to a group of ten men and women. She
gently encourages them to read aloud from their books. I ask her if I
can speak with her students for a moment. She says yes. "Why are you here?"
I ask. German says that he comes to classes four times a week "because
I want to learn and finish high school, at least. But I also want to be
an example to my children -- to show them that it is never too late to
learn."
Another student,
Ramon, says that he comes because he wants to be able to read a newspaper.
Quietly he adds, "I need to be able to read to get a better job."
Yolanda de
Estolano is a striking woman with dark eyes and a ready smile. "I came
to teach at Centro when I found myself -- as you Americans say -- with the
empty nest syndrome. My children were on their own and I had always been
involved in something." Yolanda teaches a variety of classes, including
basic literacy skills, to older and young men and women who either never
attended school or dropped out to work or raise families. This day, she
is teaching a tin-working class and one student has made a lovely rendering
of La Virgen de Guadalupe.
"Some of
these women may be able to take what they learn here and make a little
business for themselves; make a little extra money for their families,"
offers Yolanda, whose own sons are a second year medical student at Cornell
and another in residency in Mexico City. Yolanda recently completed courses
at Centro so she can pursue a university degree in psychology or sociology.
"I want to teach or do social work with young girls so I can help them
learn that they are somebody, that they have choices in life. Too many
girls still are being told that they don't need to study. They need to
know that they must learn, that they are just as important as the boys."
"Doctora
Estolano?" I ask. "Yes, why not?" she responds with a smile.
When Yolanda's
students are asked what Centro La Salle has meant for them, Yolanda Sanchez
answers quickly, "Socially and spiritually, I have grown here."
Catalina
Segura's eyes sparkle as she responds, "I almost live here!"
Graciella
Martinez softly adds, "I've made friends, and I have also learned that
I too have something to give."
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