The author writes with humour, compassion and warmth about the mentally challenged men he worked for in Peru. He lets us get to know them through their own words and thoughts. Characteristically, he does not speak of the patience, love and sacrifice involved in this type of ministry.—Editor
From 1995 to 1998 and then again from 2015 to 2017, I was assigned to our house in Lima, Peru. It was my first exposure to South America and I soon fell in love with its people, its language, its food, its music, its culture. There, we lived with a group of thirty mentally challenged men—some with mild conditions while others totally psychotic—whose common denominator is that they have been abandoned by their family. Some of them have been with us since the founding of the ‘Hogar de la Paz’ in 1983! In the five years I spent there, I enjoyed every moment of it; there was never a dull moment with our “boys” as we still call them.
It is said that the word delirium comes from the Latin “de lira ire,” meaning “away from the ridge between the furrows (in agriculture)”, thus deviating from the norm, from what one is supposed to do or be. But, then, who decides the norm? We “normal” people? Is it true that we are normal? In front of this “locura” I am scared, but at the same time I am jealous of our boys. Being “crazy” also means losing control. I am scared of losing control, but at the same time I yearn to lose control and enter in the world of the “locura” without taboos, without norms or inhibitions. I always wondered: What do they think? What do they feel? How do they perceive the world around them? What do they dream about? How do they live their sexuality? What do they talk and laugh about among themselves? What are the rules among themselves? What do they think of us “normal” people?
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Bro Carmel Duca MC
