Charles Joel Vaughn

Happy New Year and Looking Back at Some Photos

2012-01-01T20:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year.

One Sunday in November at the La Salette chapel in our neighborhood we were treated to musical accompaniment by a class of students (some from the neighborhood) and several of their professors. From their level of coordination as a group, they obviously were accustomed to playing music together. The instruments they included (charango, guitar, tambor, acordeón, and bandolina) also created a fuller sound, all of which seemed to encourage the congregation to sing with more gusto and seemingly with greater attention to key.

While we happily attend Mass with the people in our neighborhood and enjoy the convenience of being able to walk the few blocks to attend, we still attend services at different churches (in total maybe about three times a week), sometimes because it's closer to where we are at the moment, sometimes just to see what a service is like in this building or with that group. If it were just for the sake of hearing a more professional sounding musical accompaniment, I suppose we'd attend the San Pedro Iglesia on Avenida Herionas. Their harmonies are interesting and spot on, and--maybe this is just because of the songs they choose to sing--when they sing, the number of syllables per measure seems to be more regular and predictable rather than, well seemingly, sometimes 4, sometimes 18 or so, the latter occasioning my musical bewilderment, silent awe, and admiration for those who can track this vocal slalom sin choque. But, of course, the music is only a part of a complex ritual/mystery, only a portion of which we grab with our senses, and I'm still enamored (well now, but certainly not then) of the pre-folk Mass days of my youth at Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys when usually there was no more music than that of our adolescent male voices, some of them pretty good, and that seemed enough for the purpose, probably sponsoring my attitude that the music of Mass ought not to be so competitively good that the average person can't feel welcome singing along comfortably nor so bad that enduring it qualifies for due penance no matter what the sin. Hmmm. I suppose I'm a centrist.

On another weekend in November we were invited to the home of Sylvia (in pink), one of Lynn's friend's from her work at Pastoral Juvenil (PJ) in Cochabamba (Cbba). Sylvia is majoring in English language study at San Simon University and has another year of classes before beginning to write her thesis, a requirement for all here to complete their bachelor-level education. Sylvia has been very helpful with coordinating meetings for the Filmania program at PJ and seeing that we have what equipment we needed when it was time for setup. During the week Sylvia lives in the city of Cochabamba in rooms there at the Pastoral Juvenil along with a number of other Catholic students who attend San Simon. On the weekends she returns to her hometown, Arani, by minibus about an hour south of Cbba.

We had a pleasant lunch (pollo, carrot fritters, salad, juice) in the courtyard of her house in Arani, just a few blocks off the town plaza. While chatting at lunch we learned that the daughter and son-in-law of one of Sylvia's neighbors live in New York. It's very common for young people here to leave their country in search of work after they have completed their educations, often leaving behind children with their own parents. Sylvia said she hopes to return to her hometown and teach English and French to the young children in the town. When she's home on the weekend Sylvia likes to visit her mother's grave, work as a radio announcer at the local station, and pray at the church on the central plaza. We went there and toured the church along with other visitors. At the time we were there no service was being conducted, and despite the bright midday sunshine the interior was dim from the shuttered windows and closed doors. Even so, we paused to think about our own family, the circumstances of being so distance-challenged to stay in communication, and why we continue to do the work that we do. Thinking of Sylvia and others, we knew we weren't alone in this. This took the edge off of the sometimes spooky sense of being in a large dim room with a variety of what one guy referred to as three-quarter life-sized action figures. Reverence takes its various forms, and I appreciate the captivatingly frank assertion of one of my Carmen Pampa students that she did not see the point of worshipping dolls. I realize that the Latin American Catholic Church is unique and that in any religious or worship environment one can get lost in the symbols or absence of them. I also realize that outside of these environments devotional attachment knows no bounds. Lynn and I enjoyed the quiet time inside and went on our way.

Just outside the church the central plaza and the streets leading onto it were jammed with people participating in the Arani Bread Festival. I realize the pan-jaded bunch might not see the point of so much excitement about bread, but despite its rich agricultural regions Bolivia has experienced stark food shortages due to its political upheavals and unstable productivity following land reforms in 1952. The cost of pancitos (how many per peso) is now an important gauge of food prices, and any rise in the price is sure to get ink in the local papers.

The bread then that I was seeing in all of the local stalls--some with just pan (but toco, mariketa, and tortilla [leavened, not the Mexican flatbread variety] but also the standard type that I heard one American couple in Coroico refer to disdainfully as "those little hamburger buns they eat"), some with pan y vino, some with pan and various types of local fare such as silpancho, and some with giant bread wheels as big as car tires--was an important symbol of prosperity, and the locals were proud to celebrate it because they had it: hay pan, indeed! This was a staff of life celebration. We also learned from Sylvia that the town of Arani figured prominently in this celebration because Arani was earlier the site of many family-owned grain mills. I wondered if Molino and Molina were more frequently occurring last names in this locale.¹

More later...

Wanting to hear some traditional Christmas Carols, I downloaded the album Classic Christmas Carols by the King's College Choir at Cambridge. Many of these carols were new to me and pleasant to hear through the season. One especially I have listened to--Quittez, pasteurs--because of the gentle exhortation from the angels to the shepherds not to get so caught up in their work that they overlook the big event, the good news happening maybe three hills over, and that all of them were called, not just the ones that hadn't made any mistakes or the ones that were always doing a great job. At cyberhymnal.org I found an English translation of the hymn.² I also wondered at the relationship between the French verb quitter in the hymn and the verb quitar in the Spanish version of the Catholic liturgy:

Cordero de dios
que quitas el pecado del mundo
ten piedad de nosotros ( bis)

Cordero de dios
que quitas el pecado del mundo
danos la paz, danos la paz.

With the nearness of beginning another year, the rethinking of past failings to quit the old one, the need to continue and the sometimes difficulty of continuing, the song's emphasis on the prospect of redemption held my focus.

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¹ Mill
² LEAVE, SHEPHERDS, LEAVE, YOUR PEACEFUL FLOCKS

Leave, shepherds, leave your peaceful flocks agrazing! No longer grieve, but come, O come away! Come and adore, your tears all changed to praising; Of Him the heav’nly King, O sing, O sing Your Savior born this happy day.

There, lowly laid, within a manger narrow, A lovely maid and Infant thou shalt see! His tender love hath sought thee in thy sorrow— Thy darkness to remove! He came, to prove A loving Shepherd’s care for thee!

Kings from the east! His star will guide thee truly! Where He doth rest, in love and faith draw near: Our rising Sun receives thy homage duly! O bring to Him, each one—Each one! Each one! Your incense and your gold and myrrh!

Who canst do all things surely, hearts enshrine Thine ardors sweet and fair! For peace is his  For peace is His that through Thee liveth purely! And added unto this, all joy, and bliss— Since God hath sent His Savior here!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-29T22:57:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve after Mass at the Bishopric we walked through the Plaza Colon and watched a variety of Navidad-related activities, such as posing for photos beside nativity scenes, riding horses, riding in kid-sized battery powered cars, jumping on trampolines, sliding on slides, dancing, watching street performers, just looking at the lights and feeling good. We saw many happy families there.

After making the circuit around the Plaza, we walked north on the Prado, past the booths for silpancho, pasteles, and jugos and other refrescos (yes, lots of Coca Cola, and on one of the taller buildings on Avenida Heroinas there is a US-style Coca Cola billboard of that iconic jolly figure in red rather than a Father Christmas/Santa Claus or elf. Whatever opinions there may be about this secularized Santa icon--and there is a great history of these images at the following address: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_santa.html --it seemed a better billboard subject for mixed audiences than a previous one in the area depicting a man and a debriefed woman glaring at passers by as though they ought to mind their own business.) We passed more people riding horses at a walk--up one side of the block and down the other--and I noticed that the children riding seemed especially absorbed in the activity, maybe transported into dreams of galloping on the open range, and one horse making a turn on a tiled area lost its balance for a moment, the steel shoe of one rear hoof skating suddenly out wider than expected, but a quick sidestep and recovery, and the young rider never seemed to notice.

Despite being summer here, the wind was chilly and damp. This promised to be a colder Christmas than two Lynn and I spent years ago in Beaumont, Texas. (Those years taught me that I really am better acclimated to an environment with four distinct seasons despite my love of puttering along on a motorcycle in the warm sunshine, remembering when it felt just as good to run.) By the time we were approaching the restaurant Brazilian Cafe, I was already thinking expresso. We sat at one of the tables on the deck close to the street. The double lanes were bumper-to-bumper with vehicles, but the wind must have been blowing away any exhaust fumes, and the sidewalks both in front of the restaurant and on the avenue's inner esplanade remained full but not jammed with pedestrians strolling or hustling and lots of colored lights. We talked for about an hour about our past semester's activities--what things worked and what needed to change--and what we might be doing in the coming one.

When we left, we decided to walk back across the Plaza and up the three or four blocks to Heroinas where it seemed we might catch a cab more easily for home. On our way to Heroinas it began to sprinkle, then drizzle and finally to settle into a steady but not heavy rain. When we reached Heroinas, we saw that the usually busy avenue was virtually deserted, to the point that we felt a little vulnerable waiting there for a cab. We wanted a radio mobile, a driver actually working for an established company, because it would be more secure. None came after a ten minute wait so we decided to return to the Plaza and the Prado. With all the activity there--even if we had to wait to clear the traffic jam--we would catch a cab and be home in no time.

When we reached the Plaza, the rain had already worked its magic. As if everyone had been made of sugar or salt and had been melted by the rain, the people in the plaza and most of the colored lights were gone. The restaurant was still open, so we took our place in front of it and soon were on our way back south to our house below Laguna Alalay. The cab was warm, and the red, yellow and green of the street lights we passed spread a reminder on the wet pavement of the happy crowd we had seen in the Plaza. We looked forward to returning to our place and checking on Blondie the dog and Kitty the cat who was just beginning her recovery from the sterilization operation.

That Time of Year

2011-12-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

Christmas: Somehow the handful of ornaments Lynn and I brought with us from our Christmases together as a family in Tennessee¹ were powerful enough to bring back to life many memories and to remind us of the good will we experience in our lives here in Bolivia. Lynn and I celebrated our second and perhaps final Bolivian Christmas. (We are about to enter our third year of this contract period with Franciscan Mission Service.) As with the preceding Christmas season, we are far from our families but hardly alone. Family, friends, and other mission supporters in the United States have stayed in contact through the many communication modes available in modern mission (email, Skype, Magic Jack, Cell Phones, prayer). Our Bolivian circle of friends, which includes not only Bolivians but many of the broad-based community of missioners from other countries grows as we extend ourselves through our work and social relationships.² We also sometimes acquire new friends on the fly as we suddenly find ourselves displaced and in need and discover that people recognize this and unbidden respond when they can.

Teaching: I'm pleased that our English classes in Carcel Abra continue to stimulate interest among the original students who began to study with us this past February. Their pronunciation has improved, and they make appropriate responses in English when we look at photos and can construct grammatically correct short sentences. We have also attracted and retained some new students, some with previous exposure to English (one or two with some formal study, and others with exposure to U.S./British film and music). For those interested, we (Lynn and I) continue to use the textbooks Top Notch Fundamentals and Top Notch Level I and to supplement that with some grammer handouts from the American English Files, some of the downloads and other activities from the BBC's Learning English website and other English language-related websites, some songs in English with lyrics in English and Spanish (very roughly translated with Google translate, but that too becomes an exercise). To add variety(and broaden the language use during discussion to include as much Spanish as they care to use), we still are trying to offer one film per month in the carcel library either in Spanish with English subtitles or vice versa. The most recent offering was El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth). We had good discussions about the cruelty of Vidal, the depiction of the Catholic church, the affection for fantasy and values of Ophelia/Princess Moana, and the implications of the conclusion.³

Our Growing Family: A couple of months ago we were adopted by a small calico cat. She was maybe a year and a half old, dirty and hungry, and had a divot out of her left ear. She first appeared on the roof of the empleada quarters by the kitchen. She had probably been surviving off of bits of dog food, and that probably also explained the occasional piles of bird feathers I had seen by the garden. She never came very close, and never allowed us to approach her. We decided to leave her some tuna on the top of the wall, and pretty soon she began to eat that. As we watched her, it seemed that she might be pregnant or might have had kittens. Eventually we learned that she was sleeping in the woodshed, a real eyesore of a structure on the property that is filled with stacks of lumber, piles of lumber, dust-coated power tools (well, everything within is dust coated) pieces of broken furniture, steel rebar, chicken wire, pieces of pipe with one end encased in cement. Eventually we caught sight of kittens in the woodshed. We tried to catch them, but they were already up and darting faster than I could move to catch them, and the woodshed was a perfect shelter. Eventually we convinced the mother cat to let us approach and then to touch her. Over the course of a month we eventually captured the kittens and took them to a nearby vet to be wormed and have their first shots. (Lynn got a nasty bite from one, so just as a precaution we couldn't give them away for ten days to be sure they didn't have rabies.) We were worried that we might not be able to find homes for them, but surprisingly we quickly did, for them and two more (that's another chapter in this burgeoning kitty ministry). The grey and white one went first, then the cream and white one. The last one, a calico like her mom but long haired, sneaked back into the woodshed and eluded us for another week until we could capture her and award her to a young, very patient woman up the street. I think all of the kittens got good homes. Then Lynn and I resumed trying to make friends with the mother cat.

She is definitely a cat of the streets--eats anything without hesitation, does not purr, does not particularly care to be touched. After a week of cat taming, we began to hear the howling and wailing of cats either killing each other or swearing their undying love. It proved to be the latter in a case of dueling toms: one grey and white old boy and a cream and white younger, lighter weight but feistier looking lad. For several nights they threatened death to each other out by the lavanderia, and it seemed like we were headed for Kitten Time Redux for sure. Lynn and I took action. We lured mom into the house with a can of tuna, threw her in a plastic trash can,⁴ slapped on the lid, and hailed a cab for the Garfield Kitty Hospital in midtown, right across the street from the Viedma Maternity Hospital. That was a week ago, and now she's back at the ranch, no longer able to bear kittens, and wearing a belly sling for the next few days while she recovers from the operation. The recovery seems to be going well, and we hope Kitty will stay with us at least for a while.

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¹ The big glitter-encrusted snowflake still has six points. One of the two angels broke a wing, but we repaired this with super glue purchased from a street vendor at the corner of Heroinas and España. I've lost my touch with this stuff and while attempting to pick up tools and also close the tube of glue managed to glue various fingers to my Swiss army knife and a pair of folding pliers. I looked like a bumbling Edward Scissorhand until Lynn liberated me with her bottle of acetone.
² I think we're on friendly terms with the various groups of evangelicals who knock on the outside gate and leave pamphlets and talk about the Bible with us, and likewise with our meetings with the pastor of the evangelical church inside Abra Carcel where we teach English. The carcel has two churches inside the grounds, the other being Catholic and erected by former missioner in Bolivia Michael Johnson, OFM, who led one of our formation sessions in Washington, DC in the fall of 2009.
³ We have had equal interest in this film after showings to the university-aged group of students at Pastoral Juvenil in the film series Filmanía that Lynn assists, and at the hospice in Santa Vera Cruz where I work on Tuesdays. The Calcutta Sisters who operate the hospice have also said that they would like to see the film. In each case our goal in showing this and other films has been to use popular media to promote discussion.
⁴We had tried and failed earlier with a cardboard box.

Reminders of Many Good Things

2011-10-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

We're all challenged to do the good things we can where we are. The challenges abound in all our lives. When I write about my own activities related to the people I work with here, I always feel a little self indulgent, so I remind myself that many people have contributed to my being here and that they might want to know more about what I'm doing and how that's going. I also remind myself of the good work going on back home, and that leads me to my favorite example of a boring blog entry--writing about brushing my teeth. I'll be brief.

I was brushing my teeth and stroked my way to a crown¹ where once a mighty molar had stood.² The crown is faring well, and for some reason I remembered at that moment that my dentist in Nashville who had installed the appliance had remarked when he heard that Lynn and I were becoming lay missioners with Franciscan Mission Service, "you know, I believe Arlo Guthrie became a Franciscan a while back." So, when I had a free moment today I poked around on the internet and found the website for the Guthrie Center, a physical and virtual site for the promotion of spiritual positivism. What a great idea to sponsor interfaith dialogue and respect for indigenous cultures, especially within a nation of such diverse beliefs. The philosophy and activities relate directly to what Lynn and I have been doing here, especially regarding some of the activities in October.

On October 8 the Franciscans in Cochabamba held the first annual national song festival to encourage contemporary musicians to compose songs that relate to the spirituality of Saints Francis and Clare. On the evening of the eighth the best entrants from around Bolivia performed their songs live. The opportunity to perform their songs was an award in itself, but the performers also received plaques of recognition, and the winner, an individual singer and guitarist, was also proclaimed. (I'll try to post a brief video clip here of some of the performers.) The idea for the contest and concert came from Juan Antonio, a Franciscan brother from Mexico who said that this is a very popular activity in Mexico as well. When the concert for Franciscan spirituality in Bolivia was first being announced Lynn and I displayed one of the posters in Carcel Abra, the prison where we teach. Unfortunately, I believe no one from the
prison submitted an entry despite there being a number of able musician/song composers there.

From the 11th thru the 14th of this month Lynn and I also attended several evenings of the local conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of Vatican II. As I look back on the presentations, I think what affected me most was the large attendance--more people than could fit into the large lecture hall. It felt good to see so many people there, and among them to recognize the faces of people we've had the good fortune to meet and work with while we've been here--friends we made while we were students at the Maryknoll Language Institute but hadn't seen since we returned from Carmen Pampa, friends from our worksites, friends from our own Franciscan Mission Service, friends from our barrio--and some had been here in Bolivia only a few months, and others had been here for a few decades. Overall, I think the talks emphasized the increasing role and responsibility of the laity and also reminded me that I had some reading to do on the documents of the Vatican II Council.

This past Tuesday we completed the course on Franciscan spirituality that focused on selections from the Admonitions. Here, we met more of the young bothers and sisters of the Order. The course was taught by Sister Ada Galioto, an Italian Franciscan. Despite our arriving late several times, she always welcomed us and included us in her congenial attack-mode style of teaching to be sure that we were listening and understanding. On the final evening of the class we received our Tau-encircled diplomas. And, unexpectedly for me, she also called me to the front of the class and presented me with a beautiful old volume of the writings of Francis and Clare of Asisi in Spanish. She wished Lynn and me the best of luck in our spiritual journey and asked me to read the bookmark card she had included with it. It depicted a payaso, or clown, above the following words:

Vive Mas Intensamente
Rie Mas Facilmente
Mira Mas Claramente
Ama Mas Profundamente

or, as many of us more commonly know it,

Live More Intensely
Laugh More Easily
Look More Clearly
Love More Profoundly

Of course, when included as a directive with the Franciscan Admonitions it seemed to me at first inappropriate, but I thought of the Apology of Socrates, and for that matter, the description of Socrates--I think by Alcibiades--as being like the image of a silenos, or lascivious creature on the outside but with the image of a god on the inside. I think Sister Ada was alluding to the paradox that through the Admonitions one might embrace life more fully. What a wonderful gift. It reminded me of two other unexpected gifts: once in high school when as a sophomore I was given a trophy for my effort in running for the track team (completely unexpected), and once at the end of our son Norbert's senior year when the head of the English department selected him to receive the award for outstanding writing and gave him a beautiful old volume of Shakespeare's history play Henry V. Norbert bore the honor well, and I hope Lynn and I will too.

Before ending this post I need to thank an old friend, Peter, for calling to my attention the History Channel's program about the prospect that outlaw Butch Cassidy survived to return in his later years from Bolivia to the US. With that in mind Lynn and I perused the bins of the street vendors here and found a copy of the film Blackthorn (Sin Destino). It does a good job, I think, of emphasizing the hazards of action or inaction in a morally ambiguous universe and will probably become one of the films in the next series of Filmanía at Pastoral Juvenil here in Cochabamba.

Enough for now.

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¹ I was brushing with a generic toothbrush with "extra suave" bristles and using Aquafresh paste. No, there are no stars in my crown.
²Was this the place that crunched a thousand chips? (Thanks and apologies to Chris Marlowe.)

Around Our Barrio, October 25, 2011

2011-10-26T03:00:00.000-07:00

I intended to take a photo of our street, Colibri, before the paving process began. Unfortunately, I laggardly missed that by a day, so I took a photo just after the street had been sprayed with a thick oil in preparation for the trucks with hot-mix asphalt, the spreader crews, and the steamroller. I know that aphorism the road to hell is paved with good intentions may not seem to apply to this instance of my failed intent, but the pre-sprayed street was a worthy photo subject because here many of the roads, our own Calle Colibri¹ included, are paved with carefully arranged-by-hand stones, the sections delineated by continuous lines of stones about 5 feet² apart, the broad sweep of which on a gentle curve is--despite the jarring effect if you're fortunate enough to be passing quickly over them in a cab--a pleasing sight. I would romanticize this paving if I said "alas, poor _____," and so, no more; however, the stone streets can be a beautiful example of the manual arts and as sensible a use of abundant stones as are the walls between fields on the island of the white cow³.

The pavers did come to Colibri, and I was on hand with camera in hand to preserve a glimpse of the interment of the earlier paving technology, thus:

The paving process was followed by, on election day for judges here in Bolivia, another Dia del Peatón, which brought many of our neighbors (and Lynn and I as well, see photo) out to celebrate pedestrianism with a good walk on a fine, sunny afternoon.

Once paved, the street needed a line to demarcate right-of-way for two-way traffic. This brought an interesting series of events. First a continuous double yellow line appeared. Then it vanished. Some said it was the work of the ladrones (and most probably Peruvian ladrones, I heard) who could be expected to steal just about anything. A close look at the pavement, however, revealed that black paint now covered the area where the double yellow line once had been.⁴ And then a day or so later a single white dashed line appeared on top of that, and shortly after that crosswalks demarcated by lines of raised caution-yellow reflectors and a speed limit sign of 10 kilometers per hour (kph). This was an excellent idea because the new paving seemed to have instantly increased the average auto speed by about 30 kph, a real hazard because at the top of the block there is a school and almost always there are groups of children going to or from it.

The name of the school, 26 de Octubre, is an important part of these goings on in this barrio as well. That date--tomorrow's date--is also the birthday of President Evo Morales. Tonight the residents of the barrio have been preparing for a big celebration (see video) of President Morales' birthday. Lynn and I walked up to the school, which will be the center of the fiesta, to chat with neighbors (Marcela, our favorite tienda lady, hit me with a wad of confetti) and celebrate the improvements (in-ground natural gas lines, asphalt streets, speed limits, crosswalks, a beautiful school) that all together will make life in the neighborhood easier and better. Happy Birthday, Evo, and thanks!

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¹ more formally, Cerezos del Colibri.
² or 1.524 meters.
³ Inishbofin, where building stone walls also clears more land for planting, though plowing still is probably best done with a short coulter.
⁴ I did not remove any of the black paint to determine whether the yellow line was still beneath it, but, the character of the Peruvians aside, I believe it to be so.

Nostalgia

2011-10-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning Lynn put a card with this quote from St. John Chrysostom at my place at the table:

Do not fear the conflict, do not flee it.
Where there is no struggle, there is no virtue.
Where Love and Faith are not tempted,
it is not possible to be sure whether they are really present.
They are tried and revealed in adversity,
in difficult and grievous circumstances.

It's a nice reminder.

Mid-October

2011-10-23T23:06:00.000-07:00

During the last couple of weeks Lynn and I have been busy with teaching during the day and with various learning activities at night, such as a short course in Franciscan spirituality and a 1-week symposium celebrating the 50th anniversary of Vatican II. My favorite teaching sites are at Abra, a men's prison on the other side of the mountains to the east of where we live, and at the Santa Vera Cruz hospice of the Calcutta Sisters, which is on the other side of the mountains to the west of us. Cochabamba has excellent weather, so while going to or from either worksite, just the ride itself is uplifting. On the way to either destination, the various sections of road change from dirt to rock to asphalt and back again as they jolt and wind from neighborhood to city to community.¹ We are approaching the rainy season here, but the weather is almost always sunny, cool in the mornings and evenings, and hot at midday, but always with low (30-35 percent) humidity. So getting there is a time to reflect on how lucky we are to be able to volunteer our labor in such a beautiful place.

In Abra we (Lynn and I) are not allowed to take cameras inside the prison with us, so I won't be sharing any photos of the students there. We have a hard enough time getting our electronics in on the occasional days when we try to work in popular songs or video in English. As frustrating as the entry process can be, I understand the need for the caution, and from my limited experience with the interior of US prisons, this one is far less bleak--with flower gardens, pet dogs, visits from wives and children--and even a food court with tiendas and the occasional waft of chicken or beef kebabs on a grill. This, of course, belies the reality that the money allotted for food in the prison is very low, so those inmates with more money will have a better time of it.

My forearm with a day's worth of entry stamps. The three
friendship bracelets are, from right to left, one given to me by
Sandra, a student at Carmen Pampa, a green and brown one
I bought because the design and colors reminded me of Emer,
our daughter, and one with my name on it, made and given
to me by José, a student at Abra.

To enter with audiovisual equipment, we have to present a list of the equipment, have that checked against the equipment itself, then wait to see if the approval for entering with the equipment is there at the front desk. Frequently it is not, and I begin the process of entering without the equipment, seeking the delegate who has the approval form, then requesting that he visit the outer office to verify that I have permission to enter with the equipment. That being done, I then can return to the outer office, have a pat-down search to be sure I'm not sneaking in drugs, weapons, phone cards, flash drives, cameras, etc., (this is sometimes more thorough, sometimes more challenging, because the personnel always changes) then have my forearm stamped with approval, then re-enter the main gate of the prison, verify that I have the pat-down approval stamp (black), then receive my second approval stamp (red) to enter the yard where the men can congregate. Of course, during the time we teach we can always hear a loud speaker blaring orders for individuals to report to various locations. Sometimes there is more than one class in the teaching space (sanctuary of a Catholic church within or a small classroom/library) or more than one teacher vying for the one whiteboard.

I just took a sip of coffee and read over that last paragraph. I laughed because while all of the details about the inconvenience are true, I cite them with full knowledge that at the end of each class-day I will gather up my things, make the usual kinds of "next time" remarks, note the requests and comments, and then leave. Of course, I understand that's what prison is all about, sitting with one's wrong doings in an environment of deprivation. And I don't question the men about what things they have done that resulted in their being where they are, so maybe I shield myself from that shock and horror. But in the eight months that I have been going there to teach I think I have begun to see a different kind of risk or addendum to the punishment of the time sentence. They all want to be more than just the person who committed the crime, and they all seem to be at risk of a kind of decay of their own individuality.

This last element seemed most apparent to me recently when Lynn and I decided to show a full-length film to both of our groups--the beginners and the advanced--on one day and to discuss it with both groups combined on the following day. To hold their interest and to stimulate discussion, we decided to show the film² with Spanish subtitles and to allow the discussion in Spanish as well.³ On the day of discussion everyone had something to contribute, and by the end of the hour and a half class it seemed like the whole class felt closer together, and this despite the usual disagreements as they contributed and worked through their differing perspectives. They saw in the film no perfect cultures, the need to learn from all of them, the vulnerability of youth, the pain of being parents, the pain of being children, the way incidental incursions of one culture into another can have great consequences.

I didn't come away from the session feeling that anyone was being wrongly punished. Fortunately I wasn't in charge of meting out sentence time. Without questioning their characters, I simply recognized that they needed a chance, a safe forum from which to express their opinions and learn from each other. Despite the deviation from our curriculum, Lynn and I decided to repeat the film/discussion format once a month if possible.
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¹Sometimes it seems like Bolivia is the elephant graveyard for all the world's clunkers--heavily polluting, frequently without brake lights, often without any lights at night--but spanking new beamers and hummers are out there as well.

²The film was Babel, which, along with 4 others ( A Beautiful Mind, The Adjustment Bureau, Spirited Away, and Madeinusa) comprised the first episode of the film series Filmanía that Lynn is coordinating with the group Pastoral Juvenil in Cochabamba.

³I remember my own difficulties during language school when I needed to respond to something but my vocabulary or sense of grammar wasn't sufficient to relay my perceptions in the new language.

Plaza Principal

2011-10-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I visitedthe Plaza Principal here in Cochabamba where, among other errands, I paid ourmonthly bill¹ for the cost of water for sewage. The streets around the Plazawere more crowded than usual--even for midday--because a large group of peoplewas demonstrating there. As Iapproached, I noticed that many of the demonstrators wore white lab-style coatsbuttoned over their street clothes. The demonstrators were too old to becolegio students, and as I walked closer I began to hear the chants and readthe banners as the people marched around the corner to parade rest on the northside of the Plaza. This demonstration represented the pharmacists and doctors unitedagainst--as best I could determine--the distribution of pharmaceutical productsand medical services by non-licensed agents. I wasn't sure if this was aresponse to pending legislation, but it was good to see that people had thefreedom to express their opinions and protect their interests.

Plaza Principal isone of a number of plazas and parks in the city. As its name implies, it is at the center of Cochabamba's municipallife with the Cathedral, Interpol, banks, and shops skirting the perimeter and atranquil interior quad of palm trees, flowers, a fountain, and street vendors.Two weeks earlier (Sunday, September 18th), Plaza Principal was the start andfinish site of a 7k race for young people sponsored by Monaco, one of the localsports equipment vendors. An estimated 3,000 people participated, most of themunder the age of 25.^2,3

On thenight of Tuesday, September 27th, Plaza Principal was the site of protestmarches and a Franciscan ecumenical community prayer service, both in supportof indigenous residents in their ongoing conflict with the Bolivian governmentthat has made international news: the residents of TIPNIS (Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional IsiboroSécure) continue marching to oppose the construction of a highway directlythrough the land to which they have title. Government actions to halt theTIPNIS marchers have resulted in protest resignations in President Morales'cabine, skirmishes, several tear gas-related hospitalizations, and the reporteddeath of an infant due to tear gas inhalation. On that Tuesday night Lynn and Ihad to make a choice between attending the second hour of our FranciscanSpirituality class or the activities in the Plaza. With the teacher's permission we opted for the latter andthereby had both theory and practicum in the Franciscan way of peace. Followinga slide presentation featuring reflections on the struggle for equitable peacefrom the words of Mother Teresa, Luis Espinal, Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi,the

Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Albert Nolan, Richard O'Barry, Salvador Allende, Cesar Romero, Margaret Mead, Martin Luthor King and others, we heard from a representative of the indigenous people in Cochabamba and from local clergy. One of the latter was our mentor and longtime Bolivian resident Ignacio Harding, OFM.⁴ Fortunately, I had a camcorder with me.

On the dayfollowing the activities in Plaza Principal the Government suspended itsactivities to restrain the TIPNIS marchers. However, a headline in yesterday's Los Tiempos indicatedthat construction work on the disputed highway continues.
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¹ 12.8Bol = $1.85.
² My race number was 3494. I was one of the few well above the age of 25 and was also jogging although I wish I still could have run it. Regardless, the weather was beautiful, as it usually is in Cochabamba, and the young people around me seemed more excited to be participating rather than worried about speed or place.
³ This event was in advance of the actual celebration of the Day of the Student, September 21, which was a very busy weekday. Besides this celebration, on the Bolivian calendar the 21st was packed with celebrations: International day of peace, the first day of spring, the day of the student, the day of love, and day of the doctor. Staging the running event on the preceding Sunday was a good idea.
⁴ As Ignacio spoke I was reminded of a photo from a much earlier blog entry in our mission here in Bolivia because he was indeed taking steps and encouraging others along that road to peace as depicted in the mural.

The Higgins Connection

2011-10-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

This past June, when Lynn and I returned to the US for a visit we had lunch with Bitsy Thompson, the younger sister of Jack Higgins. We had a pleasant time exchanging information with her about Jack's experiences as a Maryknoll missionary priest from the '50s and '60s in Bolivia and our own current experiences there. Since we had moved back to Cochabamba from Carmen Pampa in January, we had closer contact with members of Maryknoll. And since we would be returning soon, she asked us if we would mind presenting the Mary of the Mountain to members of the Maryknoll Society there in Cochabamba. Of course, we were happy to do that. At that time the centennial celebration of the Maryknoll Society was only a few months away, and Jack was one of the first Maryknoll missionaries to serve in Bolivia.

This copy of the Mary of the Mountain¹ picture was a significant gift because it had first been given by Jack to his own mother and was perhaps a reminder that their separation was a great sacrifice for both of them undertaken for a noble cause. Lynn and I thought of this as we remembered our separation from our daughter, Emer, while on mission and our need to work for the needs of others in honor of our son, Norbert. When we presented this picture to the Maryknoll Society in Cochabamba at a plenary meeting, we could see that all of us--from multiple generations--were accepting various levels of separation from culture and family in order to carry on good works begun by others. Only one of those present at the meeting was old enough to remember Jack, so we shared a few details about his life.
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¹ We also discovered that the Mary of the Mountain was created by a Maryknoll sister, Marie Pierre Semler, and that she also happened to be a relative of Nora Pfeifer, one of our fellow Franciscan lay missioners here in Bolivia.

2011-09-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month the Maryknoll Society celebrated its 100th anniversary as a mission organization. Here in Cochabamba, Bolivia at the Language Institute Maryknollers celebrated that as well as the 60th anniversary of their mission work in Latin America. Lynn and I were able to attend two days of the festivities (speeches, focus groups, reflections on missiology, and of course, some feasting and dancing). One of our friends from the Maryknoll House in the Sopacachi District of La Paz, Michael Gillgannnon also made a presentation (he is now in the United States on a speaking tour) about the US role in Latin American politics and social change. It was wonderful to see the intensity of commitment among these people, some of whom have been living in Bolivia, dedicated to their mission work for decades. It also felt good to return to our alma mater where we had begun our first phase of in-country mission--learning Spanish--just a year and a half ago. We knew we were not as experienced in the field as many there, but we already had our own mission experiences to speak of, and the numerous Maryknollers of all ages welcomed us.

As lay missioners of Franciscan Mission Service, Lynn and I felt honored to help celebrate the Maryknoll Society's longevity. We understood from our participation that a part of achieving that longevity was the continuing renewal--within individuals, their communities, and their organizations--while remaining true to their values. We were also honored to participate in this renewal in a very special way. It was our privilege to present to the Cochabamba Maryknollers one more reminder of the mission spirit that first brought them to Bolivia. This was in the form of a picture of Mary of the Mountain that John Joseph (Jack) Higgins, a Maryknoll priest from our hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, had once given to his own mother while he was serving on mission in Bolivia.

Old Mission

2011-09-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

Augusto Pinochet

Recently at San Simon University here in Cochabamba, Lynn and I viewed the Michael Winterbottom film based on Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine.¹ This was our first experience with this work, but we are aware of the protests at the School of the Americas in Georgia (we heard Roy Bourgeois speak, I believe, one evening at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Nashville, Tennessee), have heard in retrospect about the horrors of the Pinochet regime in Chile (I saw an excellent dramatization of this in Costa Gavras' film Missing (1982) and certainly can understand the father's anguish in seeking answers about his son's unexplained disappearance), the adoptions in Argentina of disappeared parents' children by couples allied to the ruling elite, and so on. Regarding the film on The Shock Doctrine², I learned about the relationship between the electroshock experiments of Ewen Cameron and the CIA's resulting Kubark Manual). The film's thesis that power elites maneuver populations by capitalizing off of engineered (such as inflationary economic policies) and natural (such as Hurricane Katrina in the US) catastrophies was interesting. However, I think that in the film the case for this would have been better presented with more detailed evidence for the level of connectedness that it suggests. I don't say this to challenge the truth of the film's position. Naomi Klein's objections about the film's documentation of its assertions were published in the UK Guardian.

Regarding the presentation, I was amazed at the large number of people that turned out for the film on a mid-week night. The film may have been a for-credit assignment in the Sociology Department of San Simon University. I believe it was sponsored by the office of the Vice President of Bolivia. Regardless, despite a two-hour delay in starting (delays are common, I hear) the classroom was filled, additional seats were shoved in through a window aside the adjoining corridor, and people were leaning their heads in through the doorway to hear. ³ If the film were a register of anti-neoliberal policies and anti-capitalistic sentiment in the UK and US, citizens of those countries should be concerned about the extent to which those elements serve as their dominant representation in foreign countries.
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¹It is difficult for me to resume topics from an earlier blog post because by the time I sit down again I have other activities I want to write about or other work that must be done. However, maybe this will force me to be concise. Besides, I'm listening to Old Mission, a nice cut from the album Alone I Admire, by Auburn Lull.
² A full-length copy of the movie The Shock Doctrine is available for viewing on YouTube. Also a shorter, Spanish-subtitled version is listed there.
³I wish we could get this sort of turnout at the Filmanía series that Lynn and I are assisting with at the Pastoral Juvenil here in Cochabamba.

Anticipating Expanding a Few More Moments . . .

2011-09-05T06:12:00.000-07:00

Proponent of shock therapy, Dr. Ewen Cameron. The
extrapolation of his methods and the economic theories of
Milton Friedman are the subject of Michael Winterbottom's
film critique of neoliberal economic policy implemented in
Latin America and other countries. The film is adapted from
Naomi Klein's book The Doctrine of Shock.

I thought I'd have more time to write this morning before going with Lynn to clean up at Pastoral Juvenil after Friday night's installment (Madeinusa, see it if you haven't) in the Filmanía film series we're assisting with. So, when I return I'll write about that and some other topics: the film based on Naomi Klein's 2007 book The Doctrine of Shock, the 100-year anniversary celebration of the Maryknoll Order, the arrival of asphalt in this one of three Barrio Magisterios, and how we spent our second Dia del Peatón here in Cochabamba! (I can't wait either!)

Expanding moments

2011-09-03T07:49:00.000-07:00

Edy Leonet, between bites of an ice cream bar as we take
the tram up to see the Christ statue and the view of
Chchabamba below

Lynn and I had a guest last week, Edy Leonet, a young man we first met when we were teaching at UAC-Carmen Pampa. Edy is from Caranavi and at UAC-CP was studying in the Ecotourism program. Along with about 5 other young Bolivians he was selected to study English in the US. When I last saw Edy we were were sitting together at a picnic table, shaded from the intense (for me) sunlight by a small roof of palm fronds. My pupils dilated to pin pricks, we talked about the essay portion of the application he was about to submit. As I recall, he seemed both enthusiastic and a little doubtful. It felt good to see him and the others applying. I knew that they couldn't all be selected, but I did hope that at least some of them would be, and not because the lives of young Bolivians would be incomplete without encountering US culture directly. This scholarship was a necessary part of sustaining idealism, a tangible benefit to work toward, a peg up for his future. So I asked him some questions, and we talked. He was still working when I left him to hike back up to our apartment on the upper campus.

When we were midway in the process of relocating to Cochabamba, in a minibus with Rhegan Hyypio, Hugh Smeltekop, and the remainder of our belongings from UAC-CP, we received a cellphone call that Edy had reached the interview stage. When we were beginning our search for a place to live in Cochabamba, we received a call from Edy himself he had been selected along with 35 other students from various countries to study English language in Philadelphia at Drexel University. Lynn and I thought he was a good choice because of his ability and enthusiasm. And last week, picking him up at the Cochabamba bus terminal after his experience in the US, we felt that our opinion was affirmed. He graduated beyond his first encounter experiences through media such as photos, film, and music. He seemed impressed by the cleanliness and the processes by which work can be accomplished efficiently. He did not return with a sense of rapture that everything is better in the US or that he should live there rather than in his own country. He seemed instead glad to be back, glad to be visiting friends--us and others he knows in Cochabamba--speaking both Spanish and English and moving comfortably through the culture.

It felt very good to see him again. It felt very good to see a young person work for something, achieve it, and not be disappointed by the result. We hope that Edy can use this for making his next steps toward completing his degree and that all of the other scholarship applicants will also find their opportunities.

Challenges

2011-08-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

Holding 1) a commemorative heart from
the Day of Retreat on July 31, 2011, Santa
María de los Ángeles, "El perdón de Asís"
and 2) new ID from Archbishop's office,
used to enter Abra Prison

For completing work, this past week was more challenging than the preceding one. Tuesday was a public holiday¹ so I did not visit the hospice at Santa Vera Cruz (SVC). I tried to make up that visit today by attending Mass at SVC, and congratulating one of the young hospice residents for joining the Church. This was the confirmation Mass for him and about 20 others from the surrounding community. Unfortunately, however, I was not able to accept his request to serve as his godfather. Having just met him, I was not prepared to fulfill all of the responsibilities accompanying that.

Our weekly teaching schedule at Abra Prison was also disrupted. Ordinarily we have classes Wednesday through Friday. However, this week the inmates held a strike in support of a fellow inmate who was not allowed to have a needed surgical operation. (I don't yet know what operation was needed.) So, on Wednesday, the head of the education program at Abra called us in advance to tell us that we shouldn't bother to make the trip to the prison because we wouldn't be able to cross the protest lines. On Thursday and Friday we called to see if the strike had resolved. Both times we were told that we had better wait until the following week.

So, we had free time and tried to use it well. We examined our teaching materials and planned ahead for several sets of classes. We also began planning a simple website for teaching English that would provide some on-line support for those San Jose sisters who are unable to continue meeting on Tuesday evenings. Periodic readjustment seems to be a regular part of life and work here. Also it looks like we will be teaching a new English class in our house for two students (Jose Luis and Adrian) on Thursday night after we return from work at the prison. We know Adrian from attending the La Salette Church in our neighborhood. We know Jose Luis from our days of attending the Maryknoll Language School during our first 5 months in Bolivia. Both Adrian and Jose Luis seem to be well educated and are studying English because they want to, so working with them is a pleasure.

I was also able to continue work on a website for a group of women who meet and work at the Franciscan Social Center in Cochabamba. They have difficult family situations and create gift cards as part of their effort to promote environmental consciousness and also to be self-supporting. The name of their group is T'ikas Warmi, which means Flower Woman in Quechua. Each of their cards is a unique creation from recycled papers, paint, and dried leaves and flowers. Their results are pretty amazing, I think, and they've amped up production for Navidad '11. During our June trip to the US, Lynn and I distributed a number of cards in Nashville (The Scarlet Begonia, Logos Bookstore, the gift shop at St. George's Church) and Bloomington, Indiana (Howard's Bookstore), and they were enthusiastically received. More information about the women and their enterprise is available at tikaswarmi.weebly.com.

Yesterday I had an interesting talk with Max, a friend who owns a hardware and building supply store on Avenida Guayacan, a street just a few blocks from our house on Colibri. Max has interesting ideas about increasing water supply in some of the under-served neighborhoods in this part of the south zone of Cochabamba. He also wants to create a local business council to better represent the large number of small entrepreneurs here and find new markets for their wares. Possibly I can help him communicate these ideas. Especially regarding the water project, it would be an achievement to increase or better distribute the supply of potable water in the Cochabamba Valley. I remind myself that this is the dry season and that the rain will come. However, even with settling the dust currently in the air, Cochabamba will not fully return to the verdant, eternal primavera of its epithet. Max too acknowledged the impact here (hotter, drier, dustier) of climate change.

Our garrafa, hard at work, containing natural gas until we
need it to cook up yet another taste fest.

For residents of our neighborhood, the water problem was complicated recently by another sign of progress, the installation of in-ground lines for distributing natural gas. For cooking, most residents use natural gas in large cylinders called garrafas. Like many people here, Lynn and I keep a second garrafa so we can continue to cook until we can trade the empty one for a full one. This is usually done early in the morning when a truck loaded with garrafas circulates through the neighborhoods. While sometimes the driver sounds a loud horn to alert people that he is near, more often a worker in the back of the truck bangs a metal bar on an empty garrafa to send that unique clang-clang-clang-clang through the early morning air.

That tune will change soon with the installation of the in-ground gas lines. Bolivia has the second largest known deposits of natural gas in South America. Installation of the new gas lines is a government-sponsored program, and residents here are understandably enthusiastic (cost and convenience) about the progress. However, with growth come growing pains. It seems that the workers digging the ditches for the new gas lines have also punctured more than a few of the water pipes leading onto people's property.² These pipes carry water pumped in from the community well.

With inadequate pressure, water will not flow through the pipes to reach people's sinks, toilets, and so forth. Apparently because of the low pressure and the number of punctured water lines, the administrators of the community well have had to shut off the pump until the leaking lines are located and repaired. Some houses, such as the one we are renting, have reserve tanks for water. When those are depleted or for those without a reserve tank, the recourse is to purchase water from one of the tanker trucks that drive through the neighborhoods. Of course, if we conserve, we have enough water, but not everyone has a reserve tank.
__________

¹ The holiday on Tuesday followed the weekend festival of the Virgin of Urqupinia (There are a bunch of video clips on YouTube about this).
² I think that this would be a likely outcome as the workers must dig all day, day after day, through rock and dirt down to shoulder height, producing a trench that is little more than shoulder width. I later learned another possible incentive--the workers are paid per meter dug.

Another Good Week, cont'd

2011-08-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

A poster on the wall of the
Exaltation Chapel in our neighborhood. It
reminds me that in being alive I have both
rights and responsibilities.

Not recalling the street names on the way to the hospice in Santa Vera Cruz, I splurged on a taxi and then quickly remembered the location as the cab passed south and then turned west toward Petrolero. We passed a large open warehouse surrounded by a wall of wooden crates. The driver said this was where many tomatoes arrived and were disbursed for market throughout the Cochabamba area. At Petrolero we turned south again and in a short time we arrived at the church, Santa Vera Cruz. I paid for the cab (about $2.10, which included a tip) and made my way into the enclosed grounds through the door and along the open corridor between the church and the school, which was in session. The passageways were old but clean, a welcome contrast to the littered roadsides around Cochabamba.¹

When I emerged from the corridor I recognized that I was beside the retreat house. The three-story brick structure appeared to be empty at the moment, but I couldn't tell for sure, just because of closed doors and an empty parking lot. The hospice was a short way down a dirt road at the bottom of the hill. As I walked, I saw an old swimming pool off to the left and lapsed into a reverie about swimming pools in my past. I think they represent people's idealism when there actually is time and money enough to relax and enjoy jumping into cool clear water. Maybe the circumstances always change, but for the moment there's that time of enjoyment. Not a bad thing for those lucky enough to have it.

At the gate to the convent and hospice I was welcomed by one of the Calcutta Sisters whom Lynn and I had met there when we first returned to Cochabamba. She was still cheerful and led me through the sun-filled hallway on the first floor of the hospice. We walked past a young man mopping the floor and exchanged greetings. I was then led into a waiting room until the sister in charge of the hospice could come to speak to me. At this point I really had no idea how I could benefit anyone. The facility was only recently completed and blessed. It has only three or four residents and also has almost as many volunteers to assist them. I couldn't exactly wish for more terminally ill residents so I could feel good about trying to help them. I wondered if I would spend the morning talking to the other volunteers. Fortunately, that was not to be.

I talked for a while with one of the hospice residents, a Bolivian man older than I. He wanted to know where I was from, how long I had been in Bolivia, and what I was doing here. Beyond that, and wanting to know whether I were a priest, he seemed indifferent to my presence and anything I had to say. His eyes drifted away or half closed as I talked, and occasionally he drew a long breath and coughed in a way that seemed to unsettle his whole body. I sensed that he was the one that the head of the facility identified as not wanting to live anymore. His disease, HIV (here called VIH), was apparently well advanced by the time he sought medical help. According to Sister, he had once had money, and now he was without money. Also, apparently because of the social stigma associated with the disease his family did not want to take care of him. This unwillingness to care for their own breaks the custom here that families care for their own aged and infirm. What a powerful disease that it can destroy individuals and social custom. In this guy I could see, from the Franciscan standpoint, my leper.² While I might not expect to restore his will to live, at least I should be able to interact with him in a way that would declare my own acceptance of him.

The other two residents whom I met there were younger, more mentally agile, and friendly. When they found out that I taught English language classes they enthusiastically declared that I should teach them. I agreed to do that, and we set up a plan for me to teach them two hours each morning, using various DVDs that we have and also one of the texts that we bought during our June trip back to the US, Ingles para Latinos. This book is less formally structured than a textbook for a course in English. It focuses on useful phrases and also includes a pronunciation guide for Latinos, a very beneficial addition I think. I had not planned to teach language at the hospice, but I had decided before going there to just see what the interests and needs were and to let my activities develop from that.

After chatting awhile, the four of us--the older man, the two younger ones, and I--had lunch together. The two younger ones kept cracking jokes, and the older guy would respond either with a deadpan look (I don't believe it was practiced) or a brief remark in what I presumed was Quechua. By the time I left I was convinced that this was going to be a good assignment for Tuesdays. I caught a trufi back down Petrolero toward Suezia, a cut-through street to the other side of the mountains to the west of our neighborhood. It was a beautiful, sunny, big blue-sky afternoon (you can safely use that tag for 95% of the days here) so I decided to walk the short distance from Petrolero to the east end of Suezia. The air was full of the smells of food from the street vendors, children shouting and the general mid-day hum-a-drum that rises up as gradually more people and vehicles enter the world of transit. When I reached the airplane, the one that marks the east end of Suezia and that was converted into a library for the children, I caught a bus for home.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday Lynn and I taught at Cárcel Abra, the men's prison on the other side of the mountains to the east of our neighborhood. Because we take a taxi there and sometimes travel on the road over the mountain, I wanted to take some photos (these included below) from the crest as the road passes from one side over to the other. I used a Flip HD video camera for these and exported the still frames that were best. This was hardest on the ascending side because I didn't want to ask the driver to stop, and believe me, image stabilization doesn't do a bit of good if you're trouncing along a rocky, unpaved road. More importantly, however, our days of teaching at the prison this week were good ones:

The guards at the entrance were kind enough to let me pass through the checkpoint despite my having left my ID from the Archbishop's office at home. Since we teach there each week, they know us, but the rule still that no one enters without first leaving their permanent ID there at the checkpoint. In addition, we also have to leave behind items such as cell phones, phone cards, pocket knives, any medications.
The beginners group (we teach two groups, beginners and advanced) seemed to loosen up some, respond to jokes, and contribute more. They get credit for being in class, but they also seemed to want to be there.
Three of the men from the advanced group turned in their examinations over the first half of the textbook and did very well. They're learning English grammar, and their pronunciation is good.
A group of the soldiers and at the gate into the prison and their commander suggested that we should have an English language class for them as well. We're going to try to do that.

I can't say that we're changing the lives of the men in prison, but our interactions indicate that we've been accepted, and gradually we begin to know when various ones are feeling up or down, and they likewise seem to detect our moods as well. We don't expect everything to be positive, but it feels as though we can work through the problems there that come our way.

Oh yes, and today at Mass, I was pleased to see that Minh, our friend who is a Maryknoll lay missioner, was with her brother Peter, a Christian Brother who is visiting from New York. In addition, Maggie, a Maryknoll sister, received a blessing before her trip that will take her first back to Ossening, NY and then to Tanzania to visit with her parents. Also at Mass I was struck by the representational figures--muñecas or dolls some might call them--in the chapel. Here there are more of these symbolic figures in church, especially around festival days, such as the current festival, the Virgin of Urkupiñia (Virgin of the Mountain--It is believed that in the 1800s Mary appeared to a young girl). I was also impressed by the far-reaching power of the American cinema and animated film because in one very happy young Cochabambino's arms Buzz Lightyear (see below) seemed to be assuring him everything was A-OK.

And to top it all off, today I had this terrific lunch at the house of Juan Carlos, Lupe, and Lizbeth in which I was served zapallo soup, mote and ispis, and a fine main course of sorubí (breaded) , arroz, plátano, yucca, papas fritas, and all the llajua I cared to drizzle on for extra zest! Now for some photos. Click the photos to view larger images.

Looking northwest toward Cochabamba from the road over
the mountains. The green area in the foreground is the golf
course of the Country Club. Most of the area around
Cochabamba is arid now. Some residents tell us that 20 years
ago it was verdant. The water is part of Laguna Alalay, the
last of 3 lagunas around the city.

Looking northeast just across the summit from the same road
over the mountains. Below the slope are the walls and buildings
of Cárcel Abra, the men's prison where Lynn and I teach.
Beyond that is the community of Abra and the city of Sacaba.

Peter and Minh, brother and sister from the United States,
receive communion from Padre Juan Carlos at Capilla Exaltación.

Juan Carlos, a native Bostonian and La Salette priest, gives a
benediction to Maggie, a native Tanzanian and Maryknoll sister,
a couple of days before her trip to the US and back home.

A young parishioner at Exaltation Chapel holding an image
of the Madonna and infant Jesus.

Another young parishioner holding Buzz Lightyear. If you
press a button on Buzz's control panel, his wings pop out.

________
¹Today at lunch our friend Lizbeth told me that Sucre, known here as the white city, is much cleaner than Cochabamba. I'm not sure why people in Cochabamba litter as much as they do. To me it seems a little like people feeling that it is their right to drive while drunk if they want to, and apparently there's a lot of that here too among the professional drivers.

² "One day while riding through the countryside, Francis, the man who loved beauty, who was so picky about food, who hated deformity, came face to face with a leper. Repelled by the appearance and the smell of the leper, Francis nevertheless jumped down from his horse and kissed the hand of the leper. When his kiss of peace was returned, Francis was filled with joy. As he rode off, he turned around for a last wave, and saw that the leper had disappeared. He always looked upon it as a test from God...that he had passed." From Catholic Online.

Another Good Week

2011-08-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

This has been a good week for me because I feel close to the people I work with. Monday was a day to prepare for the classes that Lynn and I teach Wednesday through Saturday. Admittedly, some of this is just reflecting on what we've done and where we'll go next. (We seem to have developed some credibility at the Archbishop's office, well with the head of Penitencial Pastoral in that we've been reimbursed for photocopying books and handouts, purchasing minor supplies like markers for the whiteboard.) We also consider the problems our students are having, look for examples to help them, create handouts, and generally get to know our spoken language better, the way you usually get to know a work of literature better if you read it to teach it rather than just reading it for yourself. Most of this is actually fun because we remember things we've forgotten, discover patterns we never knew, and create material for handouts. The goal is to have a more definite direction when the time for class arrives. After all of these years it still feels good when Lynn and I plan together because we challenge each other's ideas. Generally this leads to more productive class time, which means, I think, that we spend less time talking about language and more time in teaching practical use of a language and guiding the students' use of it.

Yesterday morning (Tuesday) I made my first trip to the hospice at Santa Vera Cruz (SVC)recently opened by a group of the Calcutta Sisters, Mother Teresa's order, at about kilometer 5 on Petrolero, on the other side of a row of hills to the west of us. This was a good step for me because I have been unsure about the best way to use my service time on Tuesdays:

in the Apoyo Escolar (school help) program in Nueve Vera Cruz (a bit further down the road from SVC)
in a comparable program in the La Salette Church in our neighborhood
begin teaching in another prison, but one with worse conditions for the prisoners, such as San Sebastian

There are good reasons to choose any one of the specific sites because volunteers are needed in each one. However, in the end I chose to work in the hospice at SVC. Actually, serving in the hospice was one of our original prospective service sites when we returned to Cochabamba following a semester of teaching at the Unidad Academica Campesina-Carmen Pampa in the North Yungas. In the search for mission sites in January, we decided to spend the bulk of our time at the prison, partly in honor of our friend Harmon Wray (we observed the anniversary of his death on July 24th), and also because we know that volunteers from the free world are always needed and appreciated by the society within walls. We also were less certain about what we might be doing as volunteers helping terminally ill patients. Maybe we were afraid of them or more accurately the risk of contracting tuberculosis or HIV.

Regardless, after working a few months in our other sites, this didn't seem to be an issue for me because I knew so little about the populations I was working with. I just had to remind myself to take appropriate precautions in all of them. After I understood that, working with the hospice population seemed like an interesting challenge. (More about this week later this week. Oh yes, and if you're headed this way, here's a nice welcome from Marcela who owns and operates the tienda just across the street. Her bread is always fresh!)

Around our Barrio, cont'd.

2011-07-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

A few regulars at the Wednesday morning Breakfast Club

On Wednesday mornings Lynn and I walk about 6 or 7 blocks to the La Salette church. After Mass we attend an informal breakfast of coffee, tea, bread and warm milk at the priests' house Mostly this breakfast is a time for fellowship. We talk about our activities and what we plan to do. Left to right in this group photo are Lil (Maryknoll sister from Louisville, KY, a vet of the SOA protests, with years of service in Peru and Bolivia), Adrian (a lay Franciscan who sings well, usually heats the milk for breakfast, and recently said he wants to start learning English), Willa (a Maryknoll lay missioner from the United States and a 3rd-year law student at Notre Dame specializing in immigration law), Padre Juan Francisco (a La Salette priest originally from Boston who speaks very good Spanish and always makes everyone feel welcome), Padre David (also a La Salette priest but from Tareja, Bolivia, incredibly always in a good mood, and a specialist at delivering homilies that draw in the whole congregation), Maggie (a Maryknoll sister originally from Tanzania who runs the apoyo escolar program at the comedor and school behind the La Salette church. She's experienced at keeping order among the children, and she welcomed Lynn to help her), Lynn Myrick (a multi-talented FMS lay missioner who loves the children and works in the apoyo escolar program in the mornings on 4 days each week).

Lynn and I on either side of Sister Jacqueline

After breakfast, Lynn and I meet with Sister Jacqueline of the Hermanas Misioneras del Santisimo and several young students who also wish to learn English. We use the same textbooks for the course as we do for the men at Carcel Abra, Top Notch, and we progress at a rate comfortable for them. In the few months that we have been meeting with them, they have gained confidence. Their pronunciation has improved, and it's amazing to see how at first a sound seems difficult to produce and then suddenly they get it right. They especially like to hear songs with words in English. This is a good break from grammar. When we can, we try to provide them with a copy of the song lyrics so they can practice after class and form questions about the meaning of particular phrases.

Padre David with the children at almuerzo

The apoyo escolar program at La Salette Church has been run by the La Salette order for about twelve years. Before that it was run by the Franciscans. In its present form children can attend before or after school, depending on whether they attend school in the morning or afternoon. After completing school assignments, they have a light meal of freshly baked bread, soup, and a drink such as api.

Around our Barrio

2011-07-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

In June Lynn and I made a trip to the United States to visit family and friends and then returned to Bolivia and our mission work here. Even though it was difficult to separate ourselves temporarily from Bolivia, it was a good trip, and we won't go back again until the end of our mission term in December of 2012. I think every mission experience has phases of involvement in projects and self reflection. The latter seems to me the way we spent our time away from mission work here. We were able to think about what we have been doing and why. We were able to have the direct encounters we needed with the people we are so far away from. It amazes me how quickly all of our lives change and complicate. It's good to know that people can get along without us, but it also feels good to know that we have been missed.

Before leaving for the United States, we took photos of places where we work and the people we work with. We also reviewed some of our other photos since moving from Carmen Pampa to Cochabamba (Cbba) in January of this year. I'm glad we did this. Besides the fact that it makes it easier for us to share the experience with others, it does me good to remember that we really are only here for a short time. We want to be able to remember the experience ourselves, and while we're here we want to keep at the forefront of our plans the need to make good use of our time. To me that means enjoying the process of building relationships and also staying focused on the ministry of presence that is central to us as Franciscans and members of Franciscan Mission Service.

Lynn, Joel, and Clare during a board meeting in May 2010

In passing, I have to say that it was hard to say goodbye for a while to fellow FMS missioner Clare Lassiter. She performed excellent work for her volunteer site in Cochabamba (Cbba), Niños con Valor (dedicated to caring for infants with HIV and/or serious birth defects), and that her mission spirit will continue to benefit many whether continues to volunteer in Bolivia or returns to her own family and friends in the United States. We had a lot of fun as classmates during our five month session at the Maryknoll Language Institute, and she was always an insightful contributor to our weekly gatherings after Lynn and I returned to Cbba from Carmen Pampa.

I am also grateful to Clare, Camilla and Kate for house and dog (Blondie) sitting while we were in the US. It's never a good idea to leave a house unattended, but her in Barrio Magisterio, people tell us to be very careful about leaving any valuables unguarded. Despite the high wall around the property, the barbed wire and broken bottles atop the walls, the deadbolt locks and bars over all the doors and windows, professional thieves seem to view these types of security efforts as enticing problems to solve.

Before I write about our trip to the United States, here are some of those photos of our world in the south end of Cbba. In March, the Diocese of Cochabamba held a day of celebration in which all parishes were invited to celebrate the richness of their culture and faith traditions.

Along with field games of building human pyramids, blind man's bluff (yes, an occasional "Marco!" and "Polo!" could be heard), tag, and numerous types of traditional dancing, all participants could learn more about each other's local churches, share lunch and see how exhilarating it was to be together outside on a beautiful day. The celebration concluded after Mass was celebrated by Bishop Tito and numerous co-celebrants from the holy orders serving in Cbba.

In April we witnessed a Dia del Peatón here in Cochabamba. This is one of three days during the year in which--for about 7 hours--motorized traffic is not allowed on the streets. The pavement is then free for more relaxed and less-polluting modes of transport such as scooters, bicycles, skates, and shoes. There also is no age-limit for the drivers. It's a very relaxed time, with more refreshments than usual along the way such as vendors with fresh-squeezed orange juice. Peaton days are an enjoyable way to make people more aware of air pollution.

Circuito Bolivia, the road around Laguna Alalay during the dia del peaton in April.

In Cochabamba, many of the cars and minibuses are powered by natural gas rather than gasoline. Bolivia's large deposits of natural gas make this a less expensive way to power vehicles. Auto mechanic shops that convert vehicles from gasoline to natural gas can be found throughout the city. I'm not sure if the emissions are any less polluting than engines that burn gasoline. On a regular day of traffic, the vehicle density in Cbba is far less than in a US city. However, of the ones on the road, a larger percentage are old and probably pollute more heavily.

We are in the dry season here in Bolivia. Recently, because the pump for our community well was being serviced, we had to buy water from one of the tank trucks that pass through. On this occasion, when we filled our below-ground reserve tank (there is also a smaller one on top of the house) it cost 60 Bolivianos, about $8.00. This doesn't seem expensive, but it is for some people, and it is also more expensive than paying for water from the community well. We try to keep our reserve tank filled when there is a good supply of water coming from the community well.

No matter where we go there always seems to be a pack of dogs. Some have owners. In March or April crews circulated through neighborhoods and vaccinated the dogs against rabies. The ones vaccinated had a yellow plastic ribbon (Lynn says that it is green, but I think that at most it's yellow-green) placed around their necks. We put out some food on the sidewalk for the dogs near our house because some of them do not seem to get much food. I think when they're weak they're more susceptible to attack from the other dogs. Somehow, the children of the neighborhood seem to move through the streets without being bitten. I should say that I haven't heard of anyone being bitten. For fear of that, I'm probably more cautious than the local people.

I have run out of time and will continue with Around our Barrio tonight or tomorrow.

Sustaining Idealism (2 Cor 9:6-11)

2011-06-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

This month Lynn and I reached the midpoint of our current three-year commitment representing the Franciscan Mission Service as lay missioners here in Bolivia. Among my general responses to being here, I think about some of our challenges. We are content with our work, and while the challenges we have faced are not overwhelming, knowing them makes it easier to navigate the whole environment. As in my home culture, I must sustain mission idealism through periodic doubt and frustration:

Work interruptions such as strikes and the roadblocks to support them: Both are more common here than in the United States and seem to have more impact on society as a whole that is, the extent to which work can proceed. Such was our experience recently with the diverted traffic load on the high road to Abra.¹
Procedures in Bolivia may take more time than I think they should, such as with our recent efforts to renew visas and national identification cards at Immigration Services.²
The sensitivity of my North American immune system to the physical environment here and the necessary adjustments I make to protect or adapt myself.³
Social challenges we face from apparently being perceived as representatives from more affluent societies, or at the very least as easy marks.⁴
The psychological stress of adjusting to the combined set of challenges.⁵

In each case I try specific adjustments and with varied results. With this I still try to be a problem-attacker in the hope that with some of the effort I can be a problem-solver, and I continue to rely on my personal support network of prayer and donations, family and friends back home, as well as fellow missioners and longer-tenured residents and friends here in our host country. I also think that I am very fortunate that Lynn and I are married to each other because we take time to examine what is and isn't working and why.

The difference between my mission work here versus working in the United States is that here I volunteer my labor while trying in my own way to represent Christ's compassion for all. Despite being cheap labor, I do not feel that we are thought of that way by any of those we serve. Without seeking gratitude, we experience a lot of it from the relationships we have developed at our various worksites and from our neighbors.

Extent of personal involvement: I think it's better when we work with dedication. Sometimes, as with working at jobs in the US I feel exhausted, but yes, sometimes that too feels good, remembering that it was time spent interacting with new people, thinking at first that I understood fully but only to gain new insights in the process, generally being well received and learning the local mores, and always feeling closer to others and to a universal and eternal sense of self.

On this journey sometimes the isolation feels good, sometimes the accompaniment feels good. It all feels like enlightenment, "for the poor, with the poor, as the poor."⁶

Lynn, Sr. Jaclene, and Olga after
English class at LaSalette Church
in Barrio Magisterio in Zona Sur,
Cochabamba.

The reality is that any of the negatives are infrequent and embedded in an atmosphere of acceptance and appreciation. I'll focus on that in my next post, but here's a nice shot of Lynn with two of our Wednesday morning English language students, Sister Jaclene and Olga.
__________
¹The high road to Abra Carcel passes up and over the chain of mountains near our house, reducing the distance to the Carcel from 20k to about 3k. Of course, there are trade-offs (the high road is a rock and rubble-strewn path rather than the smooth pavement of the low road, and if the low road is blocked because of a strike, the vehicles that must continue to travelgiant buses, heavily loaded trucks may divert to the high road and create blockades of their own as they attempt to careen past each other around the tight switch-back turns. Lynn and I experienced this first hand as our taxi driver attempted to get us to Abra Carcel on time.
²Navigating Immigration Services is always challenging, with long lines and difficult to decipher explanations of what is your next step and why it may take a few more hours than you anticipated. Lynn and I try to stay silent and remain patient, maybe trying to avoid any undue attention that might prompt one of the employees to suggest that we return in several days. Feeling something like caroming pin balls, we eventually reach the end of the process and receive extended visas and renewed national ID cards: we can stay for another year and a half! Somehow it seems that volunteers should not have to labor so hard just to volunteer their time here. Yes, I know that's whimpering.

³Pollen, bacteria (the latest reaction probably from Thai food the night before although I had no symptoms until after our visit to Tiwanaku [Franz Choque was an excellent guide] with Dan and Jarrett), amoebas, altitude. 
⁴Robbery, indignation, okay to target, suitable to be taken advantage of.
⁵When the amount of time spent with interruptions or disruptions exceeds the time spent toward the primary objective. I remind myself that success isn't measured in completed projects only.
⁶Thanks, Iggy.

Activities in Cochabamba

2011-04-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

Lynn and I were not idle when we arrived back in Cochabamba, but we have gradually acquired enough activities here that we are busy. Most of these activities associate with mission while teaching English:

Thursdays and Fridays from 3 until 5 at Abra Carcel, a men's prison nearby Sacaba, about 3-4 kilometers away from us if we take the high road, which passes directly over the mountains on the east side of Cochabamba and winds down beside the prison. This group includes about 18 students in total; usually all of them are not there at one time;
Tuesday night in our house on Colibri Street from 8:30 until 10 with the Sisters of San José, This group includes 3 students; as teachers in a local high school, they are required by their order to study some English language.
Wednesday morning from 8 until 9:30 in a meeting room at the La Salette church near our house. This group includes one sister of the Missionary Sisters of Santísimo and three university-level students. This class takes place after 6:45 am Mass at the church, which is followed by a light breakfast in the house of Padre Juan Francisco (he introduced us to the two groups of sisters--San José and Santísimo--and acquainted us with their need to study English), originally from Boston, and Padre David, from Bolivia. The Mass and breakfast include a group of regulars and visitors. Gradually, Lynn and I have begun to feel like regulars.
Meeting with individuals who live nearby and want to learn or continue to learn English. Ivo and Ernie, two young men in the neighborhood, wanted to practice English conversation and ask questions about grammar, so I blocked out Tuesday at 10 for an hour in our house for when they have time to visit. Lizbeth, a high school student from the neighborhood, wanted to practice English conversation either in our home or hers for an hour at noon on Saturdays. This past Saturday Lynn and I shared the noonday meal with her family and talked. They have invited us back to share their family's Good Friday Feast of 10 Plates
Meeting (Lynn or me, or both) for an hour on Friday morning with Sister Erika at the La Salette church. I think she is also one of the Sisters of San José. She also bakes great bread, which she shares at the Wednesday morning breakfast.
Serving on Wednesdays in the before school/after school programs at Nuevo Vera Cruz (may not have spelled that correctly) under the direction of Padre Pancho (Frank), a Maryknoll priest. This is a new effort on my part, and I hope to begin next Wednesday. The children are elementary school aged and live either in the neighborhoods around Nuevo Vera Cruz or come in from further out in the countryside, the campo.
Working with a group of women who meet at the Franciscan Health Center to help develop a brochure and web presence for their business of designing, creating, and selling gift cards. I am just beginning with this effort, so at this point I'm taking photos and learning about the business. I believe the women have been the victims of violence and are providing the sole income for their households.

Any one of the points above merits elaboration, and I'll make time for that. However, in general, I'll say that in all of the instances of our teaching English, including teaching at Abra Carcel, we are doing what the people have asked us to do. That is, based on our educational/work backgrounds, or in some instances maybe just because we look like we probably do speak English¹, in each instance we have been asked by the people if we would be willing to teach our language. In agreeing to do this, we purchased with our own money copies of the same basic English language books used by a local school for English language instruction. We also present the material as though we were progressing through it so the students could qualify for course credit. Based on the level of interest/participation and other external factors like transportation disruptions due to blockades, strikes, and public holidays, we proceed. In addition, how this becomes mission for us is that all of our encounters become opportunities to be the best representatives of Christ's presence that we can be. In that we try to accompany the various individuals in their life journeys rather than trying to impress an agenda on them. Invariably part of every class or conversation sharing time becomes a cross-cultural exchange, a cross-individual exchange, a mixture of languages (Spanish, English, and occasional Quechua or Aymara phrases thrown in), and with all of this deepening relationships begin to form as we share some of our lives with each other.²

So English language is being taught, but along the way, we hope, a lot of other beneficial learning for life is taking place.

_________

¹I would look like I was from the United States even if I paid a team of local image consultants to outfit me in full Andean plumage....no, I haven't bothered to try it, but I marvel at the local results at carnaval time.)
²This was also part of our experience while teaching at Carmen Pampa, a very gratifying experience with some of the students when time permitted (although a for-credit class does require a more focused approach) after class and with some of the children from the Carmen Pampa community who frequented the children's library. Our time at Carmen Pampa was a very good mission opportunity.

Que el poder esté contigo

2011-04-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Midway during our first semester at Unidad Academica Campesina-Carmen Pampa, Lynn and I realized we weren't happy enough there to continue doing our best work. We also had a little more than two years remaining on our contract with Franciscan Mission Service. From our perspective, it made sense to look for a different work site. As we understood our organization's perspective, they preferred that we seek new mission sites within the city of Cochabamba if we did not think we could stay and work at UAC-CP for the remaining two years. We appreciated their emphasis on forming longer-term relationships in mission. We also appreciated the difficult challenges that UAC-CP and the other UAC locations in Bolivia face in providing education for very capable students from more remote areas.

We thought about this for a long time during December. Lynn returned for two weeks to the US to visit a sick friend of ours. I remained in La Paz for the first week of that time to read, write, walk around, and think. At the end of the year, which coincided with the end of term, we still felt that moving was best for all.

During January Lynn and I completed two bus trips from Carmen Pampa to Cochabamba to transport our four immense suitcases, some books, and furnishings (two folding chairs and an exercise machine) to Cochabamba and to vacate the very nice small apartment where we had stayed on the upper campus of UAC-CP. We had many good and memorable experiences along the way. (I hope to reflect on these in the coming week as I also attempt to bring my blog up to date about our current activities in and around Cochabamba Yes, things are going well with us here, and we hope the same for UAC-CP.)

Cooling Our Heels During the Blockade

2011-01-27T03:09:00.000-08:00

In La Paz During the Cocalero's Blockade of the Roads Into the Yungas

A trail cutting through the last switch-
back on the way to the upper campus

As the spring semester (August through December here in Bolivia) at UAC-CP progressed, Lynn and I felt increasingly more pressed as we tried to plan and conduct effective classes on the upper and lower campuses. The daily treks up and down, despite my knee and back pain, were a welcome relief. No matter what the weather, the surrounding terrain is just too beautiful not to lift your spirits even when we were behind schedule and hustling up and down the steep cut-throughs to save time from travelling the entire switchback road. There were enough cancelled classes that we sometimes had to re-motivate ourselves against the loss of momentum. This was complicated by our need to understand our students' levels of ability, interest and determination. The intercarreras and faculty retreat were enjoyable and were probably needed breaks, but they also seemed to widen the gap between us and our students as we tried to maintain class schedules.

We were then stranded in La Paz for a week during the cocaleros' blockade of the roads into the Yungas. We didn't need a break from classes, but that was what we had. During that time we tried to take care of personal business (we spent most of one morning using Skype to verify the validity of our health insurance) and to learn more about Bolivian society and culture. We also made friends with the waitresses in the Banais, a restaurant on the street beside San Francisco Plaza. They gave me a copy of their bilingual menu that I could use for the English language students in the Department of Ecotourism.

During most of the week we stayed at the Maryknoll House in Barrio Sopacachi. Besides getting to talk about Bolivian history with Fathers Mike and Joe, both of whom live in the house and have years of mission experience in Latin America, we got to know the staff there--Irma, Rosemary, Grover, Paula, Freida and her sons, and Dora. They were sympathetic about our desire to return to Carmen Pampa but assured us that it was best not to cross the blockade lines. With their hospitality it was much easier to accept this unscheduled vacation.

Three priests from the United States at the Maryknoll House
in La Paz. Larry, on the right, served 50 years on mission
in Bolivia and accompanied Jack Higgins as one of the
original Maryknollers to come to Bolivia
from the United States in the 1950s.

Among the guests we met while we were there at the Maryknoll House was Barbara. Originally from Germany, she had lived for years in Coroico and La Paz, was now living in California near her children and was visiting friends in Coroico when she got out just ahead of the blockade. Barbara wore her long white hair in a braid. She had a broad smile and a twinkling eye that seemed to squint if she doubted what you were saying. With me, she seemed to squint frequently.

Some of the other guests we met there fit the small world category. For example, Larry, a retired priest with fifty years of mission experience in Bolivia, had also returned to visit friends. With that many years of service in Bolivia, I thought Larry might have come across Jack Higgins, a Maryknoll priest and the brother of Bitsy Thompson, a member of one parish we belonged to in Nashville, Holy Rosary. When Lynn and I were about to leave the US for Bolivia Bitsy contacted us to wish us good luck in a country her brother had journeyed to about a half century earlier. "The colonel?" Larry said. "Oh, sure, we came down here together--the first group of Maryknollers to come here. Jack was a great guy, academic type too, great with languages." Later we were able to get his address in the US so Bitsy could contact him.

We also met two priests from England, Mike from Liverpool and Joe Bibby. Joe asked us about our organization, Franciscan Mission Service. Then he said that a few years ago while trying to raise funds in the US he met Lee and Jean Lechtenburg just before they were about to come to Bolivia for mission. We said they were back in the US now and seemed to be doing well. We told him that part of our work was with the children's library that Lee and Jean had started and that we conducted a morning liturgy of the hours service in the chapel on the upper campus where Lee and his son painted a beautiful mural of the North Yungas mountains on the wall behind the altar.

A portion of the mosaic honoring
Bolivia's desaparecidos.

On one of our walks around Sopacachi we came to a park with memorials to honor Beethoven and also Bolivia's desaparecidos. This park left us with mixed feelings. I'm not sure why Beethoven in particular was selected for honor in this park, but the beautiful vistas of the city and the mountains nearby seemed to echo the splendor, power and tranquility of his compositions. This was a spirit of hope in contrast to the terrible reality of Bolivia's talented young people destroyed for their ideas and opposition to political authority. I tried to imagine how difficult it was for their families and friends to endure this needless waste, a dark reality they would carry throughout their lives. This deserves far more than a passing comment from me and the many other visitors casually strolling through the park on that beautiful day.

For three days during our stay in La Paz we toured art museums. I felt guilty doing this at first, thinking that at least a decent conversation with any of the numerous street beggars in La Paz would be more to the Franciscan point. However, during the last year we have done little of what could be called vacationing while here. Also, just as our studying a shared language helped us to communicate in this society, viewing some of its art could only deepen our appreciation for some of Bolivia's complex cultural heritage.

We walked to the Museo Nacional de Etnografia y Folklore (MUSEF) and moved slowly from room to room viewing the extensive collection of textiles. The styles represented there were Aymaran, Quechuan, Incan, and other less-well-known groups inhabiting the area now called Bolivia. The method of display was interesting. Typically a representative example was prominently encased in glass. Additional examples were viewable in rows of drawers about two inches thick. If Barbara from the Maryknoll House had not told us about the system of drawers, we might have wandered through and missed the greater part of the collection. Lynn and I had time, so we tried to look at examples from each type.¹

I could provide a catalogue of the types and dates represented by the textiles exhibit from ancient Bolivian indigenous groups, but what struck me most about them was the great difference between them and the aguayo worn and sold in the streets everywhere. The older stuff seemed much more complex in design. Of course, the Incas may not have bothered to save the kitsch from Tijuanaku for a joke, or maybe they did and when the Spaniards showed up they just didn't get the joke. But overall, compared to the fineness and subtle intricacy of the weavings on display--to the point that they seemed to strain the capacity of hand and eye--much of the materials now in the street were a mass-produced parody of a destroyed heritage, now all linear sameness and impossibly hyperchromatic gaudy. So.......what happened?

__________

¹Still perusing textile samples along the first wall of the first room, I was quickly reminded of a joking comment years ago by Fr. Hebert, one of my three English teachers at Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys. He was simply remarking on the difficulty of gaining much understanding of works of art if you were on a time-controlled tour and had to step quickly through, for example, the Louvre because the tour bus was parked outside with the motor running. I don't think he meant to make fun of people on tour or even the tour companies. Instead, I think he meant to point out the need for time and concentration to pursue deeper understandings of those objects that society deems art worthy of preservation.

Probably 15 years after that remark a religious from a contemplative order, Sister Wendy, demonstrated on PBS how valuable time is for comprehending the messages in art by showing great insight into paintings by looking at and thinking about picture postcards of masterpieces. I think one of my too-much-to think-about-in-too-little-time moments was when our daughter Emer, Lynn and I went into York Minster and cast our eyes over the richly carved stones and patterned stained glass windows, the charred roof beams from recently having been struck by lightning (some actually claimed--I think--that it was because the Archbishop had uttered some blasphemy which at that time had occurred about a month before we got there and I can't recall at the moment) and knew right way that we could only grasp a scrap of what we were standing in: "Wow. It sure is big."

Art needs time for close scrutiny because it reflects life. Though I'm certain that I don't have time for the task, surely all the street beggars in La Paz and Cochabamba also have unique stories to tell about the circumstances leading them to this or that of life's curbs.

Moments of Personal Perspective

2011-01-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

Friends and/or Readers : I will try to blog more regularly in the next few weeks. Some of this will be what I have written earlier but not yet posted. After a very busy semester, Lynn and I are preparing to attend a retreat with our organization, Franciscan Mission Service, in Cochabamba. After that, we will be moving to Cochabamba where we will live closer to our community. We will continue our mission there and believe we will be able to accomplish the same goals that we have worked toward here in Carmen Pampa. As seems appropriate for the new year, I will reflect on past events, write my way to the present, and then think about where mission will take us in Cochabamba and beyond. Please stay turned as I add installments in writing, photos, and video.

(Written November 14, 2010)

In October here in Bolivia the coca growers blockaded the road into and out of the Yungas. During that time Lynn and I had to remain in La Paz for a week and a half longer than we had expected. Others at UAC (Jonas Grossman, Sarah Mechtenberg, Sister Jean Morrissey, Ximena Villa Iñiguez: thanks, all of you) filled in for us in various ways during that time. While furloughed we thought about our experiences leading up to our being there.

The academic term at UAC-CP flexes to accommodate a broad variety of extracurricular activities (campus clean-up days, occasional mandatory lectures, birthday parties, discussion to elect Mr. and Ms. Carmen Pampa, 4 days of intramural competitions, and 2 days of faculty staff retreat). Of course, this was our first experience with teaching in Bolivia, so Lynn and I were fresh in this phase of learning and probably in need of reminding ourselves more than once that differences do not necessarily equate to deficiencies. We also had learned a great deal during our formation period as Franciscan lay missioners, so rather than judge, we observed to better understand the philosophy and methods there. We were also glad that the semester had several more weeks than one in the United States, which made it easier to accommodate these activities.

When these events were occurring, I was thinking of them as unnecessary disruptions and was reminded of a passage from the Maryknoll handbook for missionaries, Maryknoll Spirituality, about how societies visited were apt to have a very different--more relaxed--attitude toward time than that in the United States. For those who have some experience with life in Bolivia, this may be referred to as Bolivian time. However, I reminded myself that this was a university and not Bolivian society in the perhaps more traditional sense that may have sponsored that term. So why did I seem to be observing it here? I looked to the fact that the students and faculty alike are busy at the work of teaching and learning throughout the year, so what fair-minded person could begrudge this time to focus their energies on other equally important activities that revitalize campus unity and spirit?

I took many photos during the intramural activities, and it was great to see some of our students participating. One was of Jhimmy, scoring for the Education soccer team, and Rudy playing the part of a teen driven to anguished thoughts of suicide because of violence in his family. College life should provide these opportunities for full development and expression of student character. And the faculty and staff benefitted from the retreat time to renew their mission.¹

Lynn and I were also trying to attend back-to-back retreats, the latter with our fellow Franciscan lay missioners in Cochabamba. Leaving the first retreat early (thanks, Sister Elena, for loaning me a towel even though there wasn't any water for a shower), we took a cab back around the mountain (Uchumachi) from Cochuna to Coroico to Carmen Pampa.² We did this to shower, change clothes, and--fortuitously because of the coming blockade--to dispose of our recyclable organic waste from the kitchen. We were planning only to be away for three days, but the blockade turned that into almost two weeks.

Since first arriving in Carmen Pampa in June, we had been trying to plan a time when we could have a reunion with our fellow FLMs back in Cochabamba. After these interventions in the academic calendar, we saw only one weekend opportunity to have a retreat with the other FLMs--leave the faculty retreat early so we could take a flight from La Paz to Cochabamba on Friday night and then return with an early flight on Tuesday morning.

I think the retreat in Cochabamba was beneficial for all 5 of the Franciscan lay missioners (Catherine, Clare, Nora, Lynn and me) and for Hermano Ignacio. For the missioners, this was our first chance to see each other since parting company in June. We had all endeavored to discern and had entered into different work assignments, and by this time we all had stories to share. Lynn and I also had time to attend Mass, presided over by Hermano Ignacio, at the monastery of the Concepcionistas just outside of Cochabamba. The Concepcionistas have a beautiful chapel full of natural light, and you feel the sincerity and devotion in their voices.

The Concepcionistas invited us all to lunch (the chuño wasn't half bad!) and afterward the sisters who played stringed instruments treated us to an impromptu concert. I remarked to their newest member (we had attended the service for her final vows this past June) that hearing her play the charango reminded me of the song "Say" (admittedly, repetitive) by John Mayer from the film, The Bucket List. She said she would like to hear it. I happened to have the song on my music player and had that in my pocket. Mother Superior said it would be all right, so I gave her the ear buds. She plugged in like a pro (she had to work these around the headgear of her habit) and started the song. She listened to it, and apparently a couple of following cuts by James Brown, and said that she would like to learn to play it. (I later purchased another copy and emailed it to the monastery.)

Early during our visit we had lunch with Sister Kathy De Vito from the Maryknoll Language Institute. We caught up on the activities of our classmates when we were taking the basic course and to hear about some of the new students. I am very grateful for the patience and work that all of the professors put into helping Lynn and me gain our basic knowledge of Spanish.

Early on Monday, Lynn and I went to the immigration office and picked up our carnets (national ID cards). That was the culminating act of a process that had begun back in February. They probably were ready for pickup in late June, but by that time we had moved from Cochabamba to the Yungas.

On Monday evening--our last night in Cochabamba--we were all to go out for dinner together. Lynn and I had also planned to visit our host family that afternoon. However, I came down with a fever at midday. After sleeping for about four hours, I was feeling better but still a little weak. The others went out to have dinner together. At about 7 pm, there was a knock at the door. It was Henry, our host father. After some phone calls and knocking on doors, he found out that we were staying at the Franciscan Center for Social Services, and tracked me down. I was glad he did. We talked and swapped stories until I felt so good that I said we should go and see Lily, his wife. (They are an amazing couple. They have hosted students from the Language Institute for 25 years.) As we were sharing more stories about what we were up to, Cathy, their youngest daughter, and her friend Carlos dropped by. The conversations all felt comfortable and natural, and reminded me of just how fortunate we had been during our five months of introduction to Bolivian society there.

__________

Sister Moon Morrissey

¹ The faculty retreat took place at Cochuna, a community on the other side of Uchumachi from Carmen Pampa. The retreat functioned something like a team-building exercise, with Powerpoint presentations, recorded music intended to inspire, opportunities to share experiences and sing hymns. During the retreat I took a number of photos that no longer exist (!)(the countryside, Padre Freddy during Mass, Manuela playing the guitar and singing, Diego holding his son, Jair) because I lost them by thinking that I had already moved them from the camera's memory card and then erasing the files on the memory card.
The building where we were to sleep had an insufficient number of beds, but Carlos Fernandez and Padre Freddy borrowed enough mattresses and linens from another facility–the colegio across the road–so that everyone had a bedroll. Three Sisters of the Immaculate Conception work at this colegio: Marleny (from Colombia), Elena (from Ireland) and Helen (from Papua, New Guinea). We had first met Elena and Helen after Mass in Coroico shortly after we arrived there in July. Helen seemed the more gregarious of the two–more chatty, enjoyed beating the drum during hymns for Mass, but Elena makes great pizzas. Marleny we knew better from the Thursday evening pastoral sessions we assisted on the Leahy (upper) campus at UAC-CP. They were all members of the same order as Sister Jean (from Boston), who lives at the convent at UAC-CP on the Manning (lower) campus. Each was unique in temperament and personality and committed to working in the Yungas to give young camposinos practical education, a sense of self worth and support for their Christian faith.

View from Convent Garden, Manning Campus, UAC-CP

During an extended lunch break on the first day of the retreat I jogged to San Felix, a community just short of the cascades, on the road away from Coroico. Before starting, I stood on the patio on the second floor of our dormitory and sighted along the road as it wound along the side of the mountain. From there I set a goal to reach the second mint green house down the road in San Felix, nothing more than an object to keep in mind as I jogged along. I had running shoes and a t-shirt but no shorts, so I zipped off my trouser legs. After some light stretching, I took off slowly, still feeling tight legged and wobbly in the knees, partly from sitting so long but mostly from wear over the years. Even so, it felt good as I balanced and settled into a pace that I could hold for a while.

I passed several small groups that I presumed were tourists. Like me, they had light complexions and quick-dry clothing. We usually exchanged greetings. Two were young women from Switzerland, they said, walking to see the cascades. Others in school uniforms were teenagers, walking back probably toward the colegio. There were men wearing tire tread sandals and holding adzes with the handles propped on their shoulders, or dangling machetes loosely, walking to their terraced fields on the slopes.

After several bends in the road I passed some children. I waved as I trotted. One asked why I was running so quickly (a real compliment for my pace). He had a serious look on his face, and reminded me of Nelson, one of the children who often come to the little library where we volunteer time in Carmen Pampa. I probably gave a non-committal "no se" response and trotted on, but I carried his question with me. It was simple, innocent, like "how are you doing?" or "'what's up?" but questions like that have become harder for me to respond to.

Why was I running? I was a little tense or tired from the encounter sessions in the retreat. At some point I just wanted to be in the sunshine and see the green plants bending as wind spread from the long ridge at the summit to the valley below and–I imagined–up again on the mountains beyond. Why was I running? For that matter, why I was on mission away from my home country, and where did these moments fit in that grand scheme? Probably I'm here because it feels right–precipitous moral ground maybe, but sometimes that's where you find yourself.

I trotted on past several small cascades, scorched patches of ground on the slopes made ready for planting, past dogs the color of dust and mostly indifferent to my passing , occasional collections of small buildings, mostly with adobe walls, some unplastered and eroding, but some newer ones made of ladrillo.

I reached that second mint-green house, my mark for this out-and-back run. I regarded it only for a moment. It sat exposed and weathered on a rise to the right. I nodded, checked my watch, and realized that it had taken me longer than expected to get there. I would have to hustle to be back in time for the next session. That felt good–to be determined about something–even though it was only about returning in time. I did not want to insult the planners of the retreat, so I tried to hurry back.

The clouds thickened. A light rain fell. It felt cool. My skin felt hot and sticky but with splotches of cold. The rain made the return run easier. I smiled and kept shuffling along, trying to hold the rhythm, keep the knees up, keep the arms relaxed and pulling straight ahead. I looked out across the valley. The clouds were lower, more solid. This rain would clear the air of the haze lingering from fires to clear land along the slopes. And later the sky would be that cool blue again at least for a while.

The road was more or less level and meandered along as it traced the spurs flaring from the base of Uchumachi. By now, however, even a rise felt steep. I was late for the next session when I returned. Sister Elena loaned me a towel and I was grateful for that. Later in the day, Desiderio Flores (Agronomia) informed me that the same road I jogged circled the mountain and could be walked in about three days. That sounded like it could be an interesting trip. Others said it was risky for a gringo to try that. I remembered Sister Margaret's experience in Cochabamba and thought that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to solo it.

² I apparently donated my cell phone to someone along the way. Since there's no cell service where we live [a story worth a paragraph later, but now cell service is functioning as of Christmas Day], I use it as an alarm clock. The irony is that I lost it just when I was going to an area with services and would need it - Coroico, La Paz, Cochabamba, and back again. Still, when I use it now, it's the same as when we were a family-- Emer, Norbert, Lynn and I--trying to stay in touch with each other.

Staying focused

2010-10-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

This would be a great night to purge my inbox, but right now I'm concerned about that strange human trait of desiring something more when we know we can't have it. No, I'm not yearning for lent so I can give up something else. It's mid-October. We're in La Paz, which is a beautiful city, but we should be in Carmen Pampa. There's plenty to keep us busy in La Paz--museums, restaurants, artesanias--but our agreed-to responsibilities as missioners are in Carmen Pampa. We can't reach them because of the blockade on the road into the North Yungas. The blockade has been in place since early Monday morning. Some people here think that with further negotiations the blockade might end this weekend, and that way we might return to Carmen Pampa by Monday. That's an attractive thought, but I don't see what negotiations will resolve the protest.

As I understand it, coca growers here are protesting the government's 15-pound limit on how much licensed coca growers can sell. They also want the resignation of two apparently over-zealous government ministers. Of course, I don't understand why each side feels as it does. I've only been in this area for a few months, and in my own selfish way I just want to get back to the UAC-Carmen Pampa so I can feel responsible as I try to fulfill the expectations about my being there:

the children that wait for the library to open
UAC-CP students that show up for the 6:30 am liturgy of the hours service before plunging into another busy day
setting up for Mass
Pastoral,
English Club
the volunteer teaching program for English.

Of course, none of those activities cease just because we're not there to help. Maybe our desire to return is stronger because we know we can't get back.

How do we know we can't get back? We tried, and finding that out was an adventure in confronting our own naivete. After returning to La Paz from a retreat with our fellow Franciscan lay missioners in Cochabamba (Catherine, Clare, and Nora, as well as our mentor, Hermano Ignacio) we heard that the blockade was indeed in place, shutting down all traffic on the only road into and out of the north Yungas. Before leaving, we had heard that a blockade probably would be set up before our return, but following the information we liked most to hear, we thought that we might just be allowed to walk across the blockade and be on our way. We hear that does happen sometimes. So, we went on to our retreat. When we returned we took a cab to the site in La Paz where the minibuses depart for the north Yungas. There we discovered that the minibus companies were all closed. However, while we were there we met two students from UAC who were also trying to return. The four of us agreed to risk crossing the blockade. As we understood it, the taxi would drive us right up to the blockade. We would get out of the taxi, explain to the nice people holding the threatening signs and marching back and forth around and beside the big piles of rotting papaya and other fruit unable to get to market, that we were all about social justice and higher education, so would they kindly step aside so we wouldn't be late for class. We would then lift our backpacks and other bags and saunter the scant two kilometers over to the other side of the blockade and pick up a ride in the minibus that was sure to be waiting to drive us to the next stop, Coroico, or probably even right up to our apartment door. For all I knew, maybe some of the nice people would put down their signs so they could help us carry our bags and so we could get back in time for a little class prep. Ah, truly, this was the best of all possible worlds!¹ (Did I mention that rain clouds were rolling in?)

Fortunately, we were turned back by the police before we made it out of La Paz. We were later informed that the people on these blockades sometimes turn violent. We also learned that there were actually two blockades, one at Unduavi and another about 65 kilometers away at the Santa Barbara bridge. Had we been allowed to walk unharmed across the first blockade, our hike to the second would have been a few kilometers longer than expected, and in weather for which we were unequipped. Our guardian angel must've been splitting her sides at how hard we had been working to hurt ourselves. We felt fortunate to be able to reflect on these things from the comfort and security of a room at the Maryknoll House. Once again in our lives, we were learning that we couldn't just choose to believe what we wanted to hear. And we were learning about the complexity of social change in this country (what about the various reasons why each person on the blockades was there), why some things that are possible, like increasing education in the Yungas, may proceed very slowly.
__________
1Doctor Pangloss, true to his phenomenal longevity in Voltare's Candide, is alive and well in Bolivia.

Thanks

2010-10-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

Lynn and I know that life continues to change for our family and friends back home, just as it does for us here in Bolivia. We also know that they continue to make it possible for us to do our work here. Such was the case when we found out recently that Ken and Janice had decided to move to another state. They have been providing a home for some of the belongings that we did not give away and they couldn't take these things with them. Craig and his family were kind enough to accept them. And Chris was kind enough to transport them. Thanks guys.

A note between classes

2010-09-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

September 24, 2010

It's 11:30 am. I have a break between the English classes I'm teaching, enough time to think about what I've been doing since moving to Carmen Pampa from Cochabamba in June. Lynn and I are working at our assigned duties¹ here at UAC-Carmen Pampa:

teaching English classes for the Departments of Ecotourism (lower campus²) and Education (upper campus),
assisting with Mass preparations on Wednesday evening and Sunday afternoon,
assisting with the students' Thursday night Pastoral meeting on the upper campus,
conducting an early morning Liturgy of the Hours service in the chapel on the upper campus (Tuesday through Friday),
staffing the children's library on the edge of the lower campus.

These are some of the proposed assignments we received shortly after we arrived. There were others, such as coordinating the painting of the chapel interior on the upper campus³, but these were the ones that became routine duties.

The environment of the two campuses was very different in late June from what it is like now. We were between semesters. Few students were on campus and we were not taking classes ourselves so we relaxed. Except for noticing different and more dense vegetation,⁴ maybe the occasional clouds outside the door of the apartment where we moved our belongings, it felt like being on any college campus between sessions in the United States. We worked at meeting and remembering the faculty and staff still around the school--making lists to associate names and faces and functions. They all were very patient as we slowly fitted ourselves into their midst.

In the empty apartment we moved into we found a big echo and some memories of the previous Franciscan missioners (Jean and Leo Lechtenburg) and volunteer David Flannery who lived there. Yellow curtains decorated the two windows in the front room.⁵ A giant Asian fan spread wide over the main wall in the kitchen area. A large set of shelves covered one wall, waiting to become our bookcase. Two maps of this north Yungas region and a poster of Saint Francis filled the area by the front door. A San Damiano cross hung at door-top level on the sliver of wall between the doorways to the two rooms directly off of the front room. Two UAC uniform shirts for teachers hung on the rack in the bedroom. The two cooking pots and lid beneath the kitchen sink lay waiting to be discovered as, in fact, a double boiler so that just maybe with a little free time and enough fresh eggs we might have a batch of hollandaise sauce for eggs benedict. A small cylinder of fabric on one of the tables unfurled to reveal a Tibetan prayer flag. Once we found places for our own things among these things the echo vanished.

A supporting part of our mission during this quiet time between semesters was spent setting up various daily life systems for eating, hygiene, laundry, and getting to and from work. Every environment presents its challenges and surprises. Setting up some of these routines in Carmen Pampa took more time than I expected. I also learned new methods for things we have taken for granted in our lives in the United States.

I'll write about some of this with my next post, but right now Janina, one of the children from Carmen Pampa and a frequent library visitor, has discovered that the library door is open. That technically means that the library is open despite the regular hours, and she has headed immediately for my laptop. She wants to play a game of ajedrez (chess) against the computer. I'll close out this post so Janina and I can walk over to the dining room of the food cooperative where there's more space for the game and where her mother works. Not knowing the regular hours of her school, I want to be sure this middle of the day ajedrez habit has parental approval. . . . "It does?" Yes. Okay, caballo b1 to c3, and she's off to the races!

The photo above shows some of the regulars at the children's library while they're playing Scrabble.

__________

¹ We are doing these things without salary from UAC, but our housing is paid for, and we receive a stipend for living expenses from Franciscan Mission Service. This helps UAC provide education at a lower cost for students in the Yungas. Thanks to all of our friends for supporting our mission here.

² The lower campus, Manning, was built first and is further down the mountain (Uchumachi), beside the community of Carmen Pampa. Further up the mountain and close to the main road to Coroico is the upper campus, Leahy, built as more career areas were added to the curriculum.

³ This would exclude the mural decorating the wall behind the altar. This was painted by missioner Leo Lechtenburg. It unites the chapel with the natural beauty of the Yungas and the people who live there.

⁴ Well, okay some of these plants I have seen frequently in the US, such as impatiens, fern, wandering jew, caladiums, and ajuga, but they were growing anywhere there was space to spread leaves and throughout winter here.

5 Through these windows each morning we could see that the sun ascended over the top of Uchumachi at about 9:20 am. This was in late June, and by the longer days of mid-September, the sun was topping the mountain at about 8:15 am.

Kids Having Fun

2010-07-20T04:35:00.000-07:00

It was nice to see kids enjoying themselves at a recent birthday party in Carmen Pampa.

Reflections on Language School

2010-07-19T21:48:00.001-07:00

Six weeks ago Lynn and I completed the 5-month Basic Spanish immersion course at the Maryknoll Language Institute in Cochabamba. I thought the living/learning situation there was close to ideal.

Cochabamba is an easy city to get around in, even if you don't know much Spanish. Taxis and buses run frequently, and for someone from the United States, the fares are cheap . Our section of the city--Cala Cala, on the north end--was served by plenty of shops and a Catholic church (we're Catholic) within a 15-minute walk. Also we could satisfy most basic needs without traveling far from our host's home on Calle Rafael Canedo. Even so, I remember the curious exhilaration and independence I felt when for the first time in Spanish I communicated my need to purchase toothpaste and bread, or attended Mass and discovered that I was beginning to understand parts of it, homily included.

Life with our host family was both simple and good because of their 25 years of experience hosting students from the Maryknoll Language Institute, their care for the welfare of the people they hosted, and their amazing willingness to be an active part of our effort to learn their language. That willingness extended not only to Dr. Henry Rojas and his wife, Lily Arze, but also to their three adult children (Lupita, Diego, and Cathy), their friends, and even aunts, uncles, and parents. We broke bread together, stoked the koa together, attended soccer games, shared music and photos, and talked and talked and talked. We were welcome on a daily basis to include or absent ourselves depending on our own schedules and/or those stages of fluctuating confidence in our ability to join in. We didn't realize it at the time, but because they slowed the pace of their own lives enough to include us they cushioned us from culture shock.

The Maryknoll Language Institute also helped us overcome culture shock. During classes I found it hard to do more than work at the vocabulary and grammar. The hypothetical daily situations we practiced gradually became real as we began exploring Cochabamba and needed to communicate. We also practiced vocabulary during class for events that we were encouraged to participate in like Carnaval, and the trip to the Jesuit missions.

The professors at Maryknoll Language Institute were patient, optimistic, and often inspiring. They were obviously accustomed to adjusting the pace of the program to the needs of individual students and even to adjusting that further as students had their periods of two steps forward and one step back. This was effective teaching-- sometimes tolerating error for the sake of continuing conversation. This brought more questions, answers and corrections. It also felt good to be a student in this group of like-minded people from different language traditions. People from Brazil, North America, New Guinea, England, Korea, Ireland, and Togo were speaking together in Spanish and communicating.

At the Institute conversations with faculty and staff were in Spanish, from the librarian to the grounds crew and gatekeepers. The grounds of the institute were carefully tended and formed an orderly garden. the prevailing there is no accident. The work of Padre Ramond Finch, Hermana Cathy DeVito, Alejandro Acázar and others helped to preserve the harmonious atmosphere. Our experiences with Padres Pancho and Juancho at Masses in the Institute and during visits in the South Zone taught us the high level of personal commitment to improving life for the people. Our brief meetings with the three older hermanas (they referred to themselves as the dinosaurs) and Padre John Gorsky, reminded us of the long history of those traditions. They knew the talented missionary linguist Padre Jack Higgins ( they called him "the Colonel") from Nashville, TN who served in Bolivia during the '50s until his early death in the '60s. His sister Bitsy would be pleased to know that the good work he was doing there has carried on. That includes Padre Ignatius Harding (also has a sister in Nashville) for his 39 years of service in Bolivia, and good work by people from our own organization, the Franciscan Lay Missioners, for I recall a boat ride back from the Isla del Sol to Copa Cabana and a casual conversation with two young volunteers from Cochabamba (started when one of them remarked on my Middlebury cap) revealed that they had worked with Richard Nalen in after-school programs and had great respect for his willingness to go out and visit with the families of children having problems, addressing them both in Spanish and Quechua.

I remember pausing one day at the bulletin board in the Institute, and there was an aerial photo of the Maryknoll headquarters and grounds at Ossining, New York. The building was designed in the style of a Japanese pagoda. I remembered our week of study there with prospective missioners from four other lay missionary groups, including the Maryknollers like Minh (Lynn's language partner at the Institute), and how even that had seemed difficult at first, interacting with all of them despite our basically shared goals. I remembered that not all us ended up going on mission. And I remembered an early morning jog I had taken on the Maryknoll grounds there, past the tennis courts overgrown with patches of grass, and past the graves of Jean Donovan and the missionaries martyred in El Salvador--God bless them for their intent. It reminded me that these were complex steps we all were taking.

While in Cochabamba we explored possible service sites. On retreat at Angostura we shared reflections with our three fellow Franciscan lay missioners there, Clare, Nora, and Catherine. All of these activities challenged my decision to undertake an out-of-country, out-of-culture experience, to examine my perceptions of myself and other people, to think about my relationship to the Franciscan vows of conversion, poverty, contemplation, and minority, and our motives for wanting to help other people.

Enduring Overwhelming Questions

2010-06-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

Lynn and I have completed the five-month Basic Spanish course at the Maryknoll Language Institute here in Cochabamba. Soon we will leave for our active mission site at Carmen Pampa in the Yungas region northeast of La Paz. In the lull before packing I've been thinking about some of our experiences here. One in particular, K'ara K'ara, the dumpsite for domestic garbage for the city of Cochabamba, is particularly disturbing. In writing about K'ara K'ara, I remind myself that the dump will close and that a new dump will open with--I hear--appropriate environmental safeguards. That will be good if those safeguards are in place when the new dump opens, but that still leaves the K'ara K'ara dump to mature as a social and environmental problem.

On Sunday, March 14¹, Lynn and I, along with fellow lay missioners Nora Pfeiffer and Minh Nguyen, visited K'ara K'ara at the invitation of Padre Ken to visit his parish there. Padre Ken was a missionary in Venezuela for 18 years, has been here in Bolivia for 4 years, and has lived at K'ara K'ara for about a year. In Quechua K'ara K'ara means something like peeled or barren. It refers to the natural condition of the land there, which is perhaps a perfect dumpsite for garbage. Problems arise when the garbage dumping process proceeds without environmental safety regulation and when the site around the dump populates with low income housing and inhabitants at risk of compromising their health because of toxic wastes accruing there. Despite noted health risks the dump continues to operate because it provides an income to some in the region and because claims over who has the right to decide its closure are disputed. And despite this people continue to move into the region because they need a place to live and they can afford to live there.

As such, K'ara K'ara has become a complex part of the social fabric of Cochabamba and a social problem. Social problems are dynamic. When they first strike our attention, they look like fixed realities, but they spread, intensify, and worsen for the people who inherit them. Institutionalized social problems become more difficult to stop as they perpetuate. K'ara K'ara is an institutionalized social problem:

Opened in 1987 approximately 7 kilometers from the center of Cochabamba as a garbage dump site for the people of that city;
Covers an area of approximately 98 acres;
Established and operated without the benefit of a protective liner to contain the spread of toxic liquids leaching from the garbage deposited there;
Surrounded by small homes of the many people living nearby, and some directly beside the dump;
The site of unrestricted dumping, including unguarded hospital wastes and open pools for the deposit of chemical sludge;
An income for 7 of 33 neighborhood groups by collection of permission-to-dump fines amounting to approximately $87,640.00 per year;
An income for trash resellers who sort competitively through newly dumped garbage for items to salvage;
An income for small contractors who buy lots near or adjacent to the dump, build homes on them, and sell them to buyers unaware of the long-term dangers of living next to a dump site.

Court orders have been issued about the dump since 2000. In September 2009 the Superior Court of Cochabamba ordered the dump to close and listed many problems with the dump in its present state:

Nonexistent drains and insufficient works to capture the liquids leaching from solid domestic residues;
Lack of monitoring of the volumes of production and recovery of leachate from solid domestic residues;
Insufficient compacting of solid domestic residues, resulting in the formation of air pockets between residue deposits;
Nonexistent monitoring of biogas formed during decomposition of solid domestic residues;
Insufficient coverage of solid residues from hospitals (originally, this area of the dump site was surrounded by a security fence, but no longer);
Lack of reforestation effort for those areas where material has been gathered to cover over areas of deposited waste;
Flow of leachate into air pockets among solid domestic residue deposits as that decomposes;
Transport of deposited solid wastes is facilitated by inadequate cover of the domestic residue as it is deposited;
Inadequate plan for pick up and disposal of collected leachate;
Nonexistent plan for adequate disposition of residues;
Nonexistent plan for recovery and recycling of usable materials in the interior of the dump;
Insufficient traffic signs warning about the dangers of the dump site, resulting in ready access of unauthorized persons and animas in the area of the dump site;
Insufficient barriers between the dump and neighborhoods surrounding the dump site;
Nonexistence of an adequate plan for industrial hygiene.

During our visit to K'ara K'ara, Padre Ken reflected on some of his experiences while living there:

Some of the older garbage piles are now covered with dirt. Gas pipes have been installed in some areas to channel off the gases created by the decomposing garbage. These gases catch fire and can be seen at night.
The official collectors of the garbage (EMSA) dumped in K'ara K'ara had a meeting. After their meeting Padre Ken was informed that he should be careful about going up on the dump site because of the escaping gases. (During our visit to K'ara K'ara trucks arrived, dumped garbage, and departed.)
Numerous people were sorting through this garbage, apparently for possible reusable items. It is doubtful that they were informed of any danger regarding escaping gases.)
The priest of the parish at K'ara K'ara before Padre Ken was asked to leave because he asked questions about the income derived from the dump and who controlled that. Padre Ken has been encouraged to not ask questions. As a priest, he visits all of the various neighborhoods around the dump, but many of the people are unwilling to associate with him, possibly because it is rumored that he is a representative of Vicente Cañas, an organization working to close the dump.
The dump continues to operate by the payment of fines from the mayor's office. For any of the money from these fines to be spent, a project proposal must be submitted to and approved by the mayor's office.
For the dump to close there must be a common agreement of the 33 communities surrounding the area. However, 7 of the 33 claim to have the greatest right to determine the fate of the dump because their inhabitants live in the closest proximity to it. They oppose the closure. In this limbo K'ara K'ara continues to operate.
People are ignorant about the poisons in the dump and their potential effect on people. Urbanization continues on the slope west of the dump site. People are building houses directly beside the base of the dump, close to all of the toxins. Speculators buy lots there, build homes, then sell them to people who are unaware of the danger. This is not large tract development. Typically, a developer will buy one or two lots then build houses and sell them.

I am very impressed by Padre Ken's persistence in enduring this tough assignment. I recall something he said as we rode in a taxi trufi to visit the dump. "Sometimes you just have to sit with problems, be with them." True, we sometimes make problems worse by attempting to impose the wrong solutions on them. And some problems by their complexity seem to mock our desire to solve them. During our brief visit it was very easy to see the potential for ill effects as I watched cows grazing on grass growing atop some of the older garbage and then saw elsewhere closeby children playing who might drink the milk from those cows. To think about K'ara K'ara is to want to fix it or just walk away and try to stop thinking about it. I cannot stop the garbage flow from the growing city of Cochabamba or the ill effects of the past 25 years of garbage flow, but I propose the following:

Differentiated future collections to divert most discarded matter into recyclable, compostable, toxic, or safe garbage;
Incentives for local universities to develop and implement effective strategies for neutralizing the negative effects of the current deposit of undifferentiated waste;
Broad-based public involvement to provide greater transparency regarding the profit incentives for operating the dump and to challenge the continued operation of the dump site as a cash benefit to a few and a health risk to many;
Monitoring of residents in the area for possible contamination-related health problems;
Your constructive suggestions.

______________

¹A little over a month before the Deep Water Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

On the street

2010-05-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

I have lived in Bolivia for only 4 months. I have spent most of that time learning to speak and write Spanish at the Maryknoll Language Institute so I can communicate with people here when Lynn and I move to our mission site. In Cochabamba, when I walk on the streets I see a lot of people selling food or small consumer goods on the street. Most of them seem to be people from the countryside around Cochabamba, dressed in traditional Quechua attire. The upscale ones have a kiosk or a cart. Others may simply have a bag of stuff beside them--fruit or vegetables--as they sit on the sidewalk and offer their wares to the passers by. That there are street vendors does not disturb me; it's that so many people seem to be trying to make a living this way.¹ Maybe a lot of them don't mind being street vendors, or even want the flexibility of being able to move to a new location at will², but I think more often than not they choose from within the opportunities available to them and that they haven't had much to choose from.

Maybe they even perpetuate this themselves by making short-sighted choices. It wasn't so long ago that I first saw a woman from the country (camposina) making a cell phone call while she sat on the sidewalk beside the sack of narangas she was selling. My first reaction was to assume that sitting on the sidewalk in her slightly dirty traditional attire was just a way of trying to look impoverished in order to influence people to buy the fruit out of pity³, and that the cell phone meant that she really had chunk of discretionary income that she opted to squander on a material possession that she would always have to keep paying for to actually make it work. Then I remembered the cell phone in my own pocket. Cell phones here are not expensive. They can be used without a contract by buying minutes only when you need them. Maybe the cell phone was part of a more efficient system of supply and demand for this woman: "Hey, I don't think I'll be able to push a second sack of narangas by sundown, so maybe hold off on that and bring me some potatoes instead." Maybe it helps her to relieve boredom there on the sidewalk or to keep someone from worrying about when she might be coming home for the day. Or maybe it was for something about her baby; she had a baby wrapped up on her lap.

Thinking about the camposina vendor with the cell phone reminded me to think about my own reactions to the things I see. I knew that I couldn't suddenly transform her life,⁴ but I also didn't want to have a reflex reaction that allowed me to just keep walking and eventually not even see her when I passed.⁵ One day the following week Lynn and I were leaving the Language Institute after classes, and just outside the gates a woman with a small child in her arms approached us. She explained that she needed help because she had no job and she had four children, one of whom had Downs syndrome. She was waiting to see one of the Maryknoll brothers inside the institute but he hadn't been able to come yet. We went back in the Institute to make sure he would come out to see her and told her that he would come when he could. We wished her good luck and walked on. About 50 yards away a woman stopped us and asked us if we would be interested in buying some bread in support of the cause she was working for. She handed us a brochure. She showed us the bread. We didn't need bread, but I checked my pockets for money. The bread cost 8 bolivianos. I had 10. We gave her the 10 bolivianos and asked her to give the loaf of bread to the woman with the child back at the gate. We pointed her out, and the woman with the bread was walking toward her as we left. We think she probably gave the loaf of bread to the woman with the child, and now I felt I knew what to do the next time I saw the woman selling narangas on the sidewalk.

_________

¹I hear that for the purpose of employment statistics, selling something on the streets counts as being gainfully employed. So, is the unemployment rate then a falsified statistic or one based on a realistic use of the criteria for employment in this market economy? And does the fact that I can internalize both sides of an argument make me a better final arbiter, or is that just a gratuitous first step toward believing what I wanted to believe in the first place, employing the appearance of a Hegelian dialectical process?

² This feels a little like the argument that even if there is such a think as global warming one of the benefits will be to bring more land into cultivation for food. ("Till, baby, till!")

³ Would there be anything wrong with having a sales tactic?

⁴I wasn't sure what needed to be transformed and how to go about that anyway, and there were too many on the street to help them all even though that shouldn't stop me from helping one.

⁵Because my own preoccupations and the settling dust made her seem to blend into the road.

Imagine, if you will, Glaucon . . .

2010-03-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

March 29, 2010

Last night Lynn and I returned from visiting two of the Jesuit missions in the Chiquita region near Santa Cruz: San Javier and Concepcion.¹ They represent different stages of mission work by members of the Catholic Church and also the dedication of the Bolivian people in preserving them. Popularized outside of South America by the 1986 film The Mission², the mission towns (called reductions, in that they gathered in people for protection) were organized by18th century Jesuits who tried to reestablish social stability for indigenous peoples living in the areas now known as Bolivia and Paraguay. Fragmentation of traditional tribal society for people in this region began with invading Spanish conquistadors and some accompanying clergy in the 16th century. The reductions were a safe haven for indigenous people against the continual need for slaves to work in the growing farming and mining efforts to accumulate wealth through forced extraction. In the reductions they could produce wares for sale and practice their own way of life. They were also exposed to Christianity and to the baroque tradition of music and art from Europe. The Jesuit missions represented a later effort to bring Christianity to the indigenous people but by blending Catholic ritual with the tribal traditions and beliefs of the peoples surrounding each mission site. Their success at this may be gauged by the growth of their own influence and by the animosity this generated among landowners in the region. In 1767, nine years before the thirteen American colonies declared independence from Britain, the Jesuits were ejected from Bolivia, and the mission towns became the property of the remaining residents.

The mission churches in the Chiquita region survived. They were cared for by the local inhabitants, and members of the Franciscan order became responsible for the services conducted there. After almost two centuries, as paint faded and wood rotted, the mission churches that survived were in need of repair and renovation. This came under the direction of Swiss architect and theologian Hans Roth who completed most of the major renovations before his death in 1999.

The churches themselves would be striking to anyone who loves color, contrast, detail and symbolism, but this was made all the more remarkable by their location--in a region filled with natural beauty but no great manmade structures other than hotels for travelers like us, or the dam at the lake by Concepcion. The improbability of their location heightened their impact on our senses as we entered. These are not museums but living churches, and our best experience of this, I think, was in Concepcion when we accompanied the townspeople on their Palm Sunday procession from the edge of the cemetery to the plaza and into the church. It was a hot day in a hot, humid climate, and the procession was packed with people carrying garlands woven with palm fronds. I thought I must be offending some by walking along the edges of the column, stopping to take photos as I went--a gringo gawker--but I wanted to share pictures with everyone who couldn't be there with me.

By the time we reached the arch of palm fronds before the great doors of the church entrance, I was sweating. In an arc over the great doors were painted the Spanish words for "The house of God and gate of heaven" (Gen. 28:17). I felt like I was one of the congregation and that I too could take a seat in the packed sanctuary, if I could find an empty one. There were none, and so we stood by an open window in the back. This proved lucky for us as the temperature rose and we had a breeze on our backs. Throughout the service we heard hymns sung by a youth chorus accompanied by violin and guitar. For the benediction I decided that I had to get a closer shot of the celebrant, Bishop Antonio Bonifacio. Of course, I expected this to be one more offense as I seemed to flip-flop from worshipper to photographer. However, as I stood beside one of the massive columns, one hand resting in the deeply carved folds, and the other poking my camera lens through the fronds of a palm leaf, I felt a tap on my shoulder. The woman standing beside me at the end of the pew smiled and stepped out, offering me her place so I could take the shot.

We were reminded again that Jesus was going to see it through to the end, inviting us to do the same. Following the recessional, we spilled out into the plaza and the thick red dust of the streets. The sun was bright and hot. One child after another offered to sell me woven crafts. I didn't mind. It felt good to be there, occasionally understanding a few remarks, sharing the joy of the people.

Cooled by the breeze passing over my own sweat, I remembered how I had felt a few years back when our family, Lynn, Emer, Norbert, and I, were at the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey in Scotland, a Norbertine monastery closed and confiscated by Henry VIII. It was beautiful and serene, but I was sad that the community had been destroyed. And now so far away in time and space I was seeing how a similar disenfranchisement had escaped destruction. I thought of Paul's remarks on faith in Hebrews 11-13.

______________________________
¹Our guide, Mercedes, explaned to us that chiquitano is one of those "lumping together"words that occurs when one group of people tags another group as all being a certain way, in this case as being shorter than the invading group, apparently based on the diminutive doorways they constructed in their traditional dwellings, and that feature in reality being more to protect themselves.
²Written by Thomas Bolt, this is a beautiful film for cinematography, acting, narrative, and considerations of moral dilemma. Bolt is also the author of the award-winnng play and 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, one that Lynn and I used to teach during discussions of film and writing. It felt good to draw physically closer to one of Bolt's subjects again (just as when we visited the grave of Saint Thomas More in Canterbury) if only for a day or so.
³Jeffrey Klaiber, S.J., identifies utopianism as a factor in the early drive toward mission in Latin America, and cites Vasco de Quiroga as having been directly influenced by Thomas More's fictional work Utopia, written in 1516, when he tried to organize two ideal communities in the area now known as Mexico. Fr. Klaiber is author of The Jesuits in Latin America and other works on the role of the Church in the economic and political history of the Latin America.

VIA CRUCIS

2010-03-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, March 3, Lynn and I accepted an invitation to attend Mass and a stations of the cross ceremony in our neighborhood. The invitation appeared on a photocopied sheet of paper posted on the outer door of our host family's home. To be sure we would arrive on time, we decided to find the house a day ahead of schedule so we followed the directions to the address on the invitation and came to the door of a house only about a block away. The houses here are surrounded by high walls and have locked gates or doors. This one was no different, but a similar photocopied invitation indicated that we were in the right place.

On the following evening we returned at 6:30 and pressed the doorbell. A middle-aged man with a kind face soon greeted us and led us in. He was dressed in plain clothes, but we soon learned that he was Padre Tito and that this structure behind the high walls was a house of study for seminarians. The chapel was a large room just to the right of the foyer. About fifteen people were already there--some seated, some standing close and chatting. In the back were three young men, two holding guitars. All seemed to be in good spirits, and soon a second priest, Juan, was welcoming us in English about equal to the Spanish we used to thank him for the invitation. No importante because our limited words were only a part of our communication: he could tell we wanted to be there and we could tell that we were welcome. Juan introduced us to a neatly dressed woman and withdrew to prepare for celebrating the Mass. This woman turned out to be the mother of our host family's father. In a moment we were laughing together and sharing the news we had heard of her recent birthday and how her three of her children--our host Henry, his brother and sister--had celebrated her birthday by hiring a mariachi band to stop by her house (just two houses down from ours) at midnight and serenade her. It was good to get to know the person who lives on the other side of the wall we pass each day on our way to Spanish classes at the Maryknoll Language Institute, the wall covered with cascades of flowers I probably mistakenly call drops of gold. It was good to learn that before retirement she had been a professor. She was energetic and observant, and when she welcomed us to the neighborhood, she did seem to speak for the entire neighborhood. Others I recognized in the congregation were the Franciscan Sisters who lived together in a house two blocks from us, among them the one from Italy who greets me with a smile when I jog past her sometimes in the early morning.

Through words and song we drew closer during the course of the Mass and shared the body of Christ. Our common beliefs united us. Following Mass we were all invited in to the social hall to drink cups of api, eat empanadas, and share information about ourselves. Most people were from the neighborhood, but several were from other Latin American countries, and Lynn and I, the only two from the United States, were welcomed again. The three young men of the choir were seminarians. Gradually people began to drift out of the social hall. Lynn and I presumed they were returning to the chapel for the stations of the cross, but when we returned there we saw that no one was there. Confused, we thanked Padres Tito and Juan and left. As we started walking along the dark street back home, we wondered how we could've misunderstood about the stations of the cross and wondered if maybe we had missed something because of our limited Spanish.

On our way back we saw a light ahead at one of the doorways and saw several people gathered around. We stopped and had our answer about the stations of the cross. Here at the gateway to this house the family was preparing one of the stations: a table covered with a white table cloth, images of Christ, Mary, angels, a wooden cross, candles, flowers, water, salt. As we looked up and down the street we saw other stations being erected and learned that the fourteen stations were arranged at the gateways of fourteen homes at intervals around the block on which we lived. We followed others to the first station and walked and sang in procession with them and the seminarians with guitars, stopping at each station for the announcement of Christ's sufferings and for the benediction. To our surprise the gateway of our hosts' home was the final station. (A neighbor took a photo of Lynn and me with our hosts, Henry and Lily.) This blessing seemed to complete the blessing of houses with the koa fires honoring Pachamama during Carnaval.

I suppose a block party can bring about good spirits among neighbors, and it would be wrong to idealize the faith of all of the participants, ours included. We were not trooping around the block in lock-step bliss. But it was beautiful to see this ceremony reverencing Christ's acceptance of sufferings extended from the church and into the homes and lives of the people nearby. And it was beautiful to see so many people voluntarily join together in a peaceful ceremony of shared belief to express their faith.

Sorrow and Joy

2010-03-03T20:06:00.000-08:00

Rantastic #1: "Anybody that thinks we're not born losers in a game of attrition is just kidding himself." I'm quoting one of my own bleak attitudes when circumstances seem to take life in the wrong direction for no apparent good reason. In my best-of-all-possible worlds people who intend to help others do so and their efforts are on the mark and the ones who are helped get better somehow and they're really glad about that and so they thank the people who helped them and then they begin trying to help other needy people with their own efforts that are on the mark or even if they've already been helping others, one by-product of the help they received is that somehow now their own perceptions and efforts are sharpened so that the quality of their help gets even better and so in this vision (I usually glaze over with joy while I'm locked onto this one) the whole universe starts dancing with 'no-problemo' harmony. And despite whatever age of aquarius reverberations flake about in this snow-globe vision, I think it's still healthy despite that nagging attitude on the sidelines, that raw aftertaste in a fabulous too-good-to-be-true dish: maybe this just precedes something terrible happening to rebalance life into an inscrutably gray mediocrity of random chaos. In fact, it's always there at the feast, that devilishly complex postre of when-bad-things-happen-to-good-people dish, and we struggle to recover from our own hard knocks or watch and try to help others struggle to recover from theirs. That too is mission, and that was the pie on my face when I heard recently that one of our compañeras at the Maryknoll Language Institute here in Cochabamba had taken a hit.

Damnificados: So what could be more absurd than a nun on mission getting mugged while walking to Mass on a celeste Sunday morning? Okay, how about the probable take--one black bag containing an umbrella and a Bible. (True, there's priceless stuff there, but you gotta know how to work with it or it just gets all over you, and it probably will get all over you anyway.) Or better, how about the method for this intended property transfer--a snag from behind bag-jacking in which one guy drives the car and his buddy leans out to grab the shoulder strap. Or even better, how about the outcome--enmeshed Sister (bag is strapped courier-style from shoulder to opposite side) is whacked on the head but struggles to keep pace with accelerating car, falls against the car and then elbow down into the gutter, bag still at her side as the white taxi (it's always a blanco taxi they say here) speeds safely off toward...what? But, of course, there's always the impact on the victim--eleven days in the hospital to deal with cuts on the head and elbow requiring stitches, bruises and road rash, five broken ribs, one of which punctures a lung, necessitating a drain tube to evacuate the blood, and, of course, that's just the physical stuff.

It's no surprise that after further healing she will complete her Spanish language training elsewhere. I'm amazed that she still plans to serve on mission in El Salvador. I hope that when she feels better she will lead others with her clear voice as she did when she concluded our prayer service with the City of God:

Let us build the city of God. May our tears be turned into dancing! For the Lord, our light and our love, has turned the night into day!

In the quiet times between my amoeba infestations, between earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, I think about these things.

Vamos a cortar la distancia entre la vision y la realidad

2010-01-31T05:26:00.000-08:00

January 30, 2010

Especially for Lynn and me, undertaking an out of country mission after having a family requires a considerable amount of unwinding from so many of those affiliations necessary for surviving in American society. During that time we tried to give back along the way, but we recognized the difficuly of doing that, especially when the needs of our immediate family asserted themselves intensely and frequently. I'm reminded of a remark by Reverend Preston Dumas of Texas, "When you're raising kids, that's about all you do." And as I think about it, that's about right. So Lynn and I found ourselves with a desire to keep on responding to those very real human needs in a way that broadened our sense of family at a time when we could manage to pursue that vision. Along with the many other people along the way who helped us, I think of Harmon Wray who suggested to me that maybe his friend Alex Weisendanger could tell us something about the Jesuit Volunteer Corp (which Lynn's professor from divinity school, Patout Burns, had first mentioned to her) and how that led to chat with Alex over some really fine brew at the Bongo Java East in Nashville, and that led to talk about living in intentional communities and opportunities for lay missionary work through the Maryknoll group in Ossining, NY and the Franciscan Mission Service (FMS) in Washington, DC. We were fortunate to be selected by FMS and to live in the mission house, Casa San Salvador, just down the street from the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, during our 3-month formation period under the direction of returned missioner Beth Riehle.

I thought about that journey as I shot this photo recently on the street in Cochabamba, Bolivia. We are in the process of finding additional supports as we gradually enter into Bolivian society. Among them are our language school, the Maryknoll Language Institute (MLI), where we spend most of our time learning Spanish, and our host family of Dr. Henry Rojas, his wife Lily Arze, their three adult children, Lupita, Diego, and Cathy, and Diego's wife Cecilia and their 3-year-old son, Sebastian. I caption the picture "Vamos a cortar la distancia entre la vision y la realidad," or "We go to bridge the gap between the vision and the reality." Those in the picture left to right are fellow Franciscan missioners Nora, Lynn, Clare and Catherine, and Padre Ignatius Harding, OFM, our mentor for mission in Bolivia. They stand before the middle panel of a 3-panel mural painted on an exterior wall of the Franciscan church. The left panel depicts common people working to realize a better life. The right panel depicts a polluted world through which combat-ready soldiers move warily. The middle panel depicts a triumphant Francis of Assisi striding through an ideal world.

We know that our mission service will give us a more Bolivian-specific understanding of the Spanish verb trabajar. We work now to acquire a common language for servicex in Bolivia, and to learn more about Franciscanism and Bolivian culture. All of our efforts proceed simultaneously.

On an afternoon not long after I took that photo we met with Fr. Ignacio at the Centro Social Franciscano on Calle Colombia, a few quadras from the Franciscan church. When we arrived the Centro was not in session, but Padre Ignatius gave us a tour. It is an immense two-storied antique casa with open porches built around a central courtyard. The story about the facility evolved was interesting to me--a property of the Poor Clares that they wanted to see put to better use. An appeal to the Franciscan Padres, some meetings with other members of the Diocese and the agenda was set to offer up the facility as a site for social services badly needed for the poor in that area of the city. The facility then became a magnet for others in the city who wanted to share their skills in providing those social services. With only a few salaried employees, the Centro offers people an impressive array of care options: primary medical and dental care, otorhinolaryngological care, psychological counseling, massage therapy, and access to counseling for alcoholics and their families through group meetings with a chapter of the local Alcoholics Anonymous. Other services include burn care for children and housing for them while they convalesce. One of the young boys in recovery met us and asked us if we would be back tomorrow--and, in fact, some of the new Franciscan missioners might return to perform their service there. Even the weekly meal prepared and served by volunteers from the Legion of Mary and others provided good service opportunities for anyone who cared to help. (As skilled choppers of potatoes, carrots, and onions--thanks to all the guys at the Fr. McKenna Center in DC--Lynn and I quickly identified a short-term service op.) And the facility itself with the broad porches, tall ceilings, and welcoming staff offered people hope.

While touring the Centro, I saw that good will toward poor people in Cochabamba is hardly fallow. May God grant us all serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. It made me feel better about the fate of people outside who crouched along the walkways and in the plazas, mendicantes begging outright or offering some small service or product like chewing gum or a tune from a flute. But the number of them doing this dwarfs anything I've seen in the U.S. It made me wonder about the causes of this poverty too and how service might work both to alleviate the suffering of those trapped in it and to keep others from being trapped. Photographing my fellow missioners before a mural, as beautiful a statement as that might make, was only a moment of psychological preparation to become a trabajador in the tradition of Francis and Clare. The need is there, the facility and companeros are there. We just need to find our place in the active picture of social response to the need.

The need for service was underscored again while we were there by the presence of Padre Edwin Quispe, OFM who leads the mission outreach effort in the Parroquia San Carlos Borromeo to the south. He talked to us and showed some of the different paths for mission there in providing instruction about the importance of good health habits and nutrition within that environmental context, after school care and tutoring for children, accompanying them in games that promote community involvement and activities such as dance from their own varied cultural backgrounds. He made it clear that with the work being done via small centros throughout the parroquia, new volunteers are needed.

I thought back to the photo of the missioners before the mural and I know that they all had their zapatas on, but it reminded me of a quote from the Bible in a reading Lynn had used from Francis Klein's Four Ways of Holiness for the Universal Church: "And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Rom. 10: 14-15).

The coming week gave me more opportunities to struggle with language (a pobre hombre is not the same as an hombre pobre), learn some Bolivian history through a presentation by Dan Moriarty, Program Director of the Maryknoll Bolivia Mission Immersion Program, and think about poverty both abstract and Bolivian style.

On the Road

2010-01-26T14:38:00.000-08:00

What's left of the mission when all of the images fall away? What energy powers the mission? The will to participate is important. The many ways to participate are important. The energy coalesces in good will and and good works. Never completely prepared for what we encounter, along the way we rediscover what we need.

Señor,
hazme instrumento de tu paz:
donde haya odio, siempre siempre yo amor;
donde haya injuria, perdon;
donde haya duda, fe;
donde haya tristeza, alegria;
donde haya desaliento, esperanza;
donde haya sombras, luz.
Oh Divino Maestro!
que no busque
ser consolado, sino consolar;
ser amado, sino amar;
ser comprendido, sino comprender;
porque dando, es como recibimos;
perdonando, es como tu perdonas;
y muriendo en ti, es como nacemos
ala vida eterna.
(San Francisco)

[I'm still polishing my translation of this, but it was great to hear the words of a buddy at the dinner table of our host family.]

Thanks

2010-01-24T10:56:00.000-08:00

January 24, 2010 Lynn and I chose to come to Bolivia because we believe in helping people in need and because we were attracted to the Franciscan approach to mission service. Wanting to be part of an organized effort never puts one entirely there. Good people have shared our mission effort by helping us begin. Lynn has her own list, and some of the names here may repeat will overlap.

Thanks to our friends at Middlebury College in Vermont: Class of '10 friends Judy and Carmen and Emily and Eugenia and Nora and Jamie and Yuki and Ashley and Johnny and Philipe and Alexandra and Bilal and Todd [We were so glad w could meet with you in November. We wish you all the best with your current semester and approaching graduation. Thanks for sharing the memories with the book that arrived on Christmas Eve], and Class '73 friend Mike [thanks for making time for us, and gracias por "Vaya con Dios" y el mundo. We hope the Student Symposium continues to be a great opportunity for students to share their research], as well as Patrick [thanks for guiding our effort to honor Norbert], and Ron [congratulations for being recognized as one of the nation's best]. Paz.

As Catholics in Middle Tennessee, we received positive support from the members of religious orders there, particularly Fathers Steve, George, Patrick, and Dexter, all of the Dominican Sisters of Nashville, and all of the Benedictine Sisters of the Monastery in Ferdinand, Indiana. All participated in the development of our family and education of us and our children, Emer and Norbert. Lynn and I both have had good friends in our work places, people who made our jobs easier by doing their own jobs well so we could focus on doing our own, and sometimes inspiring us to try new methods for better results. We believe that going on mission is not a process of leaving friends behind but one of extending ourselves to use what we have learned through our work, education and family to help others in a new and equally demanding environment. Thanks John and Maggie, Eric and Sam and Paul and Mikey, Dean and Cindy and Tammy and Caleb, David and Joe and Coleman, Donna and Joyce and Naji and Dan, Stephanie and Ali and Carolyn, Bob and Sally and Lillian and Nancy and Bruce, Cathy and Jim, Mary Joe, Isaac and Darius and Joseph and Al and Betty, Manik and Tom and Kathy and Debbi and Derenda and Dantha and Jay, Jan and Ken and Mike and Bill, Alan and Paul and Dianna, Martina and Tom and Raul and Jeffery, Arnie and Sam and Harry, Doris, Benton, Mary and James, Nancye and John, Vickie and Anne and Mary and Tim and Tim and Deborah and Dominic and Bobby, Tom and Brian and Joel, Joel and Joel, Jim and Jim and James, Natasha and Nipun, John and Phil and Amy and Christy, the nice lady with the sack of iris bulbs, WebJim, Johnny and the gang at the track, Linda, and many more.

Thanks to Tom and John and Mary Ann and Emer for letting us slip away, and Fr. Frederick for blessing our effort.

For Lynn and me, a part of being able to undertake mission service at the ages of 57 and 58 respectively is having health. Despite our voluntary adherence to good regimens of diet, exercise and vitamins, we can't claim responsibility for our own good health. We also have received good evaluation, treatment, and advice from our physicians, nurses and counselors. They have accompanied our whole family in sickness and in health, demonstrating their own professional skills and the truth of our interconnectedness, our need for each other in all human societies. So, thanks to Harry, Ralf, Misty, Gail, Jonathan, John, James, Scott, David, Peter, Paul, James, and John.

We also had to find good homes for our two cats Abbey and Elliot, and our dog, Gemma. Special thanks to Amy, Emer, and Craig for opening your homes to them.

Redistributing our stuff was an adventure we could not have completed without tremendous physical effort and kindness from organizations (Craig's List, local consignment shops, the Salvation Army, Amvets, Goodwill and the Wilson County Dump) and people (Craig and Delores and Madi and Lara and Sunshine and Leroy and Layla, Ken and Janice, Eleanor and Barbara and Tim, Dave and Elliott and Chris, Gary and Betty and Claude).

Also I would like to thank Theresa of the Tennessee Register and Bob of the Tennessean for their interest in our undertaking, and also Bitsy, sister of Padre Juan, for reminding me that I am embarking on a well-traveled road.

Thanks to everyone at Franciscan Mission Service (I'll name names later), including the bread lady.

Thanks also to Jack and Otto and Michael and all of our buddies at Calvary.

I think about you all, and it feels so good.

As I reflect on our process of departure, I'm sure I will remember others and so will revise this entry as needed.

Entering Bolivia

2010-01-12T19:07:00.000-08:00

January 6, 2010

Our mission has begun. The four new Franciscan lay missioners are nearing the end of their flight from Miami, Florida to La Paz, Bolivia. We should land in about 40 minutes or less. The plane has already begun to descend. I woke after sleeping 5 hours and actually feel well enough to keep traveling. I glance around. The other three missioners (Lynn, Clare, and Nora) are still asleep although probably lightly. The beverage cart passed down the aisle, and now I have fresh coffee. This isn't exactly roughing it--despite the pains of passing through Security twice and lugging around more baggage than I prefer. The luggage is stuffed with the stuff I apparently thought I couldn't do without. Lynn and I did the cull and cast away a number of times, so I'm accepting responsibility for the tonnage in our two (well, okay, three each counting the papers and etc. tucked into ) carry-on pieces and two large neatly crammed checked suitcases each.

Earlier in the flight Lynn befriended the woman sitting beside her, a Bolivian dentist who lives and works in Washington, DC and who is returning to Bolivia for her vacation. She included me, the husband, in the conversation briefly, and she seemed intelligent and affluent. Her brother attended Carmen Pampa, the college where Lynn and I may work. The brother became a veterinarian and apparently married a woman named Kirsten from Wyoming who was a volunteer teacher of English there and who (as Kirsten told me herself in a conversation on the Bolivian woman's cell phone) started a goat farm. The Bolivian woman was very friendly to Lynn, and they apparently shared many details about their families with each other. I was glad to see Lynn still doing what she always does so well--make friends wherever she goes.

After Lynn's conversation with the woman tapered off, Lynn turned to me and whispered that it felt a little strange to be telling the affluent woman that she was coming to her home country to work as a missioner. I found my own understanding of that feeling of strangeness. If prosperous citizens are not sympathetic with the plight of the poor in their country, they may think that it is their own fault or that perhaps it isn't really as bad for them as it may first appear. They might regard outsiders who come professing to help the poor as not understanding, or as being over-zealous about their beliefs--secular or religious-- or that perhaps the outsiders may have an ulterior agenda of social revision. It is true that outsiders may not fully understand the root and complexity of a country's social problems and may by their ignorance even be regarded as part of the social problem themselves.

These thoughts weighed on me as our American Airlines jet touched down on the runway of the La Paz airport. What peace and tranquility could I hope to bring to a country noted for uneven distribution of wealth, political struggles and a high rate of poverty among its indigenous people? Any idealized thought of this group faded as four indigenous men quickly took charge of our checked luggage and then set what seemed to me an outrageous fee for their services. I paid without quarreling because I hadn't asked the price beforehand; I was feeling more disoriented by the second as the Altiplano began to grip me. The four diminutive porters--acclimated and adept at this conquest--vanished. I chalked one up for the caveat emptor rule. Hoping to cling to something so I wouldn't have to look for something to fall on, I focused on why I had come and who had helped me to get there.

Walking with the Poor, or Hep-B: The Final Injection, Part 2

2009-12-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

My mission that morning (December 17th) was to receive the final of 3 injections for immunization against hepatitis-b. I can't say it was doomed from the start, but it was destined for revision, and probably for my own good. For one thing, if I imagined that I was walking with the poor, my own mode of transport was something of a contradiction--cruising along in the heated cab of my car, sipping a cup of fresh coffee, checking my sheet of directions from Google Maps. I had even left in plenty of time, so no worries. But I was impervious to these thoughts as I drove along, sipping and turning and merging, relaxed, feeling proud--almost noble--that I could resist the urge to steer with my knees, whip out my cell phone and text my wife some critical memo like "b back 4 brkfst."

Somewhere along Vietnam Veterans Boulevard I misunderstood a direction for a slight right and exited too soon. Lost, I pulled off the highway and stopped at a used car lot for directions. Some guy I presumed was the janitor gave me quick directions and I jumped back in the car. Then my wife called and asked if I were there yet. "No," I said and began to complain to her about the directions I had looked up and printed. She had my list of public health clinics and was kind enough to call the one I was attempting to reach, just to be sure I was going the right way, even though I knew exactly what I was doing. As I was pulling back onto the highway she rang back and told me that the clinic I was driving to was out of hep-b vaccine. My momentum got the better of me. "Impossible--why would they make an appointment for me to take this shot if they didn't have the vaccine?" "Well, that's what they said." She's been around me too long to think I would just listen to reason. "Okay, well, I'm this close, so I'll just go by to be sure. Otherwise, I'll have to pay more." I had been encouraged by the fact that their pay scale was based on income, and part of me was saying, "yes, but you could afford to pay the full price." I drove on.

After another wrong turn I discovered that I had turned off of Long Hollow Pike too soon and was headed away from the clinic. A nice Indian lady pointed me back in the right direction. Then I was looking for Blythe Avenue and was paying close attention to the directions for turns and distances. No Blythe Avenue. Several intersections later I stopped at an antiques store and went in for directions to the clinic. (At least I was in the right town.) Upon walking in I realized I had entered a slower environment. The first person I asked directed me to a second person, a woman behind a counter. She explained that I had missed Blythe Avenue because that street had been renamed for a woman named Dorothy Jordan, a school teacher who had been murdered. The woman giving me directions objected that Google Maps had directed me through the housing projects, and so she began proposing an alternate route up the highway, but then, unsure of herself, she led me to a third person, perhaps the manager or owner, who completed the directions. At one point all three people were offering suggestions. I felt like bolting out of the store now that I had what I wanted, but I thought about the fact that they had stopped what they were doing and had bothered to try to help me.

As I drove following the new set of directions, I began to wonder who Dorothy Jordan was. Up the highway, I turned left as advised and with a park on my left and a graveyard on my right drove down toward the clinic. I passed a church with a sign by the entranceway: faith is not a leap into darkness but a step toward light. That hung on me as I turned right and then into the clinic parking lot. I checked in, twenty minutes late for my appointment and worried that I would have to come back another time for the final injection. Few people were in the waiting room. After about 15 minutes the nurse called my name and looked at the chart. "Oh, are you the one whose wife called? We're out of hep-b. Sorry. We ran out yesterday afternoon." And that was it--no free hep-b today.

As I was driving back out of town, I began to recognize some places that I had seen before. I had been here before but didn't recognize it at first because of the direction I was traveling in. And my brief contact with the woman giving me directions made me wonder again, who was Dorothy Jordan, and what senseless thing had happened to her here. And as I passed the housing projects, I noted how large an area they covered and wondered why this little town had need of such a large tract of public housing. Although still in need of the final injection, I began to feel ridiculous for driving so far with such determination to pay less for a shot than I needed to, and even when I was asking other people for directions and they were giving them to me, I wanted get what I wanted and bolt. The Big Mo was gone. I slowed down.

By mid morning I was driving in to Nashville with Lynn to try again for hep-b #3. At the clinic ( first come first served) in case I hadn't learned my lesson to slow down and take things as they came, I walked in and presumed that an empty waiting room meant a shot in about 3 minutes. No, the clinic was closed for lunch until 12:30. So, we went for lunch and decided to chat until 1. When we returned to the clinic, the waiting room was crowded. Lynn and I were just about the palest people there, and much of the English spoken was either with heavy foreign accents or incorrect grammar or both. There was a smell of body odor...my own. Some of the people in the waiting room were visibly sick. Most of the adults looked stressed and preoccupied, and at least some of the young children, some of them crawling around on the floor, seemed more or less happy to be there--curious about each other or caught up with a toy. We waited about an hour or so and then went in for the shot: cost $35 bucks. It was over--the final injection. And I felt ridiculous for having rushed around thinking I was walking with the poor by going to get my hep-b shot at a health clinic.
I had a long way to go yet on the road to perfect bliss.

Just to keep things honest, that photo of me cringing during an injection is really from a few days later at a local drugstore clinic where I got a shot for the H1N1 virus: what a man!

Walking with the Poor, or Hep-B: The Final Injection, Part 1

2009-12-18T08:32:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I imagine that a reality I mandate would be best. Fortunately, I have never managed to fully realize the 100% me-authorized version of how things ought to be, but two decades of steady money and health benefits can nurture a lot of fantasies. Before leaving my job to become a Franciscan lay missioner, I was able to have a thorough round of checkups and tests, refill needed prescriptions, and complete most of the immunization shots to prepare me for service in Bolivia. And the process was not too costly in time or money because I was in the system and of the system.

Becoming a Franciscan missioner in training has left me without prescription drug coverage in my gap health insurance¹. Eventually I had to refill that 40 mg per day prescription for Lipitor², and I did so about a day before hearing a radio interview with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in which he stated that the average cost of a 30-day supply of Lipitor in the US was about $130. 00 compared to $33.00 in Canada. "Bernie," I shouted (I was alone in the car and released my inner banshee), "they burned me for $140.00!" I didn't exactly set my GPS for Toronto (I don't own one) but my fight-or flight mechanism was activated.

The next day I began making phone calls about getting the last of three shots to complete my immunization against hepatitis-b. I was trying the public health clinics in the Middle Tennessee area. One phone call informed me that the clinic in my home county was out of hep-b vaccine and wasn't sure when the next shipment would arrive. That was no good; I needed to complete this in at least the next week. I tried several others and learned that hep-b vaccine was apparently in short supply except for two health clinics (one in Sumner County and one in Davidson County) and at the travel clinic of a major medical clinic in Nashville (the cost there was about double that of the other two). The Davidson County Clinic wanted positive ID of residency in the county and otherwise would charge about $55.00. The Sumner County clinic was farthest away, but they didn't seem to care where I lived, and they even said that the cost would be based on my current income. This sounded too good to be true; upon joining the Franciscan Mission Service my income adjusted to a level more befitting my vocation. I made an appointment for 9:15 AM the following morning, printed directions from Google Maps and went on to other plans.

The next morning I rolled out with my directions, my checkbook and my cup of coffee--ready for the final injection. [Stay tuned]

__________
¹ And I thank MD, our Blue Cross and Blue Shield agent, for the coverage we do have.
² Before doing so, I should've checked with my health care savings analyst, CB; she knows this stuff.

Relinquishment: more than values-based downsizing

2009-11-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

Relevant quote when forthing: "Let us go then Tesakeh. I shall not feel comfortable until I know what it is we have to fear."

The current move for Lynn and me is about letting go of many things so we can be more free to work with the poor, but the process is challenging.

Moving is the best antidote to hyper-accumulation of stuff. Lynn and I just finished our formation process as Franciscan lay missioners¹ and had to move our belongings from the room where we lived since mid-August. The objects fit into fewer categories (store, donate, toss, pack for Bolivia) than the number of boxes we hastily stuffed them into. Some of the items-to-store would actually make their way back to Middle Tennessee during our farewell trip, and a few went to a basement corner in the mission house, Casa San Salvador. All of this moving weighed heavily on my knees-heart-mind as we trudged multiple laps up and down the narrow stairs from our third-story room to the basement or our car. While we were assessing a smaller volume of stuff than when we left our house in Middle Tennessee, the sorting process resurrected the same concerns: is it something I'll be thrilled to be rid of (take my sleeper sofas, please) is it a personal vanity thing or a tool I may really need; if it's a tool, will it be functional in the new environment (farewell, leaf blower; adios, lemon zester) and if so will I need it and must take it with me or can I probably replace it with an equivalent later; is it part of my connection to someone else (toughest category of stuff to reassess, I think) and so will I regret giving it up because it reminds me so much of our relationship that I will feel--irrationally--like I am destroying my relationship with the person if I get rid of it, or even destroying that person because I have come to think of the object as the person (in this case, maybe jettison the object pronto and, hopefully, the obsession and misplaced affection²). Of course, this kind of evaluation process coupled with late hours and extreme fatigue results in the scenario of person, object, and box, with the person looking blankly from the object to the box and back again, blinking, getting slack-jawed, and waiting for the decision to register the ka-ching of a sales event and on we go to the next object (are we there yet), and multiply this x2 and we have Lynn and Joel on the verge of succumbing to the logic of Joe³ the nomadic golfer from Beaumont, Texas, and just torch it for the sake of moving on. But we don't. We sort it and box it and get some rest before a few days of driving. We have family and friends to connect with before leaving for the next three years.

__________

¹Formation, at this point, no slight intended to the formation process, feels a bit like acquiring a driver's license in the US and then finding oneself suddenly dropped in a rental vehicle on a roundabout in London.

²I think of this at first as Chang Hsi-hsum syndrome, but shouldn't our compassion extend to Chang's case too so that we don't denigrate his need to assuage ourselves about the things we cling to? Of course, we can't have compassion without comprehension, so the connection involves evaluative self, object and subject.

³ "Three moves are as good as a fire--two if you're tight and go with it--one if you're more about goin' than stayin'."

Formation and Looking Back

2009-09-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

At Casa San Salvador Lynn and I are attending twice-daily learning sessions to prepare us for mission service to the poor in Bolivia. Most of these are informal, around a table in the large sitting room on the first floor. Some sessions focus on cultural awareness, emphasizing the need for objectivity when we inevitably begin to encounter different ways of doing things. We also discuss how our own enculturation can drive hasty responses. We try to practice greater sensitivity to others partly by learning more about our own unique personalities and backgrounds and those of our fellow missioners. We talk about some self analysis techniques, methods for approaching social analysis, popular education, and leading from behind. All of these are preparing us to play a supportive role where we are stationed, learning from the people we serve.

First steps

2009-09-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

Lynn Myrick (my wife) and I have joined the Franciscan Lay Missioners (FMS). For the next few months we're living at Casa San Salvador, the FMS mission house in Washington DC, where we hope to learn how we can better serve poor people both here and then outside the United States. Throughout our marriage Lynn and I have thought that missionary service might one day be right for us. During the last two years, and while Lynn was completing an internship as a campus minister at Furman University in Greenville, SC, we started reading about missionary service, and making applications. This past spring we attended a discernment weekend with the Franciscans and shortly afterward accepted their invitation to join them. We've been here two weeks and feel good about our decision: good instruction, dedicated fellow missioners, a well-organized program. I'll go into more of that with my next post and also look back briefly at the incredibly challenging process of making good on that accepted invitation.