After lunch we loaded on buses to engage in some "city mapping". The CMT (centro missio transformacion) believe that loving a city must involve knowing it's wounds. So, we traveled to the national cemetery.
Or host, Joel Agular, lead us around the cemetery telling stories tired to greaves and monuments that revealed the wounds of economic disparity, racial prejudice, war, and religion. I learned later that one stop in the middle was not planned.
There was a smell waiting through the air that i dismissed as just the smell of the city. I also noticed a multitude of buzzards in the sky. We stopped at a spot along the wall and Vito Sandoval, (blue shirt) began to tell a story that would explain the smell. For the last 38 years, Vito has been working with youth who live in the slums near the city dump. That dump is in a ravine. That ravine is right next to the cemetery. Rudy was one of those youth. He collected garbage next to the bulldozers that pushed it over the edge. One day the ground have way and took Rudy with it. He was found for days later. He left behind a girlfriend, a one year old son and many hopes. His grave is pictured below.
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