Change-ups and Connections

Along with my wife's shift to teaching in a different location,¹I decided to change things up a bit, and that now seems fortunate. I had been teaching three days a week at Carcel Abra, the men's prison for those with longer term punishments.  Attendance was declining so it seemed that I could reduce the time there to two days per week and combine two classes into one.  So far, this has been a good idea because the more advanced ones can help the beginners, and if need be, I can always change again since attendance is voluntary.   I also hope to shift some of the time to other activities there--a few hours in open invitation to play chess or checkers and talk.  One assistant is himself an interesting case.  He's an African, not Afro-Boliviano, awaiting trial on suspicion of drug trafficking.² His English is pretty good--as well as French and Arabic--but he speaks very little Spanish, so participating in class helps him learn some Spanish and overcome some of his cultural isolation and depression.  He's requested a Spanish/English Bible, a vial of blest olive oil and a phone call to his lawyer. I'm trying to get him the English Bible and have put in a request to the Calcutta sisters (Mother Theresa's gang) for the Spanish Bible and the oil. The call to his lawyer is one more appropriately handled by a Maryknoll missioner who is also an attorney volunteering for the Archbishop's office here in Cochabamba. So, my efforts in this case are mostly that of sorting or connecting, and when it works, it feels good--even with so basic a role as chasqui,³ delivering medications to the prison occasionally when a prisoner has a valid prescription request.

The change-ups were also valuable for refocusing my work at the hospice at Santa Vera Cruz.  I visited this morning to reschedule my work and discovered that new patients have arrived.  Despite their personal health issues they want to participate in a class. Also I decided to try and expand my work into yet one more site, in this case to volunteer in one of the houses in the Amanecer Foundation in Cochabamba to provide a safe, stable home environment for orphaned and abandoned children. It was in applying there recently that I discovered my application would be reviewed by Brian Vetter, a friend and former teacher/track coach of one of the Washington, DC contributors to my mission here.  When Lynn and I were close to departing for Bolivia in December 2009 I was told that I might encounter Brian while we were here.  I had just about decided that was not likely to happen when his name came up in conversation when I was applying to teach in one of the Amanecer houses.  So, I hope to be favorably vetted by Brian Vetter and to volunteer with this lamentably far too abundant group of young people here.
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¹She is now teaching English and Catechesis in a Franciscan high school, San Francisco and Santa Clara, in a neighborhood to the west of where we live.
²This seems to accord with a remark in the Rough Guide to Bolivia (thanks, Tim Marcy) that there are a number of foreigners languishing in Bolivian jails related to drug trafficking charges. This person, A, told me that he made the mistake of agreeing to carry a couple of suitcases for a man in exchange for a free airplane ticket back to his homeland--Ghana, I believe--and was arrested in the Cochabamba airport when the bags were inspected. If any of that can be proven, he might be released after review, but that will take place in a minimum of 6 months. So, he has some time on his hands.

Chas Chasquito

³A messenger for the Incas. Here's one pictured on a replica amulet Lynn bought on Isla del Sol. We really have enough of these items--we have a small collection of them hanging from nails on the mantel of a small fireplace in the house that we rent.

"Come, and you will see."

Frequently I am too caught up with the details of my own activities¹ to be aware of events that might change my opinions, improve my outlook. This morning I was setting up a couple of pots of water to boil and filter. Someone rang at the outside gate.  It was raining, just as it has been every day for the past two soggy weeks.  I didn't want to go to the gate because I didn't want to walk out in the rain. I didn't want to be diverted by someone selling something. I wanted to complete the simple task of preparing more water for daily use. Then the ringer sounded again--three buzzes, quick and sharp. All right then. I left my task, ready to be just as quick and sharp with dealing with the intruder.  After all, I was busy with . . . boiling some water.

It was Pedro from up the street.  I wasn't expecting to see him.  He owed me 200b. Then I remembered it was Saturday, the day he said he would pay it back.  He was grinning. He handed me 200b and thanked me for the loan. I quickly said "any time," glad that he had repaid me--both because of the money and because I didn't want him to feel awkward for having an unpaid debt.²  His need was honest enough--the day before school resumed for his three children he didn't have enough to cover the cost of fees and books. And now he was covering the shortfall.  We stood there chatting about whether this year we were having more rain than usual, whether the walls and roofs of the houses--especially the adobe houses--could take it, which communities had flooded.³ Then we realized that we were both getting wetter. We started laughing and took a rain check on the chat.

I returned to the kitchen where I noted that the unwatched pots of water were boiling.  Also the sun came out. Apparently it and the rain were doing the vegetable garden a lot of good. Our garden was originally created by the family that lived here before us, the Cuthberts.  We're just trying to maintain their good work and keep the compost heap turned.  We've got tomatoes, chard, spices (sage, parsley, anise, oregano, mint, and basil), and compost.

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  ¹Like the shepherds in the song I quoted in my previous post, I sometimes need a reminder to attune myself to significant events and deeper meanings around me, to look beyond the borders of self for needed answers.  So it was with a portion of one gospel passage, Ῥαββεί (ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον Διδάσκαλε), ποῦ μένεις; λέγει αὐτοῖς Ἔρχεσθε καὶ ὄψεσθε.' (John 1:35-42), which I read very late one night and more or less sailed through without more thought than that to discharge a chore, which was not my intent.  In Mass later that day Padre David urged the congregation to pause and think about the implications of that brief peripatetic exchange between two disciples and Jesus, so I did, running across Socrates' remark again, "the unexamined life is not worth living," and continuing on the road.
 ²He cuts grass in his spare time. In the rainy season the grass grows quickly. He does well so long as the grass is dry enough to cut. Earlier I had been listening to Merle Travis sing Sixteen Tons, reminiscing about the hard life of coal miners that Lynn, Emer, Norbert and I learned about once when we visited Stearns, Kentucky. The thought of Pedro converting to debt bondage on my watch wasn't cheery.
 ³The week before I had been traveling on Heroinas, one of the main thoroughfares in the city, when it had over a foot and a half of water that did abate quickly.  And on another avenue in the city, Suezia, that would mean raw sewage running out onto the street from the overloaded drain system. And life keeps on going.