The sun is inclement, it stings and not even the trees move. It is 12 noon and a line forms in front of a humble home in the eighth district of Cúcuta. Ahiezer Neftalí and Juan Pablo are there. The first has not been born and the second is 22 months old. They are not brothers or cousins. Their mothers come from different cultures and every day they exchange glances without knowing that they have experienced similar dramas.faced with strength.
Ahiezer, a biblical name that means brotherhood, was chosen by Idelmis Nazareth Pérez, 22, to name her son. He, who will be born in less than two months, is imagined as white and with green eyes like his father, although he can turn out ‘dark’, like his mother. She arrived in Cúcuta on December 2. He is from Barcelona, Anzoátegui state (Venezuela) and, despite having a passport, he crossed the border by trail because that day there was no electricity and the systems did not work.
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“The road was eternal, I had anxiety and I remembered my childhood playing bichas (metras) with my brother, riding a bicycle and laughing at every mischief. My father and brother stayed there, my mother died two years ago and the dream was to be in Colombia with my older sister, Idania, who is pregnant and has five children,” says the woman.
The humble house where the community dining room operates was leased by the Missionaries of New Life.
Idelmis’s mission was to take care of her sister during the diet, but fate had other plans for her: to take care of her own son. Upon her arrival, she realized that she was delayed and after having a test done at a Red Cross brigade, she found out that she was also pregnant. “I wanted to die, I felt that the world was wrinkling and I didn’t know what to do. The baby’s father left me when I told him, love is ephemeral, the real one grows inside me.
Idelmis’s drama was also experienced a few months ago by Liliana Añez, a 45-year-old from Cucuta who gave birth to Juan Pablo 22 months ago, whom she raises alone, because his father abandoned him when he found out he was on his way. The boy, dark-haired like her mother, inherited his large, bulging eyes from her. She was born with an abdominal disease and the support of Añez’s family has been essential in her recovery.
“When he grows up I want him to be a professional, to be happy and study what he likes; well, and that it be a career that gives him a living. I studied systems engineering at the National University, but I have never practiced”. Liliana, born in Cúcuta, lived a large part of her life in Bogotá and 10 years ago she returned to the border city. She lives in the human settlement El Talento and there she teaches her little one to be disciplined, because “it is the only way to face the challenges of life.”
To protect themselves from the sun, the one that clouds the view on the streets, both wear black caps. Juan Pablo goes by car and his mother, with arms of steel, takes him every day from El Talento to La Fortaleza, both settlements in the eighth district of Cúcuta. In La Fortaleza, the lives of these little ones come together: Ahiezer, who has not come out of the womb, and Juan Pablo, who with a shy look clings to his mother’s arms. Both share the same lunch, at different tables, while their mothers tell stories and lived dramas.
The leaders of the social work are Martha Isabel and Gloria Patricia Celis Villamarín, blood sisters and companions of the congregation.
They, without knowing each other and with similar experiences, remain united by the New Life Missionary Center, where they receive a daily lunch. While they talk, laugh and bring back memories to their minds, they taste an appetizing dish with barley soup, rice with carve, ground beef and beans, as popular in Venezuela as in Colombia.
The mothers overflow in prose when they talk about the dining room set up in the human settlement, where citizens of both countries have learned to live together, giving an example of camaraderie and demonstrating that Colombians and Venezuelans are not as different as culturally it has been made out to be.
The humble house where the community dining room operates was leased by the Missionaries of New Life. A month, they pay $200,000. The leaders of the social work are Martha Isabel and Gloria Patricia Celis Villamarín, blood sisters and companions of the congregation. “The headquarters of the community is in La Libertad and with my sister we live in La Fortaleza. The dining room started with grandparents and in June of last year we began serving children and adults from both countries,” said Sister Martha.
There are 340 people who receive lunch daily in this dining room.
The charisma of the women, with impeccable dress, is recognized by the 340 people who receive lunch daily. They, smiling, share with children, women, men and the elderly, whom they see as a great binational family. The maintenance of the community dining room is given thanks to several sources of financing. On one hand they receive contributions from the World Food Plan and on the other, aid from organizations such as Rotary and the Diocese of Cúcuta.
The sisters, who move like ants, get up early every Tuesday at 3 in the morning and after offering their prayers, they go out to Cenabastos where, sack in hand, they receive fruits and vegetables donated by merchants. “Here we live the multiplication of loaves and fishes, we have space for 250 people, but there are days when up to 100 more arrive and no one is left without food.”
The most gratifying thing for the sisters is to see the joy of the community. Both do not hesitate to affirm that teamwork creates bonds of friendship and breaks down barriers. The beneficiaries, like the warrior mothers of Ahiezer and Juan Pablo, take turns helping to prepare the food, because for them and the community neither race nor nationality matters, much less skin color. What is valuable is loving each other as brothers and doing good.
THE OPINION
United Colombia
