Finding The Light In The Night

By Jay L.T. Breakstone

A father with his daughter in La Oroya, Peru. Visible in the background is Doe Run's lead smelting plant.

The church in Huancayo, Peru was dark.  It had been a quiet day.  The Archbishop had been out in the countryside, in the village of La Oroya with the American lawyers.  There was much trouble in La Oroya.  The children had been poisoned by the lead from the Doe Run mining plant.  The company was lying to the people and telling them the plant was closed because of the lawsuit in the United States.  That wasn’t true, the nun knew, because it was the government of Peru that had closed the plant.  It made some sense to her.  You weren’t allowed to poison children to make money.  God wouldn’t allow that, even if you were like the American who owned the company, the one with the gigantic house that had more bathrooms than bedrooms.

As she walked through the darkened church, the nun sensed someone in a front pew.  As she approached, the bowed head of a woman came into focus.  Her clothes were not city clothes and, as the nun got closer, she could see that she the physical features of a person whose ancestors had lived in the Andes since before the church was built.   It wasn’t so much the head bowed in prayer that caught the nun’s eye, but the invisible weight on the woman’s shoulders.

“Is there something bothering you?” the nun asked.  The woman raised her head.  Her eyes were tired.  The woman explained that she had come from La Oroya.  She had ridden the bus for hours.  She came looking for the American lawyers, the ones who knew about the poisoning of the children.  She had children and she was concerned about them and their health.   The lead poison was very bad.  She knew that.  But until the lawyers came, there was nothing she could do about it.  So she had come to Huancayo to look for the American lawyers.  She knew it was dangerous and that many workers in the pay of Doe Run had threatened and yelled, even against the Archbishop.  So she had come to Huancayo, quietly and on her own.  To see the American lawyers.  She had looked for them the whole day, but couldn’t find them.  Now it was night and she would have to return to La Oroya with no answers for her children.  She was, she told the nun, praying for the Virgin Mother’s help.  One mother to another.

The nun took two steps into the pew in front of the mother and took her hands.  She lifted the mother up to her feet.  “The lawyers are here, upstairs in the church, meeting with the Archbishop.  Come.  We will go see them together.”  So the nun and the mother walked out of the church and up to the Archbishop’s chambers.  The nun sat the mother in a soft chair in an anteroom and went inside.  A few moments later, the nun came out with a young man in a suit jacket.  Looking up from her seat, the mother listened.  “Hello,” the young man said in perfect  Spanish, “I’m Eric Hager.  I’m a lawyer from America.  Sister says you came very far to see us.  Can I help you?”

The story is true and, for security reasons (there have been terrible attacks directed against the mothers of La Oroya who dare to meet with American lawyers,) I have not used the name of the mother or the nun.  But if you doubt me, ask Eric Hager.  He’s one of our superteam , a Columbia University law graduate who maintains one of our team’s offices in Quito, Ecuador.  He’s smart, very smart; and tough, very tough.  However, on that night in Huancayo, he was much more.  He was the light that the mother from La Oroya had needed to brighten the long trip home.