Cooling Our Heels During the Blockade

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?

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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

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.

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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

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.                                    
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1Doctor Pangloss, true to his phenomenal longevity in Voltare's Candide, is alive and well in Bolivia.

Thanks

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

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. 

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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

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

Reflections on Language School

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.