As I lie in the darkness, willing it all to stop, the unexpected sound of singing cuts through the rain. It’s coming from the next room over, where a dozen girls are draped across chairs and stretched out on the cement floor. The older girls, I slowly realize, are soothing the fears of the younger ones with familiar hymns. From song, they shift into prayer. Each girl says her own. Aloud. Simultaneously. The rhythmic prayers form a new type of song that is percussive, hypnotic, lulling. As a fallen-away Catholic, I am sometimes skeptical of religious ritual, but if there were ever a time for
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