News

The “Straw Sisters” of Chaparral
Story by Christine Dodd

Reprinted from Extension Magazine, May 2006 issue,

pages 14-17 or see www.catholic-extension.org/magazine/.

Telling a story about four religious sisters living in a house made of straw and mud sounds a little like a children’s tale. But this is a real straw house in Chaparral, N.M., a "colonia" with unpaved roads, no sewer system, few street lights – none of the niceties that make for fairy-tale endings.

The four Religious of the Assumption sisters are almost a mini-United Nations: Sister Diana Wauters hails from Allentown, PA, Sister Maria Isabel Galbe from Spain, Sister Anne Salaun from France, and Sister Maria Teresa Tellez from Mexico.

All but Sister Anne have been in Chaparral for five years. She joined the other sisters two years ago. “When we expressed interest in working in this area, the bishop said he would welcome us, but there was no money to pay us,” Sister Diana remembers.

Catholic Extension, which provided funds to build the nearby St. Thomas More Mission, contributes a modest grant for the sisters, but they survive here largely through a subsidy from their religious community and salaries they earn at secular jobs. Sister Maria Teresa teaches ESL classes to adults in the area, and Sister Diana works as a behavioral health therapist at a small local clinic.

The earth-friendly compound that the sisters call home was built in 2002. “A lot of religious congregations are thinking not only about peace and justice issues but also about the integrity of creation,” explains Sister Diana. “So we wanted to build this straw bale house as our commitment to that.” The project was a joint venture, drawing on skilled and volunteer labor from the parish and from Assumption College back east in Worcester, MA.

Over the front door, Sister Diana opens what she playfully calls the “Truth Door,” a small squarish panel that opens to show the curious visitor what the inside of the wall looks like. Yes, it is straw peeking out, but the house looks a great deal sturdier than one that a wolf could blow down.

To construct this one, the sisters explain, bales of barley straw were stacked around wooden framing. The inside walls are plastered with a mixture of mud and flour, and the exterior is stuccoed. One building houses a kitchen and common area, the second sleeping quarters and a third a chapel.

Walls of hand-crafted adobe bricks separate the bedrooms. With no central heating or air conditioning, the adobe helps retain solar heat at night, and keeps the rooms cool by day, says Sister Diana. Only on the coldest days do the sisters use a small electric baseboard heater to take the chill off.

The house is environmentally friendly in another way. The living quarters use an alternative waste water system in which “gray water” from bathing, dish washing and other household tasks goes into an underground system and irrigates a small garden. With water a precious commodity in this arid part of the country, the system is efficient.

Sister Maria Isabel suggested the compound’s name: “Flor Y Canto” (literally, flower and song). To the Aztec Indians, “Flor y Canto” is a prayer-poem to the Giver of Life. When the sisters embarked on the project, they envisioned it as a model for the residents of Chaparral. “We did educational workshops so that people in the area could build their own straw bale houses, which are very economical in terms of heating,” Sister Diana says.

But the economic realities of Doña Ana County have precluded many of the cash-poor locals from following the sisters’ model. It can’t be built in stages “and they can’t get bank loans,” says Sister Diana.

So the sisters have undertaken a “building project” of another sort: constructing a social ministry network, almost from the ground up.

The needs in these rural areas called "colonias" are as many as the trailers that dot the landscape. The sisters say that most of the good jobs in the county are in the schools, or in the retail stores. The children of Chaparral attend school year-round – nine weeks on, three weeks off. It’s a measure of the tough times that all of the children in Chaparral qualify for the free-lunch program, Sister Maria Isabel says.

Many of the men work in construction jobs or as long-distance truckers, which takes them away from home for long periods. The women left at home often supplement their income with “cottage industries” like cooking tamales, burritos, or menudo (tripe stew) and selling it door to door or at construction sites. Others craft little figures from yucca pods or other natural materials to sell.

What struck the sisters was how quickly the fabric of society unraveled when families were isolated by lack of transportation. Sister Maria Isabel, who worked in the missions in Mexico for 20 years, shakes her head. “I never saw the level of depression as I have seen here. There, neighbors are close by, stores are close by.” In Chaparral, when the women don’t know English or don’t have ea car, “there is often nothing for them.”

Sister Diana used to have her practice in Anthony, 12 miles away, but it was difficult for people to get there. So she began to work three days a week at a tiny clinic in Chaparral. “It keeps me busy.”

Letting people know about the sisters’ ministry was a major obstacle to overcome, Sister Diana says. There is no local newspaper. The owner of Sister’s clinic helped her put flyers out around the neighborhood. They also credit Father Miguel Echeverria, the Augustinian priest who is pastor at St. Thomas More Mission, with helping spread the word about their ministry. Word of mouth took it from there.

“Little by little, they came to know that we were serious people working here,” says Sister Maria Isabel.

For his part, Father Miguel is very grateful for the sisters’ presence because, besides teaching about the Faith, they are teaching about the responsibility that comes with being Catholic. “It’s not enough that people go to Mass and read the Bible. They tell them that they have to go out and live the Gospel,” Father Miguel explains.

Sister Anne volunteers every day at the middle school with the children who need special help, and is teaching Confirmation candidates. Sister Maria Isabel is working with more than four dozen small faith communities and is helping to train lay leaders.

Nearly a dozen volunteers from the mission help the sisters with another ministry: teaching Scripture to some of the 1,000 detainees at the Doña Ana County Detention Center, a maximum-security prison. “People are very excited to deepen their understanding of Scripture. They really love it,” says Sister Diana.

In addition to the four sisters, the area is blessed with the presence of two young associate members of the order. Robin Larouche and Maggie McCormick work at Casa Maria Eugenia (named for the founder of the sisters’ community), a small house near Flor y Canto that is part-youth center, part-office space. It also has small living quarters for the associates, who will spend a year here.

The young women now are running a camp for roughly 100 area students on their three-week break. Like the sisters, they also are very visible in the community. Maggie plays organ at the 10 a.m. Mass at the mission each Sunday.

The community seeks out the sisters for help with practical problems, and there always seems to be something: a cancer patient needing help to prepare food for her children. Another woman’s home burned down, and she needed a place to stay.

The parishioners readily share what little they have when the sisters tell about some of these needs. “They have the sense that you do what you can,” says Sister Diana.

However, too often there’s no money to help. One girl was so deeply mired in depression, Sister Diana recalls, that she attempted suicide twice. Her mother had no money for medication.

The sisters would especially like to set up a little emergency fund to help uninsured families to buy needed medicines.

As for themselves, they are very happy living modestly, and living out the charism of their order: evangelization and transformation through social ministry. Their house may be made of straw, but what they’ve managed to build in Chaparral is as solid as a rock.

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Building the Chaparral straw bale house

Many hands, many bales of straw!

A straw bale house for the Sisters!

Chaparral children hanging out at Casa Maria Eugenia

Snack time for Chaparral children!