“My Dona Anita” by Jerry Norris (Colombia)
A Writer Writes My Dona Anita by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) • Early on in my stay in La Plata as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia, an elderly woman made a habit of coming to my door late every afternoon. She appeared to be about 80 or so, was dressed in moldy, black rags with a shawl covering her head and most of her face, and she smelled heavily of urine. She had one or two badly bent front teeth, knurled hands, a deeply weathered face, walked uncertainly with a stick, hunched over and very slowly. She couldn’t have weighed more than 75 pounds. It pained her to look up at me as she was much less than 5 feet tall. She had to twist her head to one side and look up sideways when we spoke. Once, though, she had been preceded into this world by a love . . .
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Bill, Neither then nor now do I understand why Dona Anita "singled me out". Perhaps, because God does work in…