\u201cWhy don\u2019t people like us?
\nCatherine looks at them.
\nThese African children
\nkeep asking her the same question
\nas French children in housing projects
\nat home put to her,
\nwhen she was a volunteer in France.
\nNow she is in Africa.<\/p>\n
This morning,
\na dozen lively children,
\nbeaming big, bright smiles
\nwalked Catherine back to her car
\non the edge of the marketplace.
\nThese are the same children
\nwho called her names after mass yesterday,
\nbecause, sensing their humiliation and rage,
\nshe had fled, burning with shame.<\/p>\n
As she does every weekend,
\nshe had come to be with these children
\nwho live in the street,
\nbefriending them
\nand bringing a few things essential to their survival.
\nThey had crowded around her.
\nAs she does every Sunday,
\nshe had brought them curdled milk,
\nand, this Sunday, some woolen clothes,
\noffered by a missionary,
\nbecause January nights can be so cold.
\nHuddled against one another,
\nstretched out on bits of cardboard,
\nthe children had shivered all night, too cold to sleep
\nin the stalls of the marketplace.<\/p>\n
At first, things went well.
\nBut then the older boys ganged up on the little ones
\nto wring a few drops of milk out of them.
\nPassers-by lingered beside them,
\nsnickering and shrugging their shoulders as if to say,
\n\u201cThey\u2019re taking advantage of that silly woman! \u201d
\nThen one man announced very loudly for all to hear,
\n\u201cThey\u2019ve all got sticky fingers.\u00a0 None of this does any good!\u201d<\/p>\n
It does no good?
\nBut other people\u2019s tenderness does help these children
\nwho ran away from their villages and families one day
\nbecause people could no longer feed them.
\nOther people\u2019s tenderness helps these children,
\nsome of whom have never known the affection of a mother,
\nand who sell themselves for a few pennies
\nto get some food,
\nor who are exploited by the older ones
\nwho force them to steal and to beg.<\/p>\n
Catherine had finally finished
\ndistributing the curdled milk.
\nThen she took the missionary\u2019s sweaters out of her tiny car.
\nBut the children lost interest
\nand started fighting again,
\njust as peels of laughter
\nand mocking began to burst out of the crowd.<\/p>\n
Discouraged, Catherine,
\ntossed the remaining woolens onto the back seat
\nand fled,
\ndespite the children clinging to her car
\nto keep her from starting it,
\ncalling her names
\nand throwing stones at her.<\/p>\n
That night, Catherine said to herself,
\n\u201cWhat good does it do?\u00a0 It\u2019s too hard!
\nAnd there is just too much misery,
\nand too many people snickering
\nand doing the children so much harm…\u201d<\/p>\n
But this morning,
\nas she is making her way through the market,
\nalong come the children, crowding around her.
\nThey take her basket out of her hands
\nto help her carry it to the car,
\nand they ask her,
\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t people like us?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWhy don\u2019t people like us? Catherine looks at them. These African children keep asking her the same question as French (…) Read more