Native English, Audiobook, Memoir, Biography, Humor, Articulate
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EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General) North American (US West Coast - California, Portland)Transcript
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Chapter 22. Fear and trembling in Argentina Abre Argentina. Suddenly I was living in a home with abandoned and psychotic people. I'd been warned about one of them. I remember my first time walking into the home and immediately encountering a gigantic girl who menacingly came within inches of my face. Yes, we're all crazy. But maybe she was a tiny bit more on the insane side than most. All the other residents looked happy. None of them were tied down. But this girl in my face was scaring me. Now. I've been warned that she might try to intimidate me. So I put on my Best Academy Award performance and pretended she didn't bother me. I was sweating lava streams but decided she wouldn't know this. After a few moments that felt like hours she moved away. Seeing I had no reaction to her. It's not easy to hide trembling, but I slowly started to relax and make friends with the residents who loved living there. After hearing the true stories about their former neglected lives, I came to understand their serenity. One girl was found eating out of a dog dish on the floor at her family home. Another was kept in a dungeon and sexually abused by her brothers and father. She always stole my fresh squeezed orange juice and I let her, On the first day I was preparing myself mentally for seeing the two year old baby who had been rescued from a local hospital. His head was filled with water, making it twice the size of a normal head. He lay in bed all the time. But his eyes watched you carefully. He looked like a grown man in a baby's body. I had to pretend I wasn't horrified When his 17 year old mother, a ********** saw him for the first time. She vanished and never returned to the hospital for him. The nurses thought he would die so they didn't treat him. And that's when father liam discovered him and arranged to take him to his home for abandoned people. He was a saintly Irish priest who funded his homes with donations from Ireland. He'd lived in Argentina for 18 years and started his home when he found an abandoned man whose family had left him tied to a tree. Father liam invited me to come take photos and write about the home. His irish brogue was captivating. So I said, yes. He told me my job as a priest is to help the brokenhearted. The saintly staff Fed me, treated me like family and after 10 days of living with them had a party for me. When I departed for Brazil it wasn't easy to leave being with people who had been grossly neglected and in some cases tortured, set my life perspective on a new path. I started to appreciate my blessings and loved ones. I didn't know why I had so many privileges, but gratefully acknowledged the incredible gifts in my life. I'm able to walk on my own healthy legs. I have freedom and the opportunity to be educated and most importantly, the love of my friends and family. A week after my arrival, the little boy Mario with hydrocephalus water on the brain died in his tiny bed. Everyone was grief stricken in the home. I was asked to photograph residents coming in to say goodbye to him after his passing and to take photos of the funeral and burial. The funeral was lavish and full of exquisite flowers, a fancy hearse and afterwards many speeches about the residents love for him. When his tiny coffin was lowered into the grave of the cemetery, I stayed behind to say my own prayers for him. After the hearse and cars started to leave, He lived at the home for 18 months and everyone had fallen in love with him. We all went back to the home with heavy hearts, but alongside that was feeling relieved that he didn't have to suffer anymore. Imagine being abandoned by your mother after birth. He must have felt alone and sad. We spoke about his arrival in heaven and that we now had an angel next to jesus who we could call on with prayers. It was a miracle for me to be there. The short time that I was invited to be a resident mass was said almost every day and I found myself going with the residents as they would enthusiastically gesture for me to join them from their wheelchairs. One of the last things I remember was feeding dinner to Lucas, a pre teenager who was in a wheelchair, and how during every meal, he would throw his arms around my neck and hugged me. I'm sad to say that father liam passed away a few years ago and I pray the home is still going strong in Oprah.