Dar Asalaam (Al Hucemas)

We woke up in this new city to get to know the Dar Asalaam (House of Peace), where the Brothers of the White Cross welcome Alhucemas kids who have functional diversities. It is Friday and it is time to learn a little more about the Qur’an, we practice and make the prayers.

Caregivers treat with care and affection those who come to the house, often forgotten by this society and even by their own families.

They are happy children and young people, full of life, who give hugs to everyone who approaches them. The language barrier hinders our understanding, but the universal language of the smile floods every corner of the house.

Resounding in us the song “Los incontables” [The countless] by the Spanish group Ain Karem, we discover that there are peripheries within the peripheries, and that makes sense the song: “for You, Lord, they are who really count”.

Mount Gurugú (Nador)

In Nador, the sun sets and the delegation of missions is back to work. The religious who work here make alive the word of God with deeds. Here it is not intended to fill parishes, but to love God’s gift — our neighbor, to work for our brothers and sisters. In Mount Gurugú there are about 18 camps with more than a thousand people, separated by nationalities. Sister Francisca is the agent of proximity who accompanies us, with the chauffeur. In the camps, immigrants wait to leave for Spain in search of a better future. We can not forget where they escape from, the barbarities they have witnessed. That is why they have the determination to tread Europe, but against that determination, that of the Europeans: we resist to let them come, and, when they arrive, many are not able to welcome them.

On the mountain, from the first moment, we could feel welcome: they offered us tea and food, they greeted us and made us feel at home, but when you wake up from that magic you discover the hardships in which they live. Tents made of plastic and blankets, down the mountain in search of water and a constant alert for fear of the appearance of the police. But their eagerness and hope are inexhaustible and they try again to jump the fence or embark on boats. Until they finish their life, they will not give up on their attempt to tread European soil.

Dar Hairia (Nador)

In an almost invisible place, behind the prison, is located Dar-hairia (House of the Poor), a very simple home in a dead-end street that not many know in Nador. In it, 64 men and women, who leave no one indifferent, are waiting for us. Their image is a reflection of a great physical and psychic limitation of the human being that, at first, impresses and awakens in us mixed feelings of flight and compassion at the same time. As we remain at their side, compassion inevitably overcomes, and their smiles and glances awaken our tenderness. Their faces begin to have a name, identity and a history that makes them unique. They are elderly, young and middle-aged people with cerebral palsy, congenital malformations or mental illnesses that were discarded and abandoned, but who have found people here who care for them and love them as they are.

We join this mission of welcome, care and affection conducted by two Daughters of Charity who serve here. Moved by their testimony, we put ourselves at their service responding to the needs that come across, from making their beds, helping them in their toilet, accompanying them for a walk, serving their food or enjoy a swim in the beach; even just to be by their side, listening to them carefully even if we do not understand their words, or holding their hand.

In these two and a half days we have tried to bring them also the light, color and joy of He who gives meaning to our pilgrimage, through music, songs and balloons swollen with hope and illusion. We experience that “where there is charity and love, there is God”, and in the encounter with each of these brothers and sisters our gaze is transformed: the differences disappear and the distances are shortened. Behind the door of this house the seed of St. Vincent and St. Louise, after 400 years, continues to bear fruit; Kingdom is being built from the simple and the small.

Follow this journey in this tag.