Knowing Aids

My fight for respect and love of America and its diverse people, can mean nothing, can end as quick as a bullet. Conditions of these times when crime is as easy as jumping in a pool, or guns are as free and everywhere as a package of M&Ms, life becomes a spit and a news story in a second, proving we aren’t worth much as human beings.

Whether I walk into my favorite Kroger or push past someone on the freeway, I could be shot, be killed and that would be one less old white lady who has devoted so much of her life to befriend and respect African Americans and the Latinos - and tender the youth in prison both in Memphis and in Uruguay where my ministry in prison actually began.

The story goes as my friend Marta, from Cuba, already a deacon, and I, the first ordained deacon in the Southern Cone of South America, stepped into the rather dark and doom-like public hospital, riding up to the 5th floor on a doubtful elevator, hoping we could start a ministry in that hospital for people with AIDS. (SIDA, they call it here.) It was the new thing in the 1990s. It was crawling all over the streets and it didn’t matter if you were straight or gay, rich or poor, it was there. It was passing around like mixing a bowl of soup filled with goodies. The AIDS floor was a rescue place for the poor, where amazing nurses, male and female, risked their lives taking care of these young men mostly, and a few girls. Meanwhile infectious disease doctors rushed to find solutions because there wasn’t much hope once AIDS grabbed ahold of these mostly young, poor people.

It was there I met a young man with AIDS who was chained to his bed. Why? Because he was in prison for having robbed someone’s jacket in a park when he was too drunk to know he had done it, but he did it and that meant five years, maybe getting out in 3 for good behavior. For swiping someone’s jacket? I thought prison cases were worse than that, but then I came from Memphis, and the closest things to AIDS I learned in my home town was a theatrical effort Boys in the Band in a Memphis theater. This young prisoner was soon to return to his prison cell in Comcar (the big monster prison) just outside Montevideo. I promised I’d follow him and bring him clothes and food. He seemed to have nobody at the time, but that was also maybe a draw, an enticement, a see what I can get out of this woman who swears she is a church deacon. I had never been in any prison in Uruguay  or anywhere in 1996. So it was an adventure to me, that came out being an obsession and “obra” for me - that was where God had pushed me to serve him somehow, even though I didn’t really know what that meant, yet. My chauffeur who drove me (because I didn’t know how to drive a gear-shift car and he was a friend of my husband’s), helped people understand what I was trying to say, since my Spanish was way off kilter and most didn’t understand a thing I said, not even my husband Sergio. But here the door to my ministry was born and the prison situations broke my heart, or tugged at it so that it became and still is where I toss my heart.

In Uruguay, the ministry grew and because I was trusted, as others helped, we were allowed to do all sorts of things. I had befriended many of the police and guards, and whenever there was a holiday, when families were able to come visit their criminal members and bring food, and children and some sort of joy, a group of us, led by prison leaders, organized murgas (groups of Acapella singers and drummers) and fiestas and we got pizza and sweets and I took photographs of all the families which were given to them so they had memories of their own families locked up in prison. In those days, Comcar was not a tough, shut up prison. The windows were broken, in many places. They hung their hand-washed shirts and pants out the window to dry, and they posted flimsy flags of their soccer team all over the place. Soccer in Uruguay was and is like the NFL or NBA in the states - everyone has a team, and the colors of that team were clear as they could be to express who supported who.

After a while, I had even met a few Brazilian blacks, they are rarely seen in Uruguay, and most of them only live in poverty. They came across the borders in various points in history. But it made me smile because I was able to give them encouragement, and they participated in all our activities, including a theater production which was a block-buster  that drew together - a huge first - 24 prisoners into the top theater in Montevideo  for a night when they performed before the invited elite of Uruguay. The place was invitation only and included all sorts from the aging authoress, to ambassadors, politicians, doctors and VIPs of Uruguay. It was a once in a lifetime experience for them and for me.

I had a master’s degree in theater, and had been involved with Hair in Memphis, and gone to theater in NY since I was 8 years old, but this was something out of the universe. Those 24 prisoners could hold their heads up because they did something spectacular. And two of our stars were Brazilian blacks. I still have a poster one of them gave to me. I loved them all and it was mutual. It’s funny how one gets from A to B in their adventures in life. God is so amazing. He uses us when we open that door in our hearts. Even AIDS has now calmed down and is under control. Thank you Jesus.

~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com