Street Cleaners

As the priest walked from one side of the church to the other, he nodded at the statue and silently offered thanks for being the priest in this church, even if it was only in a poor town in a poor country. He had been at this church for six years, but it was quite a comfortable living, in spite of the town being far away from the regional capital. He knew he was lucky and that there were many poor people in his town, but he did not have to worry about this, as his mission was far higher - to save souls. Although the town was small, it attracted many tourists in the season, and it looked as if this was going to increase with the new leisure complex being built. He sometimes worried about the people during the tourist season, many of them being too busy making money from the rich foreigners, and forgetting to come to church.

The priest was straightening the beautiful new altar cloth when he heard the sound of a jeep pulling up outside the church, and then the heavy booted footsteps of a policeman entering. He recognized the town’s chief of police and, smiling, asked if he had perhaps come for confession.

“No, Father. This is an official visit, maybe I'll come for confession some other time.” The priest offered him a seat. The chief of police continued, “You know that we can expect many more tourists here when the new leisure complex is completed, and this should bring much prosperity to our town. Your church is certain to benefit.”

The priest put his hands together and nodded towards the statue, thinking that perhaps he might at last get the extension to his church that he had been hoping for.

“But,” continued the chief of police, “we must clean up our town, or it will get a bad reputation with the tourists and they will not come back.”

This was a subject dear to heart of the priest, as he thought how he paid people to clean not only around the church, but also the approaches, so that the church would appear to be set in the cleanest of surroundings. “What can I do to help ?” he asked eagerly.

The police chief said, “We are going to operate ‘street cleaners’, at night, so that the tourists do not see, and I, er, we, the police department, just need your um, blessing for the work we need to do. That’s all, Father.”

“You have my blessing, my son, you have it !”

“Thank you, Father,” said the chief of police, pleased that he now had the backing of the church, and walked back to his jeep.

Meanwhile on the town’s rubbish dump many dirty, untidy children were playing. The lorry had already been with the previous day’s rubbish, and each of the children kept a careful eye on their own pile of pickings, old food, something to clean up and offer the tourists or just something they liked. One small child showed Rosita some photographs she had found, saying, “They’re beautiful.”

Rosita smiled, “Yes. Life may be hard, but it is good to keep our eyes open for things that are beautiful.”

Rosita, although she was only eight years old, was the undisputed leader and was respected even by the older boys. Rosita also knew about “street cleaning” from children in other towns. She knew that they all had to very careful to hide well at night, or the unlucky ones would disappear for a few days, and then later their bodies would turn up on the rubbish dump.  

Also it was Rosita they would ask to settle any disputes about the pickings. The rule was that whoever called first that they had spotted something, could then dig it out, but if they left it, anyone else could try to get it. It was a risk, because you might miss something better while you tried to pull out something which later proved to be worthless, or you might leave something really good for someone else.  

They were all street children, with no parents or relatives, living how and where they could, usually surviving by begging or stealing, and making sure they were well hidden at night. The oldest children were about ten years old. When they were older than that, the boys could sometimes get a job or carry things for the tourists - or learn to steal without getting caught, and the girls could hang around the bars. This would bring in enough money to pay for a place to sleep, and the most vulnerable years of their lives would be over.

A few days later the chief of police went back to the church to talk to the priest again. However neither of them noticed the priest’s assistant enter and quietly move to behind a pillar where he could hear without being seen.

“The main problem is, Father, all these street children. They beg and steal, especially from the tourists and they are always running around the streets in their dirty clothes. They give such a bad impression of our town. I worry that they will drive the tourists away, and we don’t want that, do we ?”

“Oh, no, we want to keep the tourists,” said the priest, who had already been making plans for the new extension to his church.  

The priest asked, “What are we going to do, open a school for them ?”

“Er, no. What we need to do is to catch their ringleader, who carefully hides all these children at night, where we cannot find them. We have to round them up at night or the tourists will see and cause trouble. So, I, we, the police department are offering a reward of 3000 dollars to anyone who can lead us to their ringleader, and we think her name is Rosita.”

“3000 dollars ?” whistled the priest, and then he asked, “our own dollars I suppose, not tourist dollars ?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” said the chief of police, but even with the recent inflation that was still a lot of money. “And, Father, it might be better if you don’t tell anyone about this.”

But the priest’s assistant had heard and he thought, “More than a month’s pay.”

Rosita was looking after two of the youngest children, and one of them was ill, and getting worse. Rosita knew that the child needed some medicine, but didn’t know what to get even if she had the money. So, she decided to ask at the church for help. She chose the early afternoon when most people were sleeping through the heat, and, when no one was looking, ran up the steps and into the church. It was cool inside. She knelt down and looked up at the statue, “Please help us,” she whispered.

The priest saw her and, although not wanting to get too close to this dirty child, asked what she wanted. Rosita explained the need for medicines, but the priest started on a long discourse about the frailty of human life, and the need to look beyond this life and towards the eternities of the future.

The priest’s assistant heard the priest talking, and crept nearer out of curiosity, listening from behind the pillar as before.

Finally the priest asked if the sick child had a warm place to sleep.

“We sleep next to a machine that runs all night, and that is what keeps us warm,” replied Rosita. The priest’s assistant heard this and wondered, “This may be the Rosita that the chief of police is offering 3000 dollars for. But where is this place where they sleep ?”

The priest noticed that Rosita had a slight country accent, and asked how long she had lived in the town.  

Rosita couldn’t remember.  

Neither did Rosita know about the day her parents had to choose. “We cannot feed all of them,” the father had said, “one of them must go.”  “Not the older ones,” said the mother. “They will soon be able to work and bring home some money, and the babies do not eat much,” remembering how much she had suffered for them. “So then," said the father, "I will take Rosita to the town tonight. She is four years old and someone is sure to find her and give her all the things that we cannot.”  

But of course the priest never knew this.

Rosita walked slowly out of the church.  

A child’s faith is a precious thing. It is not like an adult’s, who can say, “I believe this”, and “I don’t believe that.” A child’s faith exists as feelings. Rosita had entered the church with feelings of faith, trust and hope, but she left feeling sad and helpless.

Later the priest’s assistant realized that the only machine running all night was at the town’s water purification plant. He went to the police chief and told him, to get the reward. That night the police chief told a policeman to deal with the problem.

A few days later at the rubbish dump one of the children shouted, “Here’s Rosita’s dress.”

They all scrambled to pull the rubbish off her. The girls began to cry. They had all missed her, and feared the worst. The boys flattened the ground and laid her body on it. One of the older girls straightened her clothes, folded her arms and tidied her hair. Her crushed skull showed how she had died. Why should a policeman waste a bullet when his revolver butt will do the same, and with less noise ? 

No one spoke. Two boys found some clear plastic sheeting and put it over Rosita’s body, to keep the flies off. They held it down with pieces of rubbish, leaving her looking up at the blue sky she loved so much. But they knew it would not last. The children controlled the rubbish dump by day, but at night they had to leave it to the dogs. And the dogs were hungry, too.

There was a terrible storm in the night, with the slight tremor of a mild earthquake, and the sky had been so dark. As soon as the priest entered the church next day, he noticed that his beautiful new altar cloth was torn from top to bottom. “Who ? How ? Why ?” but he never knew.