Supposing we had no church or Sunday-school, no one to tell us of the
beautiful things of God--how we should miss it all! And yet here are
these people living out on the plains of Argentina, with their little
children, tending the sheep, and reaping the corn, all of which is for
our material benefit.
The sheep and cattle are killed and put into the freezing-houses in
Buenos Aires; the wheat is harvested and made into flour, and all is
shipped from the docks every week, to England and other parts of the
world. Shall we not send them news of the Bread of Life which perisheth
not, so that the boys and girls of Argentina may know about the Lord
Jesus Christ?
Now we are in _the_ city of the whole continent, Buenos Aires. The
houses are flat-roofed and have no chimneys, for the very simple
reason that they have no fires. Most of the cooking is done either on
a charcoal brazier or on a gas or oil stove. Most of the streets are
very narrow, especially the older ones. The newer streets are made much
wider, and down the centre are avenues of trees.
House rent here, as in every other South American city, is very, very
high, so that the poor people live in “conventillos” such as you see
here. “This is a form of slum peculiar to South America consisting of a
square, or courtyard surrounded by buildings one or two stories high.
A ‘conventillo’ sometimes contains as many as a hundred families, each
one crowded into a single room, opening on to the common square. Here
the women wash, and cook, and sew, and gossip and drink ‘maté’ with
their friends (the native tea of the continent is grown in Paraguay).
Here also the children swarm and quarrel at their games.”
Buenos Aires is a most cosmopolitan city, full of life, gaiety, and
commercial activity; and yet so full of wickedness that many a mother’s
boy has been ruined for eternity.
There are numerous factories of various kinds in the city and
neighbourhood, in which hundreds of girls and boys are employed. In the
richer homes the girls are kept very secluded by their mothers, having
no purpose in life but just to dress up and make themselves look nice.
In the hot months everyone rises with the sun, and the first
substantial meal, called “almuorzo” (breakfast) is taken at 11.30. The
hottest part of the day is spent in “siesta” (sleep), under a mosquito
net, on a shady verandah, after which you have a cold bath and dress
ready for visitors, or go visiting yourself.
To speak of work amongst children in the Province of Buenos Aires would
fill a book. The Christian workers of the Evangelical Union of South
America are doing noble work in the Sunday-schools. We have not time
to visit Tres Arroyos, where each Sunday two hundred children listen
to the “Old, Old Story of Jesus and His Love,” or Las Flores, Coronel
Suarez, Campana, or San Fernando, where the children are gathered
together Sunday by Sunday.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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