ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) – Pigs rummage through garbage searching for leftovers. The people live in shacks made of plywood and corrugated metal. Any semblance of stability in the sprawling slum of 15,000 families is upended when heavy rains burst the banks of the nearby Paraguay River, turning dirt roads to impassable pools of mud.
Banado Norte is one of the areas of extreme poverty that Pope Francis will visit during his tour of three South American countries that begins Sunday. In Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, the pope will spend time in places rarely, if ever, seen by tourists and avoided, if at all possible, by locals.
The visit by Francis, who has put aiding the poor at the center of his church’s mission, is raising hopes for many of the Roman Catholic faithful whose lives of abject poverty will get a rare moment in the spotlight.
Magdalena Ramos hopes to catch the pope’s attention when he visits a small, bare-bones chapel in Banado Norte so that she may seek help for her son, who is bedridden with congenital neurological problems.
“I want the pope to see my son and then ask people for donations for a wheelchair and medical treatment,” said the unemployed woman.