Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador by Angelina Jolie

Author:Angelina Jolie [Jolie, Angelina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2007-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Battambang, Tuesday Night

Mimi and I met Bishop Enrique Figaredo S.J. (a Jesuit priest). Everyone calls him Father Kike (pronounced Quique). He is the Bishop of Battambang.

He was in the camps in 1984, helping Cambodian refugees in Thailand. He came to Cambodia in 1988.

He works mostly with land mine victims, but he also helps with polio victims.

He is very kind and charming.

Father Kike is wearing a blue-checkered short-sleeve shirt with a peace dove sewn on his pocket. He pointed proudly to the little dove.

“Little girl sewed this on for me.”

His function in the camps was to help organize programs for the disabled. He kept teaching them skills for when they would go back, but he jokes how years kept passing. Finally, ten years later they have four or five skills.

We all met in a little restaurant. They served ice cream. It was very exciting. Father Kike and I both had chocolate chip ice cream.

Very soon he is going to Nicaragua to be part of a meeting of those who signed the treaty to ban land mines.

He mentions how I could go to Emergency and see what is happening. Every day they care for land mine victims. He said, “Good things happen in the middle of terrible places.”

He told me about a little girl who lost her leg while helping her father farm.

When Father Kike spoke of this girl (in his Spanish accent), he said, “Is so terrible, is to cry.”

Father Kike, Mimi, and I talk about his learning he had become a bishop. He said, “I got a call from Rome and I thought maybe I got in trouble or something.”

He said, “I believe life is not just inside the Church. God is in everything, everywhere.”

He admits, “I like dancing—a lot. I bring traditional Cambodian dancing into Church.”

Father Kike is a wonderful priest. He is very modest when asked about his life.

He mentions a man we should meet. “He cannot speak English, but you can see what he is doing. You see his family, his life. He feels with his heart; that is best. Do everything with your heart.”

He doesn’t push his religion. He believes the people of Cambodia have a beautiful faith.

In 1984, another archbishop was killed. Father Kike was afraid when he was appointed. He thought he would surely be killed.

Father Kike speaks of a literacy teacher who has no arms below his elbows. He crosses and connects his upper arm limbs and writes with chalk.

Father Kike smiles proudly at this man and says, “Amazing. The people are so very gentle here. It is so easy to love them.”

I can also see how all the people here love Father Kike. They also know they don’t have to be Catholics to come to his church for assistance.

Mimi and I are in a hotel tonight. We head back to our rooms.

Signs in the Hotel:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.