I wrote this during the Bush administration, to celebrate the annual pardon of two turkeys by the president. Six years later, two turkeys get pardoned, but is the pardoner still a bird with a tiny brain? It all depends on your political persuasion and reaction to the third line:
I just heard that two turkeys’ demise
Was avoided, to their great surprise.
The Big Turkey in power,
In the eleventh hour,
Gave them pardon, along with the pies.
If you could travel anywhere in the world next month, where would you go? If money was no object, if the season and weather were right, if you could take the time from your commitments and responsibilities, where would your dream destination be?
I have the money. I can take time off from my work. I have a passport, and I am free to leave the United States any time.
But my government says I am not free to go to my dream destination: Cuba.
I have wanted to travel to Cuba since I was a little girl. When my parents met, in Florida, the Cuban influence was strong. My mother had had a Cuban boyfriend in Miami, and she told me she had flown to Cuba to visit his family in the 1940’s. My father had a Cuban stepfather back then, too. It influenced my mother’s cooking; throughout my childhood, we ate arroz con pollo and picadillo regularly for dinner (check out the Cuban recipes section of mepsnbarry.com).
Shirley, my father’s sister, in Cuba in 1956
On February 8, 1963, the Kennedy administration prohibited Americans from traveling to Cuba. In December of that year, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sought to end the travel ban, saying it was “inconsistent with traditional American liberties.” The ban was not lifted until 14 years later, by the Carter administration in 1977.
I vividly remember my first trip to Key West in 1977. Over Christmas break, Mom and Dad and I drove over a thousand miles from our home in West Virginia. We sat in the Fourth of July café, and my mother drank Cuban coffee and reminisced. From the Fourth of July café to Havana was only 100 miles.
But we didn’t go. I don’t think we even discussed it. And Reagan imposed the ban again in 1981.
Last week, for the 15th time, the U.N. general assembly passed a resolution saying that the U.S. should end the embargo against Cuba. Three tiny countries voted with us — Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands — and 183 voted against us.
What a dope-slap. With the whole world against us, how can the U.S. continue to be so stupid?
If human rights are so important to us, why do we not have a travel ban on Burma? If communism is bad, why am I allowed to go to Laos or Vietnam? It’s just not logical.
It’s like those times when you get mad at someone, and you know you should get over it. But you are stubborn, so you stay mad. The U.S. should stop being stubborn. We should back down gracefully and eliminate the travel ban and the embargo.
Aesop wrote a fable that explains it. The wind and the sun were arguing about who could get a man to take off his coat quicker. The wind blew and blew and blew, and the man just pulled his coat tighter. Then the sun beamed gently down, and the man quickly removed his coat.
We should stop blowing on Cuba, and gently beam some sunshine on them. Who knows what positive change that might bring?
Over Christmas this year, Barry and I plan to travel someplace exotic. We’ve considered Belize, Hawaii, Spain, and India. The current contenders right now are Mexico and Portugal. But I’ll admit, deep in my heart, they’re second choices.
Here in Seattle, it’s pouring buckets today. I turn up the heat, put on a pop CD called “Rouge,” and instantly, I’m transported to Brazil.
In my mind, I smell the tropical vegetation and the sea air. I feel the hot sun pouring down on my bare shoulders. I hear the upbeat sound of Rouge coming, not from my stereo, but from a battered truck driving down the street with huge speakers mounted on the outside.
These are the easy memories, the physical ones.
If it had been a simple beach vacation, most of the memories would have been like these. But it was not, and so, four years later, I’m still processing the rest.
That trip was the first of what would become Bahia Street’s small group study tours. There were seven of us, plus our guides, Margaret (of Seattle) and Rita (of Salvador).
We flew into Salvador, a city in northeast Brazil, and immediately we were whisked away to Arembepe (Air-em-BEP-ee), a small seaside town about a half hour down the road from the airport. We spent the evening on a veranda on the beach, drinking powerful caipirinhas and eating exquisite food — fried fish, tomato salad, and potatoes, presented on a stunning platter, lined with deep green leaves and accompanied by piles of ruby-red grated beets and neon orange grated carrots. We were getting to know each other as traveling companions, and that night, we told stories and laughed until we cried.
That was the only part of my Brazil trip that could be called a “simple beach vacation.”
The next day, driving through the countryside and along the beach, I snapped hundreds of photos. I was captivated by barefoot children, thatched huts, and women carrying their laundry to the river for washing.
As we traveled, Margaret and Rita began to gently educate us about the implications of what we saw. It was picturesque, but it was poverty: The people I photographed all suffered from a lack of healthcare, education, and income.
On our third day, I came down with an eye infection, and we stopped at a medical clinic. Even that was an education. We walked into a low concrete building, to a room with benches around the walls. Women sat there with their sick children, waiting for hours to see the doctor. We stood around, waiting, too. There was a lull, a momentary quiet that was broken by the sound of a child coughing. “Let’s go outside, ” Rita said. On the other side of the door, she shook her head. “That one’s going to die,” she said.
Over the course of the week, we learned a great deal about Brazilian systems, political, cultural, and socio-economic. Looking at the big picture, I could see how this poverty affects us all. Even someone in far-off, wealthy Seattle who doesn’t speak Portuguese.
It wasn’t all work and no play. We swam in the ocean and hung out at beach bars, thatched roofs on poles with cold beer. We took a canoe ride and spent a glorious day in dune buggies at Mangue Seco, a remote place with giant sand dunes and the largest palm trees I’ve ever seen. We hiked to a waterfall in the mountains and ate new and wonderful things like cashew fruit.
But we also passed roadside encampments, groups of families living in shacks of black plastic sheeting and scrap wood. They were part of Brazil’s Sem Terra movement, some of the country’s 1.5 million dispossessed, landless people.
Seeing the desperation of the landless people helped prepare me for the shantytowns. Both groups seem like refugees in their own country, eking out a living as best they can.
After about a week traveling the countryside, we arrived back in Salvador. Our briefings on the road had prepared me for the danger, the crowds, the shantytowns. And when we finally visited the Bahia Street Center, it all came together, and I could see where I fit into the picture.
The quote from Margaret Mead was brought home to me that day: “Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
The last day of our tour was the Santa Barbara festival, an early December event celebrating the patron saint of firefighters. I was overwhelmed by the crowds, a human sea dressed in red, and the elaborate flower-covered palanquins bearing statues of Santa Barbara.
We followed the procession to the fire station, where the emcee and a bishop were perched in a cherry-picker above the crowd. The emcee kept shouting over the loudspeaker, “Viva Santa Barbara!” and everyone would respond with a loud cheer. Suddenly, Rita grabbed us and dragged us back against the wall. They turned on the sprinklers from the cherry picker, and the crowd was drenched with holy water. Rita’s quick action kept our cameras dry.
Standing against the wall, I watched a woman go into a religious trance, her arms upraised and her eyes closed. Her red dress clung to her body, and the crowd milled and spun around her, thrilled with the drenching.
Then the holy water shower ceased, and we headed out of the fire station. Although we had seen only blue skies and no rain since we arrived, it suddenly began to rain. “It always does that today,” said Rita.
In the African-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, Santa Barbara has a powerful equivalent, an Orixá, or goddess, called Iansã. I think she was responsible for the rain.
It was powerful experiences like these that I am still processing today.
I have not been back to Brazil yet. There are many other places in the world that I want to see first. But the lessons I learned in Brazil are lessons I take with me on all my travels, whether it’s a fishing village in Newfoundland or a native village in Alaska.
Things are not always as they seem. Look deeper. Listen. Get involved, stay a while, and gradually, things will reveal themselves.
A trip like this could change your life. It might lead you to improve the lives of others. And if you’re thoughtful and committed, it might change the world.
There once was an ornery cuss,
Who was driving a yellow school bus,
But she flipped off George Bush,
Now she sits on her tush,
‘Cause she lost her job in all the fuss.
This refers to a Seattle-area school bus driver who was fired for flipping off George Bush’s motorcade this past June. OK, a bus driver is supposed to be a role model for students, so I can see a reprimand. But firing? That’s going too far.
Writing a birthday limerick is simple and doesn’t take a lot of time. In this age of conspicuous consumption, a simple birthday limerick is a great way to celebrate someone special without bringing more styrofoam, wrapping paper, and unwanted aftershave into the world.
I have chanced on a great birthday present,
Not expensive champagne, duck, or pheasant,
But a lim’rick — some humor
To dispel the old rumor,
That a birthday is not something pleasant.
In order to make the limerick special, it needs to be about the person, not a generic 30th- or 40th-birthday limerick. For me, that requires a little brainstorming session. I do this best when insomnia strikes in the middle of the night. If the person’s birthday is imminent and you don’t have insomnia, a couple of beers can lubricate the rhyming process.
The brainstorming simply involves thinking about the person and anything related to him or her that’s easy to rhyme. Is the person’s name easy to rhyme? I have both a sister and a sister-in-law named Julie, and I haven’t been able to do much with “Bernoulli” or “patchoulli.” So I’ll have to use other techniques, as you’ll see below. However, some names are easy, such as “Kate” or “Barry.”
There once was a lady named Kate,
Whose birthday was on this fine date,
She wanted a cake,
But her friends could not bake,
So her candles just sat on a plate.
Now, there once was a pirate named Barry,
Who is frozen and quite stationary,
He’s unable to fight,
What is looming in sight,
Turning forty for him is reeeeeeal scary.
If the person’s name is not easy to rhyme, think about his or her relationship to you — what rhymes with “sister,” or “son?” When I needed to write a birthday limerick for my father, I found no good rhymes for “Henry,” but dozens for “Dad”:
There’s a guy who I proudly call Dad,
And a mighty fine birthday he had.
To make such a great man, it
Takes years on this planet.
But I won’t tell his age (he’d get mad).
Another good theme to get the rhyming started is the person’s age. Ages ending is “seven” are bad to rhyme, because you’re limited to “heaven” and “eleven.” But you can talk about the fact that he or she is no longer thirty-six, which rhymes with plenty of words — flicks, picks, tricks, mix.
Here’s one I wrote for a reader with two young children who wanted help with the invitation to their combined birthday party. The nice thing about this one is that it’s flexible, and you can change it to suit different children. You could replace the names, change the month, even replace “cookout” with “party,” and it would still work:
Our Seth is about to turn two,
And Rachel’s soon four, it is true,
We’ve written this rhyme,
‘Cause October’s the time,
For a big birthday cookout with you!
You can be even more creative, branching out and thinking about the subject’s home town, home state, occupation, or hobbies.
Here’s one about my brother-in-law, Ed, an ultra-marathon runner. Every year, on his birthday, he runs the same number of miles as his age:
The number of miles he would run
Last year was a mere fifty-one.
But now, fifty-two?
That much harder to do —
Old age does not make it more fun.
Current events or something funny that happened to the person can also inspire a good limerick. I once had a friend who moved from the bug-free Pacific Northwest to New Orleans. That year, he gave me plenty of subject matter:
While taking a drink in the shade,
Dear Brian enjoys Gatorade.
But taking a swig,
Found a live roach THIS BIG,
Now he’s mixing his cocktails with Raid.
Once I come up with an inspiring word or phrase for the person, I usually start going through the alphabet, looking for words that rhyme with it. There are also lots of good rhyming dictionaries on the internet, where you can type in a word, and all the rhymes come back. I use Rhymezone, which organizes the choices by syllables. If I’m having trouble coming up with good rhymes, I can also check Rhymezone for synonyms. That often breaks through the rhymer’s block.
There are a couple of tricks you can do to come up with even more rhymes for a given word. One is to contract the word:
On a trip south through old Oklahom’
And another is to add an extra syllable at the end of a word:
Two gals who were feeling quite plucky,
Drove north in their little red truckie
For your limerick, you’ll need at least two sets of rhymes — one with three words and one with two words. If you have more than that, you may be inspired to write several stanzas.
Now you’re ready to construct the birthday limerick. If you’ve written limericks before, or if you feel comfortable mimicking the ones you’ve read, go for it — but when you’re done, there is one crucial step you should not skip.
Write or print your limerick and hand it to someone else to read out loud. That will immediately identify any problems with the rhyme and meter. This is an important step for a birthday limerick, because birthday limericks are always read out loud, either at large parties or just repeated many, many times.
If you’re new to this limerick business, or you want to hone your skills further, keep reading for some tips on structure and meter.
The structure of a limerick is five lines, A-A-B-B-A. That means that the first two lines rhyme with each other and with the fifth line. The third and fourth lines rhyme with each other:
A – Now my big sister Daisy’s a dear,
A – And I wrote of her birthday last year.
B – But another year’s passed,
B – And it happened so fast,
A – That she’s now one year older, I fear.
One of the biggest challenges to limerick-writers, new and experienced, is getting the meter right. A proper limerick has anapest meter, which means lines one, two, and five are stressed like this:
da-da-DUM da-da-DUM da-da-DUM
And lines three and four are shorter, but still have the same kind of meter:
da-da-DUM da-da-DUM
You can modify this a little, starting a line with da-DUM and ending it with da-da-DUM-da. But don’t make changes other than that, or it won’t flow properly, as this example attests:
No, it’s really not that hard to rhyme,
And it just takes a whole lot of time.
But the meter’s the thing
To make every piece sing,
And limerick-writers like me consider lousy meter a terrible crime.
The trick to making a good limerick great is to make it funny. Humor is the hallmark of a great birthday limerick, and you have a chance to gently poke fun at the birthday person. It’s always nice to throw in a little surprise in the last line, as I did in this 40th birthday limerick:
So by 40, your hair’s turning gray,
And gravity holds you in sway.
You must stand on your head
When you get out of bed,
Just to keep nasty wrinkles at bay.
But the truth is, you’re not really old!
You are vibrant and youthful and bold.
You can still climb a tree,
You’re vivacious and free —
Now just eat these stewed prunes, as you’re told.
Read other birthday limericks by Margaret “Meps” Schulte
Margret “Meps” Schulte has always had a soft spot for silly rhymes, her favorite poetry book being the Norton Anthology of Light Verse. In 2002, she was inspired to publish her first limerick on the Web when she noticed that her friend Brian’s name sort-of-rhymed with the name of his new boat, Cayenne. Since then, she has written well over 200 limericks about her travels, current events, friends, and anything else that strikes her fancy. Meps has also submitted about two dozen limericks to the Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form, or OEDILF, giving her the dubious title of “Contributing Editor.”
Now my big sister Daisy’s a dear,
And I wrote of her birthday last year.
But another year’s passed,
And it happened so fast,
That she’s now one year older, I fear.
It started with a salsa dance class. Barry and I had been taking salsa for a year, repeating the intermediate class for months until we were ready for the advanced. A few weeks later, Margaret Willson waltzed into the advanced class and turned our lives upside down. In a good way.
Margaret had never taken a salsa class, but she knew how to dance. She jumped right into the advanced class with confidence and aplomb.
At the time, she had just returned to the States from Brazil. My first impression was of a statuesque blonde with an intriguing accent. It wasn’t quite British, but she said “holiday” instead of “vacation.” Margaret was an anthropologist, originally from Oregon, who had lived all over the world, hence the accent I couldn’t place.
Our friendship formed around dancing, walks, and swims in chilly Lake Washington. With her Ph.D., several universities wanted her to teach anthropology, but she wanted to leave the academic world and do something else. I now know that what she was considering is called practical or applied anthropology.
At the time, I was a graphic designer at Arthur Andersen. Although I’d previously had my own editing and design business, at AA, I was a second-class citizen. The company valued employees who worked directly for clients and brought in revenue. My position was considered overhead and less valued. As a result, my self-esteem was low.
So I was surprised and honored when Margaret told me one day that she was starting a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and she asked me to be on the board of directors.
I had no idea what I was taking on. None of us did.
Margaret described to me the grueling poverty in the shantytowns of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. She had lived there for several years and had worked with a remarkable research assistant, a woman named Rita (pronounced HEE-ta) who had graduated from college in spite of her shantytown upbringing. She and Rita had decided to address the poverty by helping girls get an education.
In Seattle, there were four of us on the original board, one for each position. Margaret was president. Eduardo Mendonça, a Brazilian musician, was vice president. He was the one who came up with the name, Bahia Street. Pat Ingrassia brought years of social activism experience, but it was the first time he’d ever been a treasurer. Margaret had met him while riding the Metro bus he drove on Vashon Island.. I was secretary, responsible for taking notes at the meetings.
I vividly remember the meeting at the corner booth in the Jackrabbit restaurant, in downtown Seattle. The four of us put our hands together on the table and committed to one year of funding. We agreed to be responsible for the education of one girl, an orphan named Juliana who lived with her sister. Our bank account had about $45.
It was a overwhelming commitment. To pay for Juliana’s private school tuition alone, we needed several hundred dollars a month. We also needed to pay for her books, school uniforms, bus fare, and a small stipend to her sister.
I was so panicked at the thought, I never stopped to think about the level of commitment Rita was taking on.
At the time, I thought of her as another friend of Margaret’s, someone who’d been talked into this project by my earnest and persuasive friend. Nothing was further from the truth. In the beginning, Rita had been the persuasive one. She had talked Margaret into starting the project.
Thousands of miles from Brazil, I jumped into the challenges of starting a non-profit. I designed a Bahia Street logo and a fancy brochure and we had our first mailing party, using a mailing list loaned to us by Eduardo. We had house parties and dances and sold beer at Carnival. We put on a summer festival, São João, with a day and a half of activities. We even had a rummage sale at my house, although most of the volunteers would like to forget that one.
Meanwhile, Margaret was doing what she does best, connecting and inspiring people to get involved. She raised substantial sums from wealthy friends in England, wrote grants, and turned the supporting community into a real community. The money began to trickle in, not the big grants we expected, but many small monthly checks from individuals.
In Brazil, Rita found four additional girls to add to the program. They were bright, but the public schools had left them illiterate. One, Renata, was 7 years old and had never been to school. Rita hired a tutor to work with them, and our first student, Juliana, began attending the tutoring sessions as well.
Rita and Margaret were working full-time hours on the project, but neither of them was paid.
I put many hours in, too, designing flyers and brochures, editing letters and grant applications, organizing events. I wanted to craft an image for Bahia Street that looked professional without being slick. I cranked out amazing things on laser printers at work, since there was no budget for printing. Every penny we raised went to Brazil.
It was amazing how much Rita could do with so little. She expanded the tutoring program to the point where it was as good as any private school. Since the school day in Brazil is only four hours, the girls could then go to public school for a half day and then go to Bahia Street for a half day. Not only did this allow her to admit more students, it improved the public schools.
As the number of girls in the program grew, so too did the number of volunteers in Seattle. I jokingly call Barry “Volunteer Number One,” because he was there all along. Margaret was not technically savvy, so when Barry and Pat and I told her we needed a database, she just nodded and tried to look knowledgeable. The same happened when we launched our first website in 1998.
Margaret still chuckles about Barry and the database. He told her he was bored with computer games, and he thought developing a database would be “fun.” We have over a thousand people in our relational database now, with tens of thousands of records on donations and volunteer activities, and because of Barry, it never cost us anything.
After about five years, Margaret insisted that Barry and I go to Brazil on Bahia Street’s first study tour. It was in the Salvador airport, feeling grubby and exhausted after the long flights from the U.S., that I finally met Rita. I recognized her huge smile from dozens of photographs.
From the windows of our 12-passenger van, I saw the horrific shantytowns where our students live, some in houses made of cardboard and poly tarps. I saw the conditions that turn girls into prostitutes or domestic servants before they’re even teenagers.
At the Bahia Street Center, I saw the solution.
There were fifty girls there, vibrant, happy, excited, and loud. They gave off an aura of self-confidence and assurance. Their artwork and projects covered the walls. They danced and sang and played. The teachers, who all come from shantytowns or rural villages themselves, were proud of what they’d accomplished.
It was the last day of school for them, and the girls put on a program for us. Their excitement was not because school was ending for the year, but because there were visitantes — visitors. Some of the girls’ parents came, too. They seemed shy and overwhelmed.
To this day, I can close my eyes and hear the music and feel the exuberance.
I don’t have any children. I could never work every day with difficult kids in that environment. And despite all I know about Brazil, I’m not a “Brazilophile,” a non-Brazilian with an interest in Brazil. So why have I been passionate about this for so many years?
My goal is empowering women. My work with Bahia Street has done that.
Most of the girls in the program have single mothers. Some of their mothers look barely old enough to have children. In addition to almost no money, they have limited parenting skills. Through education, we keep their daughters from getting pregnant and help them develop self-esteem.
Regardless of whether they go to college or not — and three of the first students have gotten university scholarships — by the time our students reach high school, we’ve already done an enormous amount to break the cycle of poverty in each family.
The Gates Foundation is right across town from me. They’d like to break the cycle of poverty, too, with their billions of dollars. But we have something they don’t have.
Rita and Margaret.
How can the Gates Foundation staff understand the needs of impoverished people? As former bankers and politicians, they’ve never suffered hunger or struggled to stay alive.
Rita came from an impoverished background, and she took her chance for a better life and used it to improve her community. To change the world, we need more amazing, dedicated people like her.
But Margaret’s story is just as amazing. From the very beginning, I knew her as a strong, powerful woman. Yet over the years, she has deliberately given all the organization’s power to Rita and others in the shantytowns. To say she empowers them is reality, not just a buzzword.
All those powerful people at the Gates Foundation could learn a lot from Margaret.
A few weeks ago, I saw Rita again. She had come to the United States for the first time in her life, to celebrate Bahia Street’s tenth anniversary. Like the girls in the school, she is more confident. She is no longer Margaret’s friend in Brazil. She is the driving force behind Bahia Street.
Rita seems much taller now. I introduced her to my friend, Brett, as “a dignitary.” At several events, people gave her standing ovations.
Over Rita’s two-week visit, Margaret served as interpreter and introduced Rita, but her role was that of facilitator, not star. People who have just met Margaret have no idea how much she has done to inspire and mobilize thousands of people and raise tens of thousands of dollars.
Mentorship is one of the biggest parts of the Bahia Street curriculum. Every one of the girls we’ve had in the program has gained confidence and self-esteem. We’re especially proud of our first student, Juliana, currently attending the Federal University of Bahia.
But it’s a little known fact that even before we had even heard of Juliana, Margaret had already empowered two women and changed their lives: A one-in-a-million social activist named Rita. And myself.
For more information about Bahia Street, see the website at www.bahiastreet.org.
It’s confession time (no pun intended). When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a nun.
Most people who know me find this astonishing. Why would I want to be a nun?
The reason is role models. I have two aunts who are Sisters of Providence (in Indiana, not to be confused with the order in Seattle). When I was barely five years old, they were permitted to cast off their restrictive black habits. For most of my life, I’ve known them as empowered women, women who did meaningful work.
Initially, they were school teachers. That and nursing were the careers open to them. But over the years, the world and the church changed. They received advanced degrees. Sister Mary Pat became the liturgical director for a huge Catholic parish in Chicago. They marched in protests and conducted letter-writing campaigns to elected officials. They worked for peace and social justice.
In the 1970’s, they were allowed to travel on vacation, so they visited family members in places like New York, Florida, and Las Vegas. They had an audience with Pope John Paul in Rome and took a cruise to Alaska.
Sister Mary Pat and Sister Mary Julia are in their 80’s now, retired to the “motherhouse” at St. Mary of the Woods, Indiana. I’ve visited the campus many times, with its tree-lined avenues and 19th-century buildings. Located in the backwoods of Indiana, outside Terre Haute, it has a church that is as awe-inspiring as any big city cathedral.
The sisters there have a role model, too. In 1840, Mother Theodore Guerin was about my age. She left civilized France and traveled to the wilderness, which at that time was Indiana. With five companions, she started the Sisters of Providence and opened a school for girls in the woods.
The school became St. Mary of the Woods College, the first liberal arts college for women in the United States. The sisters also expanded their work, opening schools and orphanages across the U.S. and the world.
Mother Theodore was a strong, empowered woman, but she was also very religious. In the years since her death, many people, including my family, prayed to her for intercession. Some of those prayers were answered: On October 15th, she will be canonized as a saint, partly because of two miracles attributed to her.
But the real miracles are not curing cancer or blindness, they are the millions of students who have been educated through Sisters of Providence. They are the foster children who have had a home, and the elderly (including my own grandparents) who have been nursed by the sisters. The miracles are the disenfranchised who have been not only served, but recognized.
Mother Theodore’s mission has been flexible enough to change with the times. Today, the order has a host of forward-thinking projects, such as the White Violet Center for Eco-Justice, teaching about environmental issues and giving children the message that all creation is connected. In 1973, the college launched the Women’s External Degree program, one of the first distance-learning programs in the nation. It was intended to make a college degree possible for women with families. Today, it’s been renamed the Woods External Degree program, and it’s open to men as well. They’ve recently opened Providence Cristo Rey High School, a college-preparatory program that allows economically-disadvantaged students to earn their tuition while gaining job skills at local companies. And they run countless smaller projects, like food banks. adult education, day cares, medical clinics, and services to migrant families.
It’s unbelievable to see what a small group of people, such as Mother Theodore, soon to be “Saint Mother Theodore,” and her five companions, can begin. They had no idea how widely the ripples they created would spread love, justice, and mercy around the world.
I’ve seen it happen, firsthand.
Ten years ago, two women in Brazil, Rita Conceição and Margaret Willson, decided to start a project to break cycles of poverty in the shantytowns. I met Margaret shortly afterwards. Through luck or fate, I was destined to be one of those initial companions.
We started Bahia Street with one student and almost no money. Today, it is a thriving school program for 50 girls in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, giving them education and hope for their families. It links a worldwide community of hundreds.
We had no idea how widely our ripples would spread, either.
Of all the things I’ve done in life, I’m most proud of Bahia Street. And now I see the connection to my own roots. Through the Sisters of Providence, I have been inspired by strong women with a commitment to social justice. My mother, who considered joining the Sisters of Providence in the 1940’s, decided instead to raise a family and become an artist. She told me I could be anything I wanted, that my gender would not stand in the way.
Now it is my turn to inspire young women to make a difference in the world. All it takes is one small pebble, and the ripples can go on forever.
There’s a guy who I proudly call Dad,
And a mighty fine birthday he had.
To make such a great man, it
Takes years on this planet.
But I won’t tell his age (he’d get mad).
It is hard to describe the emotion,
When not 30 feet off–a commotion!
It’s a huge humpback whale,
Fifty feet, nose to tail,
And it’s just us–and him–and the ocean.