Jose y Raquel los peregrinos

In which Jose is learning to walk

Every day, I see Hoel limping up and down the streets of Las Mangas. His twisted arms and legs forces me to remember the polio that afflicted him long ago, but his smile makes me remember that sin and sickness, disease and death are not the end.
Hoel is well known in Las Mangas and to the other villages up and down our road. He slowly walks miles each day to collect aluminum cans from the stores and houses, and then trades them in for small amounts of money. People give him food and drink each day, and he lives as a friend of all. He can entertain a whole household of children (a valuable skill here) with his animal noises, and is fond of sneaking up behind unsuspecting folks and shrieking with laughter as he pinches them lightly.
This week, we awoke one morning to a loud pounding on our door. Two small girls yelled “Hoel is dying! He’s bleeding from his nose and mouth! He had a cat in his sack, and now he’s dying!”
This story sounded strange, but we quickly drove the truck up to El Pital and found Hoel. He was lying on the floor of a small house. A few women bathed his forehead as he shook slightly. “He is having seizures,” they explained. “He hasn’t taken his medicine.” He had run out a few days before, and the effects were showing now. He had had four seizures already, and had bit his tounge and bloodied his nose.
We put Hoel in the truck and brought him home, then rushed to the city for the medicine. While it only costs about 10 cents per day for his pills, this is a huge sum of money for a man who must live off aluminum cans and the kindness of his neighbors.
When we returned, Hoel had regained enough conciousness to lock himself in his room and refuse entry to anyone. A small child was hoisted through a hole near the roof, and several neighbors assisted us in giving Hoel his medicine.
Yesterday I saw Hoel on the road again. He fell a few times, still weak from his seizures. But he smiled, hugged us, refused help, and limped off in pursuit of his cans.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”