Imagine, if you will, Glaucon . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.