First day at CASA

It is January 7th, 2013 here in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. It's about 70 degrees,with clear skies and the slightest of breezes. Today I started my internship with CASA, Centro Para los Adolescentes. Here is a link to their philosophy and website. Please read if you can-http://www.empowercasa.org/casas-mission-philosophy/ The school itself, situated at the top of calle Santa Julia in Colonia Santa Julia is stunning. There is a large outdoor space in front of the school that contains play structures for children in the community to use as there are not many(or any) green spaces or parks in this particular area for children to play in.There is also an organic garden that is used as an educational tool for the children as well a space to grow food for the community.Nina, the coordination director at C.A.S.A graciously introduced me to many of the staff members and gave me a tour of the space. There is an incredible amount of work being done here! There is a library where children are required to check out and read at least three books a week and adults in the community can access it as well. There is also a rural library program in which structures are being built in communities that have little access to books. There is a daycare that takes care of children aged 45 days to 6 years Monday through Fridays. The highest priority for child placement in the daycare is given to single mothers and the cost is based on a family's income. While I was there the children appeared to be having the time of their lives celebrating "Three Kings Day"(more on that later). There are programs that focus on nutrition, health, family planning,and ecology and sustainability. Counselors go into rural communities and provide workshops to community members and families, educating people in everything from recycling to domestic violence and reproductive education. I was also introduced to the program leader(Migue) of a new department which focuses on H.I.V. education and prevention as well as sexual diversity education and LBGT support in the community. As of tomorrow, I hope to be working with Migue in this new program along with another former intern from OSU. Although all of the programs and projects at CASA are incredible and honestly, had I the time I would beg to be a part of ever single one, the H.I.V. and sexual diversity program is close to my heart and very important to me to be involved in. I hope to be writing more about this program later! There are two more programs at C.A.S.A that are also fantastic. They have a radio program that airs once a week that has interviewed members of the government, counselors, and experts on the subjects of reproductive education and health, nutrition, and domestic violence, just to name a few. As they express on their website, they are also not shy from exploring delicate subjects such as the many illegal abortions that are carried out in Mexico every year. The theater group at CASA writes and directs plays that are taken and performed in different communities. The themes of the plays range from violence against children, addiction, nutrition, values, HIV, migration and more. As if that isn't enough, there is also a hospital and midwifery school!It is Mexico's only government accredited midwifery school and they have a three year program for midwives to receive acredidation as a professional midwife. C.A.S.A's Maternity teaching hospital and family clinic is located less than a mile from the school. I was also given a tour of the hospital by one of the professional midwives, a woman named Kate, whom has been at CASA for a little less than two years. They have a podiatry clinic, the only one in San Miguel, as well as a tub for water births(apart from Mexico city, the water birthing tub at C.A.S.A is one of the only in the country.)Needless to say, I am struck with awe by amount of work that is being done to reach in order to provide rural communities with information and resources that they would otherwise not receive. Have I said how beautiful it is here? Words do not do it justice but yes...it is beautiful. I am so grateful to be here and to have the opportunity to learn. There is so much to be learned! My sincere gratitude for reading! Saludos!

Con el dolor de la mortal herida

Love Opened a Mortal Wound / Con el dolor de la mortal herida


Love opened a mortal wound.
In agony, I worked the blade
to make it deeper. Please,
I begged, let death come quick.

Wild, distracted, sick,
I counted, counted
all the ways love hurt me.
One life, I thought--a thousand deaths.

Blow after blow, my heart
couldn't survive this beating.
Then--how can I explain it?

I came to my senses. I said,
Why do I suffer? What lover
ever had so much pleasure?

Con el dolor de la moral herida,
de un agravio de amor me lamentaba;
y por ver si la muerte se llegaba,
procuraba que fuese más crecida.

Toda en el mal el alma divertida,
pena por pena su dolor sumaba,
y en cada circunstancia ponderaba
que sobrarban mil muertes a una vida.

Y cuando, al golpe de uno y otro tiro,
rendido el corazón daba penoso
señas de dar el último suspiro,

no sé con qué destino prodigioso
volví en mi acuerdo y dije:--¿Qué me admiro?
¿Quién en amor ha sido más dichoso?

by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Saint John of the Cross

The Fountain by St. John of the Cross

How well I know that flowing spring
in black of night.

The eternal fountain is unseen.
How well I know where she has been
in black of night.

I do not know her origin.
None. Yet in her all things begin
in black of night.

I know that nothing is so fair
and earth and firmament drink there
in black of night.

I know that none can wade inside
to find her bright bottomless tide
in black of night.

Her shining never has a blur;
I know that all light comes from her
in black of night.

I know her streams converge and swell
and nourish people, skies and hell
in black of night.

The stream whose birth is in this source
I know has a gigantic force
in black of night.

The stream from but these two proceeds
yet neither one, I know, precedes
in black of night.

The eternal fountain is unseen
in living bread that gives us being
in black of night.

She calls on all mankind to start
to drink her water, though in dark,
for black is night.

O living fountain that I crave,
in bread of life I see her flame
in black of night.

Poem by Wilfred Owen

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

September-October 1917

A Poem by Denise Levertov

Pleasures

I like to find
what's not found
at once, but lies

within something of another nature,
in repose, distinct.
Gull feathers of glass, hidden

in white pulp: the bones of squid
which I pull out and lay
blade by blade on the draining board--

tapered as if for swiftness, to pierce
the heart, but fragile, substance
belying design. Or a fruit, mamey,

cased in rough brown peel, the flesh
rose-amber, and the seed:
the seed a stone of wood, carved and

polished, walnut-colored, formed
like a brazilnut, but large,
large enough to fill
the hungry palm of a hand.

I like the juicy stem of grass that grows
within the coarser leaf folded round,
and the butteryellow glow

in the narrow flute from which the morning-glory
opens blue and cool on a hot morning.

Denise Levertov
-1957-

Kin to Sorrow by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Am I kin to Sorrow,
That so oft
Falls the knocker of my door --
Neither loud nor soft,
But as long accustomed,
Under Sorrow's hand?
Marigolds around the step
And rosemary stand,
And then comes Sorrow --
And what does Sorrow care
For the rosemary
Or the marigolds there?
Am I kin to Sorrow?
Are we kin?
That so oft upon my door --
Oh, come in!