By Francis B. Higdon MM

“Now what did Papa Noel bring you for Christmas,” I asked. The boy looked up at me and then, hugging the multi-patched pant leg of his dad, put his finger in his mouth and glared at the ground. The father, seeing my sadness at having embarrassed his little one, spoke up: “You know what the mayor tried to give my son? A gun! A little old plastic pistol! Can you imagine giving a son a pistol for a toy? I never want my child to think of a gun as a toy. Later it would be all right with him to shoot somebody just for fun. I threw that thing in the river as soon as he came home with it.”

Cowboy priest

I immediately thought of myself as a five-year-old growing up in Kentucky.  I always wanted to be a priest, but a cowboy priest.  At that age I strutted around with my toy pistols, imitating Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.  I loved western movies.  We would think nothing of somebody getting thrown off his horse and rolling over into the rocks or bushes, or being trampled under a herd of horses or cattle – especially if they were “injuns”.  We often played cowboys and Indians in the woods behind the fields of our farm.  Little did I realize how my mind was being conditioned for violence.

By Sr. Socorro Gumnad, MIC

Here are some of the photos taken during our National Teachers Day in Bolivia.

I am with two Grade 1 students and the mother of the girl dressed in black at the gate of the rural school. The boy wearing his apron at my right came to tell me tat he is participating in the acto civixo program to honor the teachers. All primary students wear apron in school.