During our daily visits providing spiritual support to many families in our community, we came across a Shipibo grandmother named Tita, who was having some serious health problems. She lives alone with her son, Daniel, who has been blind since birth. Tita cooks over an open fire in a little stove in her little thatched roofed house, both for herself and for her son, for whom it would would be dangerous to cook over the fire. Due to her medical condition, on multiple occasions, Tita fainted while cooking, and burned herself in the fire. Daniel, knowing that she had fallen, would try to help her, but also got injured in the fire.
When we got to know Tita her health issues were being addressed, but she faced a new problem. Her stove had gotten wet from the rain coming through her loosely woven walls and the thatch on her roof, and she could no longer use it. When we saw the problema, we shared food with them for that day so that they would not be hungry, and tried to repair the stove, with no success. The following day Mauro, our construction leader, went to check out her situation and ended up building her a new stove. This stove won’t get wet when it rains and will let her cook more comfortably.
As is often the case with the native people, Tita can barely speak Spanish and was simply amazed that people with whom she could hardly communicate with would go out of their way to help her so much, and with the quality work that Mauro did to improve her cooking situation. She is deeply grateful for the help that she received. Mauro, for his part, expressed his joy in serving for the honor and glory of God.
Thanks to this new stove, Tita will no longer be in danger of getting burned if she were to faint again, and Daniel will not have to drag his mother from the fire.
