Word of Mouth, “If you haven´t come to the Lord yet, now is the time.”

Last Thursday evening there was a meeting between directors of schools in the Carchá area. On Friday our director had a special meeting with all the workers at Bezaleel and then a special meeting with all the students too. The theme, the stunning news from the day before: the sharp rise in recent crime was the result of a group of 600 well armed men who “do not respect property rights,” who forced people to strip down to make sure they didn´t have tattoos (to make sure they weren´t gang members), and who raped women. Most all of the teachers had heard about this group, and the details weren´t all too far apart. Nobody knew who they were, communists was the word thrown around the most, the old guerrilla, somebody even suggested they were from the government (and the director, though he thought that not true, seemed to think that would be a good thing). The director was making the proposal that the men and women change residencies because the entrance to the men´s side has a gate, and that way women would not need to cross the road much, he didn´t think his advice would be followed, but said that if they didn´t and something happened, his hands were washed. “What can we do against 600 men.?”

I could not believe all this and thought that it must have been extremely exaggerated. I was saying to a friend how the number could be way, way less… how could anybody know that they are 600? But he had heard from friends from the police. The group was from a few small towns up North of us and they knew the amount of men from the town or something like that.

In the morning with the students we prayed and one of the professors recited some Bible versus. The director said “If you haven´t come to the Lord yet, now is the time.” Anything remotely gang like needed to go, girls should not have ear rings and should all dress in the traditional clothing.

At church on Sunday, the pastor said that parents needed to watch over their kids even more and make sure they weren´t “getting into anything that they shouldn´t be getting into.”

On Monday the boys told me how they had cut their hair, and ho now, all about the outskirts of campus, amongst pines, banana trees, bushes, and the little birds that take up their song in the steep hills that surround campus, were buried chains and pants that were just a bit too big.

On Tuesday, I asked the teacher if he had heard anything more about the group. He had known a decent amount on Friday. “All lies” he said.

Jordan

analysis later