Letter from the Hunger strikers.
For 22 days and nights the stories of our hunger strike have reinforced life and faith. Life and faith are two sides of the same coin. Every night for the last 22 days we gather to reflect on our endurance, or lack thereof.
We share stories of suffering, love, joy, and compassion. As the stories rolled from lips, so did the tears from our faces as we remember our families, our friends and colleagues, their limitations and our collective struggles. Amidst the cold nights and heat waves of a summer ending, we reinforced our convictions that the root cause of our suffering was not that our families were dysfunctional but rather our society was the root cause. We reaffirmed our faith to live, to continue fighting for a just and noble cause.
Neither the heat wave, nor the cold and windy nights deferred us from reaching one million voters. Hundreds of people stopped by in our encampment in the Placita Overa to support us, thousands signed the pledge, others stayed for one, two, three days. We sang songs of liberty, of love, of courage. We saw and moved by the sounds of drums recalling our indigenous ancestry.
We remember Gandhi and Cesar as our brothers in battle. And, in our lonely cold nights, we heard their spirit of protest. Somehow, time has no limits because their prayers were ours in the moment of pain for food, in the moment of hunger for justice. And so, mothers whose children somewhat unknowing of why they were there, sought refuge in hope that maybe someday they will see their fathers lost behind some iron bureaucracies, in a country that had denied them security and said to us:
“I light up a candle for you, praying that you will persist,” and with tears in our hearts we humbly said, “give us a hug, and let us think about our culture of hope.”
Raúl Añorve
Executive Director
IDEPSCA