Belleza por Todos Lados: A Quilt of River Rocks (Huaro)

Note: One reader looked up Huaro after seeing the picture of the bells posted a few days ago. However their search pointed them to a town several miles north of Andahuaylillas. Huaro is only a 10 minute ride in a car from Andahuaylillas. On google maps, it is spelled Warú. That's just how it goes with spelling Quechua names.

Catholic Things: Holy Week

Because not all readers of this little blog are Catholics, I have decided to do a recurring series of posts called “Catholic Things.” I'll use these posts to explain various aspects of Catholic tradition, especially our calendar. I hope they are accurate and illuminating. To my fellow Catholics: if I make any mistakes, call me out on it!

Holy Week Procession in Lima
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Today began the 8 day period of Holy Week. Hallmark may have made Christmas out to be the biggest season of the year, but in Catholic tradition, Holy Week is where it's at. This is the week that celebrates Jesus's death and resurrection. It is the holiest week of the year, and therefore involves the most church services. Here's what Holy Week looks like.

Palm Sunday – The day that Jesus arrives in Jerusalem (the holy city of Israel) and is greeted by crowds singing and waving palm branches. Sunday mass on Palm Sunday is longer and more ornate. People wave palms and sing during the beginning of mass. Many parishes also do a procession to the church from a nearby location.

Holy Thursday – The celebration of the last supper. This is when Jesus institutes the tradition of the Eucharist (the bread and wine that Catholics consume at each mass). It is also the night that Jesus is betrayed and captured.

Good Friday – This ironically named day is the day that Jesus was crucified and died. There are no masses on Good Friday. This is because Mass is a celebration. Instead we hold services.* Many parishes do Stations of the Cross in addition to the Good Friday Service.

Holy Saturday – This is the night of nights. The Easter Vigil Mass, held in the evening, celebrates the resurrection. Generally it is a candlelit mass. It's long, but that makes sense since it's the highest mass of the year.

Easter Sunday – This is the day of celebration of the Risen Christ. It's a joyful mass and a joyful day. The traditional Easter dinner (not a part of church celebration) in the US is lamb (because Jesus is called the lamb of God).

Holy Week is a huge extravaganza here in Andahuaylillas. Just look at this mass schedule:

Day	Time	Event
Palm Sunday	9:00 AM	Procession
	10:30 AM	Mass
Holy Monday	9:00 AM	Mass
	5:00 PM	Procession
Holy Tuesday	8:00 AM	Mass
Holy Wednesday	6:00 PM	Procession
	7:00 PM	Mass
Holy Thursday	3:00 PM-5:00 PM	Confession
	6:00 PM	Mass
	7:00 -10:00 PM	Adoration
Good Friday	4:00 PM	Procession
Easter Sunday	4:00 AM	Mass
	10:30 AM	Mass

Unfortunately, my internet situation and the busy mass schedule will make it impossible to show you day by day how the people celebrate. I promise to take lots of pictures which I'll share in the next week or two. As we begin this Holy Week, I pray that is may be a time of spiritual re-energizing for my fellow Christians and that we may be inspired by the intensity of the week to be better followers of Christ.

Beware this fruit!!!!

Yesterday, every JV in Mountain House threw up after lunch. The culprit was Chirimoya. Chirimoya is a yummy fruit that tastes kind of like strawberry and apple mixed together. We cut the skin off (standard procedure to prevent parasites) and threw the fruit into the blender, seeds and all. That was our big mistake. Chirimoya fruit is delicious and healthy. Chirimoya seeds are poisonous. The seeds are crushed to make insecticides.* Fortuantely our bodies knew what to do and within the same five minute span everone emptied their lunch into a toilet. Bertha, the school nurse and friend of the JV Community came over and gave us each anti-histamines and anti-nausea pills. She also told us to drink some milk or yogurt before bed. 

Living in Peru is a constant adventure. Unitentional group self-poisoning is just one stop on the ride.

*Source

Image Source

Noted with Translation: "Why don't you make friends with the rich boy?"

"And why don't you make friends with a rich boy, so that he can give you those things that they throw out in his house, and in this way you and your parents wouldn't have the need to look for those things here?"

"How obvious it is that you are a parrot!*" exlaimed Bautista laughing. "The rich are never friends of the poor. They don't get together with us, and they only call us when they need someone who knows how to work long and hard."

*This is from a story about a boy and a parrot.

Belleza por Todos Lados: Bells in Huaro

KKK Holy Week connection?

Next week is Holy Week in the Catholic world. So today I searched online for Holy Week pictures for young children to color (for my classes). Imagine my surprise and confusion when I found this coloring picture:

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Utterly baffled, I googled "KKK Holy Week connection?" It turns out that Spain has a tradition of wearing costumes similar to KKK costumes for Holy Week. Their tradition predates the KKK. It's a rather unfortunate similarity for American tourists in Spain I imagine.

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It's a mark of how strongly symbols enter our unconsciousness that I feel a gut reaction of anger and revulsion when looking at the above image, even though I know that the individuals are Christians walking the stations of the cross (which I do most years, but I usually wear jeans and a t-shirt). It's not a tradition in Peru, but it's an example of the miscommunications that can occur when crossing cultures.

Work Update

I'm happy to report that no surprise Religion teacher showed up on Monday. Just me. I've just had my first week of classes (Thursday and Friday I have off while the classroom professors go to Cusco for a training). It certainly wasn't great. But it certainly weren't terrible neither. I've got a lot to learn this year, but I look forward to the challenge.

As Padre Eddy* said in the first staff meeting before students come, "que vienen con fe, y van con alegría." May they (the students) come with faith, and go (or leave) with happiness. Right now I'm coming to this job with faith. Check back in December and I'll let you know if I'm going with happiness.

*Director of Fe y Alegría

Catholic Things: Feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today is March 25th. You're probably not thinking about it, but Christmas is nine months away. Hey you know what can happen in 9 months? A woman can make a baby, that's what can happen. Today is the feast of the Annunciation. It celebrates the day that the angel Gabriel appeared to a poor Palestinian teenager, living as an oppressed minority in her ancestors' home, and gave her what had to have been the most overwhelming pregnancy news ever: that she, a virgin, was chosen to give birth to a baby boy, who would be the Messiah that Israel had been waiting for for generations. 

Mary is one of the most inspiring figures of the Bible to me. She gives God a "Yes" that changes the

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course of human history. Mary was the first person to hear the good news that the Messiah was to come. God asked her to bear his son, and she gave yes. If you read the scripture, you'll notice that she says "may your word to me be fulfilled." Even God asked for consent.

Mary is witness the entirety of Jesus's ministry. She is there at his birth and his death. From the yes that she gives today, she will come to know great joys and great pains. In time she will set her son's ministry in motion. But today she doesn't know all that. 

Today she doesn't know that Joseph, the man she is betrothed to, will accept her if he finds she is pregnant. Today she doesn't that she won't be scorned and rejected from her community. Today all she knows is that God is asking something of her. And though the risk seems great, she puts forward her faith and brings up the power to say a full hearted "Yes."

Follow the link to read the story of the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke.

Belleza por Todos Lados: Cloudy Morning

Paisana Jacinta

"This is what an Andean women looks like
This is how the powerful want to see her"
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I said we'd be looking at sexism in Peru this month. Paisana Jacinta is one of the most disgusting and easily visible examples of the insection of racism and sexism that Andean women face. 

Paisana Jacinta is a regular tv show that features a man dressed up in traditional Andean women's clothing. It's a comedy show, and the joke is that Andean women are "vulgar, dirty, violent, inept, and lacking in intellectual capactiy."** Here are just some of the ways Paisana Jacinta disrepects, mocks, and enforces the oppression of rural Andean women:

• Paisana Jacinta is missing most of her teeth, a way to mock the disparity in health care faced by the people of this region. 
• The show makes fun of the rural Cusqueñan accent. This accent comes from speaking Quechua as a first language. Just as I have a US-American accent when I speak Spanish, many rural people have a Quechua accent. That's just the reality of being bilingual. Instead of marveling at the intelligence needed to be bilingual in two completely unrelated languages,* the makers of Paisana Jacinta mock Andinas for not speaking "proper" Spanish.
• Paisana Jacinta is rough, violent, and uncultured. This reinforces the idea that rural peoples are less than the people from the cities. The culture of a small place like Andahuaylillas, or an even smaller place like any of the surrounding communities, is different than the culture of a city like Cusco (which is constantly filled with tourists from Europe and the US) or Lima (which is where all the richest Peruvians live). Instead of celebrating the rich diversity of cultures within their county, the makers of Paisana Jacinta denigrate those cultures that are different from their own.

But Andean women are not standing by while this show mocks them. They are organizing against the show, striving to get it canceled. A coalition made of Asociación por la Dignidad y Derechos de las Mujeres del Cusco (The Association for the Dignity and Rights of the Women of Cusco), la Escuela de mujeres Micaela Bastidas de Espinar (The Michael Bastidas de Espinar Women's School) y la red de Mujeres Canchis (The Network of Chanchis women) is leading this movement. These women are savy. These women are organized. They have the support of a Asociación por la Vida y la Dignidad Humana (Associaton for Life and Human Dignity) and Instituto de Defensa Legal (The Legal Defense Institute). They have brought a legal action against Paisana Jacinta to get it taken off the air.

"Ello genera un estereotipo de mujer andina que únicamente ocasiona, promueve y refuerza la discriminación por origen étnico y cultural, en vez de fomentar el pleno respeto a su identidad cultural y a su integración plena a la Nación."**

"It [Paisana Jacinta] generates a stereotype of andean women that only causes, promotes, and reinforces discrimination by ethnic and cultural origina, instead of encouraging the full respect for their cultural idential and their full integration into the nation [of Peru]"

This show should be taken off the air. The joke isn't funny, it's cruel.

I'm embedding an episode of Paisana Jacinta. Though I am loathe to add to the view count for this video, it is sometimes necessary to show such examples of racism to remind people that racism is alive and well.

*Spanish and English are more similar than Spanish and Quechua. Spanish and Quechua have completely different rules of grammar no shared roots in a language like Latin.
**Source - Presentan Acción de amparo conta "La Paisana Jacinta"

Belleza por Todos Lados: Clored flags pasted on the blue sky

Apostolic Availability

Every organization has its buzzwords; apostolic availability is one of JVC's. Apostolic comes from the word apostle, referring to the 12 closest followers of Jesus. The idea of apostolic availability means being open to change in what's needed from you, it means being willing to follow the Call wherever it may lead. In the JVC context, being apostolicly available means accepting how different your JV reality can be from the dreams you had when you first signed up. At it's most frustrating, it seems like JVC's way of covering itself when things don't go as planned.

Things aren't going as planned with my worksite. If you look at the FAQ page you'll see this:

What will you be doing?
Teaching English at the Fe y Alegria San Ignacio de Loyola School.

Guess what I'm not doing...Teaching English at the Fe y Alegría Sand Ignacio de Loyola School. Here's the story.

Belleza por Todos Lados: "And God saw that it was good."

"Benjamín, you're eating here!"

School got out early today. The kids were happily streaming out the doors at 12:30, an hour and a half before the usual 2 o'clock. But I'm not a student anymore. I got to see what goes on behind the curtain of surprise early dismissals.

Meetings.

That's why the kids left early, so the teachers could stay late discussing things. Of course that meant I stayed late. No one likes meetings. I know that. But meetings are different when they're in your second language. They're more tiring. I also don't know much of anything about how things are supposed to work at the school so I'm often playing the double catch up of "what did that word mean?" and "what does the acronym that came after that word stand for?" And in the background was a much more important question "will there be food left at the comedor when this meeting gets out?"

We eat lunch at the parish comedor, which runs a hot lunch program for local kids. Because we are parish volunteers we get the food for free. Our monthly food budget it built around the assumption that we are served lunch everyday. We only shop for breakfast and dinner supplies. If I missed the food at teh comedor, I'd be having at best a very bland lunch. At worst a small snack and holding out till dinner. But the comedor is best. It's delicious food, cooked by 3 expert cooks who gab away in Quechua and treat us like they're our second moms. They serve lunch from 1:30 to 2:30.

I got there at 3:30

"Benjamín, there's no food left. Where were you?" asks Sra. Estela.

"I had a surprise meeting and I only just got out."

Sra. Julia greets me with the usual kiss on the cheek and then dashes out of the room saying "Wait right here!"

She comes back with a thin piece of cow meat and starts frying it in a pan. Sra. Estela heats up a a pot that has a bit of pumpkin puree left in it and scoops me a bowl of rice.

"Benjamín, don't worry, you'll eat." they tell me.

I try to protest telling them that I'll go home and make something. "I can make some rice..."

"But we have rice here," says Sra. Estela.

"Well I can take that and cook an egg and put it with some vegetables."

They laugh. "Benjamín, you're eating here!" they insist.

Of course they won the argument. It's hard to argue against good cooks who want to feed you when you're very hungry. Of course it was a delicious bowl of food (the food is always served in a bowl, with a spoon, no matter what it is). It was just one example of the generosity and kindness of so many of the people I have met in Andahuaylillas, the inspiring care for the foreignors in their midst that shows me how I want to be when I can be a host back in the US. It's one of the parts of being here that makes it home - I got people looking out for me, and they're smiling the whole time.

Belleza Por Todos Lados: Life on top of the Mountain

Happy Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all my fellow Irish descendents. There's no Guiness or Irish Whiskey in Andahuaylillas so drink an extra (or 2 or 3) for me.

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And happy anniversary of being elected to Pope Francis! Peruben Fun Fact: I was in Peru when Francis was selected. I remember we were walking back to the study abroad office from lunch at a chinese restaurant and Logan got a text message. He looked up at me and said "Habemus papam." Francis is a rockin Pope. If you need convincing, see this list of 21 Reasons Pope Francis is Everyone's Person of the Year

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Belleza por Todos Lados: A Cup of Light

Sourdough Success

If you asked me at any point in the last three years "What do you do?" I would have told you "I'm a baker."

If you asked me the same question today, I'd tell you I'm a Jesuit Volunteer. But that doesn't mean I've left baking behind, I just don't get to do it as much. I've been making bread occassionally since I arrived here in Andahuaylillas, but last week was a special first.

Last week I made my own sourdough starter. I've never made it from scratch before, so I did some research. Most sites I read suggested using the yeast on the skins of grapes. So when the woman we buy vegetables from gave us a bunch of grapes for free two weekends ag I knew it was time to go for it. I fed it carefully everyday after school. And Sunday I made bread with it. I was nervous - this was newish territory for me - but hopeful.

And it worked! So I can make sourdough bread whenever I like. And I can start to explore the world of sourdough products. Like sourdough pancakes. I've heard of them, but never had them. Are they any good? I don't know, but I can make some and find out.

BTW, there are two patron saints of bread. The first is Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. The second is Saint Nicholas (yes, that Saint Nicholas). But despite my Catholic upbringing, Fornax (Roman goddess of the oven) is the first one I think of when it comes to baking.

Noted with Translation

Happy those who can give without remembering and receive without forgetting.

Women's History Month: Saint Matilda of Ringelheim (aka Saint Maud)

Doesn't it look like she's telling the king what to do?

Mathilda was born in 895 in present day Germany. She grew up in Herford Abbey, where her grandmother was the Abbess. She was married to Henry, the Duke of Saxony who in 919 became King Henry. Queen Mathilda was very generous with state resources, and her husband supported her efforts on behalf of the poor and the imprisoned. When he died in 936, her son Otto became king. Mathilda established Quedlinburg Abbey in Saxony in memory of her husband. In 966 her granddaughter, also named Mathilda, became the first abbess.

At first Mathilda stayed at court as Queen Mother. But in part of a growing rift between the King and one of his brothers, Mathilda was denounced for spending too much from the royal treasury on charitable activites. She was eventually invited back to court at the urging of King Otto's wife, Queen Edith.

Mathilda died on March 14, 1968 and is buried in Quendlinburg Abbey.

Saint Mathilda is recognized for her generous almsgiving and devoted prayer life. According to one biographer she would sneak away from her sleeping husband in the middle of the night to go pray. She is most recognized in Germany.

Image Source

Who Said That? : Why the speaker is as important as the speech

“And the quotes that I found?” asked Pierre as he, Theresa, and I hung up the welcome banner on the door of the school. He was referring to some quotes he found to be part of the display on the board by the main office.

“They said they weren't going to use them because none of them were from Peruvians,” replied Theresa.

There was a brief moment of silence while we tied the knots to secure the banner. Then Pierre voiced the thought that was clearly eating at him. “It seems to me that what's important is what was said, not who said. Why should it matter if they were not from Peruvians?”

Piere and his wife are missionaries from Europe. They both work as psychologists in the Fe y Alegría schools. At the time, I couldn't come up with a very good response to Pierre’s question. What I said was, “Well in my high school, we had lots of quotes from famous Americans. It's a way to build appreciation for your culture.” But I wish I had been quicker on my feet, I wish I had been more elegant. Because Pierre's question was a doorway. It was a doorway to consciencization and important discussion of race, culture, and education. So I've been thinking about it all week. I think I've finally found the words I was looking for.

Morning Song - Antipatriarca

Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux is outspoken, socially conscious, and full of righteous fury at the social sins of the world. She's also got a great voice, a firery flow, and fantasticly produced tracks. This one, off her most recent album "Vengo" ("I come"), is one of my favorites. And it's perfect for women's history month.

No sumisa ni obediente - (Neither submissive, nor obedient)

Mujer fuerte insurgente - (A strong insurgent woman)

Independiente y valiente - (Independent and brave)

Romper las cadenas de lo indiferente - (Break the chains of the indifferent)

No pasiva ni oprimida - (Neither passive nor oppressed)

Mujer linda que das vida - (Beautiful woman who gives life)

Emancipada en autonomía - (Emancipated and autonomous)

Antipatriarca y alegría - (Antipatriarch and happy)

A liberar - (Liberate)

Don't understand Spanish, or maybe just Ana's accent? Click here for both Spanish lyrics and the English translation.

Belleza Por Todos Lados: Look to the left, look to the right

Feliz Día de la Mujer

Happy Women's Day to all the women in my life. I'm thinking especially of my 5 housemates Lucia, Theresa, Victoria, Jacqueline, and Erin. But most importantly these women from home:

Quarterly Review

On the wall near the spirituality space on the second floor of our home is a post it with a quote from Pedro Arrupe, SJ. It reads “una experiencia no reflexionada es una experiencia no vivida” - “an experience that is not reflected upon is an experience that is not lived.” Part of my nightly prayer involves review and reflection on the day, but a broader perspective can reveal themes that are missed. Sometimes we need to step back from examining the trees that make up the days and take in the forest of our lives.

March 4 was a special day. It marked 3 months since Erin and I arrived at Alejandro Velasco Astete airport in Cusco where we were met by Jacqueline, Victoria, and Nelson and driven to Andahuaylillas for the very first time. It also marked 2 years to the day since I first arrived at Jorge Chávez airport in Lima where I was met by Lali (the host director of IFSA-Butler Peru) and taken in a taxi to Miraflores to begin my first time living outside the US. Obviously that first trip to Peru was profoundly impactful – 18 months later I was looking for a way to move back. But these two stretches of life in Peru are very different. In 2013, I was a student in Lima, here to learn about a culture and gain proficiency in a language. In 2015, I'm a religious volunteer in Andahuaylillas, here to serve and accompany.

Looking back over the past three months I see two distinct but related themes: Building Community and Making Home.

First, Building Community. Community is one of the four values of JVC. Over the past three months, we have built our new community. It took some time to even get started - Theresa was gone for six weeks, Jacqueline and Victoria had visitors for much of January, and Lucia only just moved in last month. But here we all are.

On our first retreat, the JVs focused on the value of Community. We got to know each other in the intentional way that is so rare for casual roommates (how often do discuss how to be in conflict with someone?). On that weekend in the Sacred Valley, we created a sense of Us - the whole that is greater than the sum of five individuals. Jesuits talk about being men for others. Here in Mountain House we are a man and women for each other. There's a sense of care here. 'You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends,' the old saying goes. Yet friends come and go, but family remains. Here, we can't choose our community mates. We all chose the JVC program, and JVC picked our community mates for us. But even though we didn't choose each other from the get-go, we're choosing each other daily. I appreciated that choice on Monday when Theresa bought me cookies to celebrate the first day of school for staff and to welcome me to the workplace. I made that choice on Monday night when I stayed up to make English muffins for Community breakfast on Tuesday. I saw that choice last weekend when Victoria asked for Jacqueline's feedback on some writing and Jacqueline gave her careful, useful, and loving responses. I tasted that choice after our retreat when we all went out to eat at Papacho's. I hear that choice when Jacqueline plays her guitar and sings in the evenings. I smell that choice when Victoria brings a birthday cake back from the oven. I felt that choice Friday morning when Victoria and Jacqueline welcomed us back from Lima with hugs. 11 months ago I chose to live in intentional community, but I didn't chose these people. Now, I choose them daily.

And beyond the community in our house, we are blessed with a large volunteer/religious community. There are Marta and Victor, so generous and kind. Their visits always brighten the house. There's Padre Calilo with his sense of humor and a taste for fine food. There's Hermana Rosario who is the most impressive person I've met since moving here but approaches you with care, with confidence in your ability to achieve things, and the expectancy that you will achieve. As my mother would say based on her JVC year in Seattle, we are all working in the vineyard. We're in different parts of the vineyard, doing different tasks, but all working to the same goal, all conscious of each other's work. I hope that the product of this Quispicanchi vineyard is a fine wine (and not super sweet like most Peruvian red wine), but I know that that isn't up to me. It's up to all of us. It's up to this community which we have begun to build and will continue building as long as we are all here.

The second theme of this quarter has been Making Home. Boston has always been home for me. I have lived in the same neighborhood since I was 1 year old. I've been eating the same perfect sourdough bread from the same bakery since it opened in 1997. I've attended the same church all my life. I know where I'm from. I have deep roots that were not touched by the frost of my difficult college years. But now I find myself transplanted.

I can't say that this is the first time I've lived somewhere else (I've lived in this very country before), but this time is different. Living in Lima I always knew I was passing through, the end was easily in sight. I was there to learn, not to live. This time, I'm here to live. I'm here to be. I'm going to know so many people by the time I leave that I won't have enough paper and ink to write all the goodbye cards. I'm not from Andahuaylillas, I never will be, but there is a stronger sense of belonging. For the first time, somewhere other than Boston is home. For the first time ever, I don't live in the 617.

And that's sometimes hard.

But it's getting easier. I know which market to go to for which foods now. I have some friends outside of parish and work connections that I'm getting to know. On January 25^th, Erin and I trudged up the river-rock paved street after 22 hours on a bus from Lima and 30 minutes in a cab from Cusco. As our ankles worked to keep us upright and our legs sang in relief at the chance to move after almost an entire day spent sitting, Erin spoke. “There's something about coming back to a place after being away that makes it home.” She's right. Since we got back from our Lima trip, I've realized that the word I use in my head for this building that I live in has changed from “the house” to “home.” How strange to think that I, who have lived in the same neighborhood all my life* could now have a home across the globe.

How beautiful.

“The ‘home’ represents the most precious human treasures, that of encounter, that of relations among people, different in age, culture, and history, but who live together and together help one another to grow. For this reason, the ‘home’ is a crucial place in life, where life grows and can be fulfilled, because it is a place in which every person learns to receive love and to give love.”
-Pope Francis

*Technically the first year of my life I lived in Misison Hill, but it sounds better the way I wrote it.

Belleza Por Todos Lados: Rodrigo el Crocadillo

My host brother's real stuffed crocodile.

Women's History Month: Saint Colette

Today, as I learned in my research for this morning's post, is the feast of Saint Colette. I keeping with
the suggestions I made this morning, I thought I should find out who she is and why she's a saint.

Life
Nicole Boellet was born on January, 13 1381 to Robert Boellet, a carpenter at the Benedictine Abbey of Corbie, and Marguerite Moyon. According to Saint Colette's biographers, Marguerite and Robert were in their 60s when Marguerite gave birth to Nicole. They had prayed to Saint Nicholas - yes, that Saint Nicholas - for a child and named the baby after him. There wasn't much for a poor girl to do in the late 14th century, so when her parents died she joined the Beguines (a lay religious order). Colette decided that the Beguine life wasn't intense enough for her so in 1402 she joined the Third Order of St. Francis (another lay religious order). But that wasn't intense enough either. After four years with the Third Order, she followed the call to reform the Second Order of St. Francis (so she basically upgraded in religious life).

Under the authority of the Antipope* Bendict XIII (it was a hard time for Catholicism - there were two men claiming to be the pope at the same time, which might seem normal since we have two popes now, but these guys weren't friends, and both wanted the keys to the popemobile), she joined the Order of Poor Clares (contempletive nuns connected to the Franciscans). Between 1406 and 1412 she founded a number of new monestaries and brought the Order of Poor Clares back to its roots. The monestaries who followed her reform had to follow her prescriptions of barefootedness (sounds like the order for me!), extremem poverty, perpetual fasting, and abstinence (I spoke too soon).

She died on March 6, 1447.

Source

Miracles
Saint Colette is credited with two miracles in her Wikipedia article. In the first, she stopped at a friend's house on the way to Nice. Her friend was having major difficulties in childbirth with her third child (and probably less than pleased to have old friends stopping by looking for a bed and supper when she was busy trying to have a baby). Saint Colette "immediately went to the local church to pray for her" (and probably to remove herself as a nuissance). The baby girl was born healthy and the mother survived. She credited Colette's prayers.

The second miracle came when a local peasant had a stillborn child. The father was concerned for the baby's soul.** The local priest refused to baptise the dead baby and told the father to go to the St. Colette's monestary. When he arrived there, Colette removed the veil that the Antipope had given her and had the father wrap the child's body in it and then bring it back to the priest. The father obeyed and by the time he arrived back at the parish the baby was alive and crying. The priest went through with the baptism.

Fun Fact
For all you folks reading this at home in Boston, you can drive by a Poor Clares cloister in West Roxbury. It's on the rotary connecting Centre Street with the Arborway (near the front gate of the Arboretum).


*Antipope=favorite word I learned this week
**In the Middle Ages it was believed that unbaptised babies couldn't go to heaven. They thought God was a lot meaner and more unfair than we think he is. But maybe, since the Middle Ages were such a sucky time to be alive, that makes sense.

Belleza Por Todos Lados: Incan Steps

8 Ways to Celebrate Women's History Month in Your Home Parish

March is Women's History Month. I'd like to bring some focus to it here on my blog. Feminism and women's oppression are very relevant topics to my experience in Peru. Machismo and domestic abuse are uncomfortably common here in Andhuaylillas. On top of that, the Catholic church, which is made up of mostly women, has it's own traditions of sexism. Finally, I live in a house of 6 that only holds one Y chromosome (hint:it's mine). Living with 5 women, I would be a fool if I didn't open my ears to their stories, their experiences, and their insights. This month let's explore the sin of women's oppression, celebrate women's triumphs, and examine ourselves in how we view and treat the women in our lives.

To start the month off, I want to offer some suggestions to parishes that wish to celebrate Women's History Month.

1. Witness by the Women. My home parish, St. Katharine Drexel, has a different woman speak during mass each week. The women give their testimony to God's movements in their lives, to the joys and the sorrows they have faced, to the troubles they have overcome. These talks could easily be placed outside of the mass. Indeed they could be placed outside of the church and down in the church hall. But they aren't. The message is clear: the witnesses of these women are sacred. “These are my daughters, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to them."
2. Place women in all the prominent lay positions during the mass. Say a mass where all the readers are women, the cantor is a woman, the Eucharistic ministers are women, and yes, Cardinal Burke, the altar servers are female.
3. Add the Hail Mary to each mass. Perhaps place it after communion. As Padre Calilo said at Christmas Eve mass, “Jesus was born because God so loved the world, and because a women said yes.”
4. Focus the prayers of the faithful on women's issues. There's lots of women's issues. Can't think of any off the top of your head? No worries, I'll help you out. Here are 5 statistics:    
   1 - 1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Among all rape victims, about nine out of ten are female.
   
   2 - Around 14 million girls, some as young as eight years old, will be married in 2014.
   3 - An estimated 1.2m children are trafficked into slavery each year; 80 per cent are girls.
   4 - In 10 countries around the world women are legally bound to obey their husbands.
   5 - Only 76 countries have legislation that specifically addresses domestic violence – and just 57 of them include sexual abuse. (There are 196 countries in the world). 
5. Priests, focus your sermons on the female saints during daily masses. 
• March 6 - Saint Colette (hey that's today!)
• March 14 - Saint Maud
• March 16 - Saints Mary and Abraham
• March 22 - Saint Catherine of Sweden
• March 25 - Aunnciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
6. Switch up them pronouns! (This one might need some explaining.)
   Quick, imagine God. What does God look like? Most of you, maybe all of you, are imagining God looking something like this impressively tall man.* 

   

   First image that came up when I google image searched "God"

   God's a white man. That's a clear message in our society. It may not be intentional, and I'm not here to call people sexist for imagining God as a white man or for reinforcing that image. I'm not even saying that it's a bad image of God. I am saying that this thing we do - where we consistently depict God as a very big bearded white man - is sexist. It's a sin, because sexism is a sin. And we don't want a sexist church. Jesus wouldn't be too happy with us for that, after all, he loved his momma something fierce. Is this the message we want to teach our daughters - that God is nothing like them? Is this the message we want to teach our nonwhite chilren - that God looks like the oppressors in their society?
   
   So what can we do about this limiting image we have of God? God is the Father. But God is also the Mother. We use male gendered pronouns for God because the scriptures were written in a time when patriarchy was even more powerful than it is today. Now we refer to God as “He” out of habit. We can change that. For women's month, let's change the pronouns that refer to God in the mass. Let's call God our heavenly mother. Let's ask for Her mercy. Let's say the Our Mother prayer instead of the Our Father.** Let's push ourselves to rethink the wording of our familiar prayers. Let's reconsider the limitations we put on our relationship with the Almighty when we only concieve of God as a bearded white man. 
7. Let a woman preach. According to Canon Law***, only a priest can give a sermon/homily. But there is a provision in Canon Law for laity to preach. Canon 766 states

   The laity may be allowed to preach in a church or oratory if in certain circumstances it is necessary, or in particular cases it would be advantageous, according to the provisions of the Episcopal Conference....

   Would is be advantageous to hear from the women in your parish? Do you know a nun who's a real firecracker? Might she be worth listening to, might she not have some useful spiritual insights into the Gospel readings?
   
   If letting a woman (laity or nun) preach is too much, then have the parish priest give a short homily and allow time for a woman to give a reflection. 
8. Blend a Communion Service with a Mass. What do you do if the priest is late? Do you just go home? That seems like a waste. After all, you go to church to experience God, not a priest. Here's how one catholic parish deals with the issue of late priests 

   If all else fails and the priest hasn't arrived by ten minutes after Mass was due to start, we start without him. On only one occasion did we get to the Gospel with no priest and we continued with a Eucharistic service giving Holy Communion from the reserved Sacrament. I have subsequently been advised by our Diocesan Liturgical Commission that we acted correctly. 
   (from the forum discussion "What to do if the priest is late for mass?" on forums.catholic.com)

   So what if we acted as if the priest was late for mass? A respected woman of the parish, perhaps a nun, can begin the service. She can say the opening prayers and give a reflection on the readings. She can perform the whole liturgy of the of the word. Then when it's time for the liturgy of the eurcharist to begin, she can step back and the priest can step forward. I've been in this situation once, and this is just how it proceeded. I didn't feel like the nun who lead the beginning of the service got in the way of relating to Jesus. 

Thanks for reading. Did I make you think? I hope so. As psychologist William James said "thinking is for doing." So don't just sit there and think, DO SOMETHING! Bring up an idea you liked to you parish council or pastoral committee.  Suggest other ideas in the comments. Get some conversations going. More than half of churchgoers are female (source); let's pay more attention to them. The Church can be better than She is today. She can be more open, more loving, more caring. Push her to be her best self. That will help us be our best selves. Push her to be a better Bride of Christ.

*Seriously, he's got to be miles tall!

**It's the same prayer, with just one word changed. Kind of like how sometimes we say “forgive us our trespasses” and other times we say “forgive us our debts.”

***For the non-Catholics out there, Canon law=Catholic Church law (not laws about canon use). Yes there are real rules for what constitutes mass and what doesn't. There's lots of rules in Catholicism. Sometimes that's frustrating and limiting, sometimes that's directing and enlightening. Nothing's perfect.  

Sources

From point 4, Item 1, Items 4-5
Image of God

Added to Reading/Viewing List: Turn Right at Machu Picchu

Having just finished the series on the Incas, I think now is a good time to add a book to the  Reading/Viewing List. This is one of the two books that I used for most of my research on the Incas. I only read a chapter of the other book. It was a very good chapter, but I don't feel confident that I can recommend it at this point. Maybe someday I'll finish it and get back to you.

Anyways, here's my thoughts on why you should read Turn Right at Machu Picchu. You can find this review and all other suggested Reading and Viewing here. 

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time
Mark Adams
My parents gave me this book for Christmas in 2013 after I had returned from my first Peruvian adventure. I promptly lost it a few weeks later in JFK airport. I was so glad to see it on the bookshelf in the Mountain House. I've been to Machu Picchu twice already. Reading this book just made me want to go again.

Mark Adams worked for National Geographic Adventurer magazine as a writer and editor. But he wasn't an adventurer himself. Then he grew obsessed with Hiram Bingham, the man who is credited with the discovery of Machu Picchu. So he decided to follow in Bingham's footsteps. The result is this book. Adams deftly weaves three narratives - the fall of the Incas, Bingham's adventures, and Adams's own wild romp through the Peruvian highlands - into an illuminating and laugh out loud tapestry of Peru's history and culture. If you're toying with the dream of going to Machu Picchu someday, read this book. It will give you the push to buy those plane tickets. And if you you're planning on visiting your favorite gringo living in the Peruvian highlands next year and want to do some sightseeing along the way, read this book. It's easy, it's funny, and you'll be surprised how much you learn about Peruvian history and modern Peruvian culture.

Home Only Grows

Two years ago I arrived here
to this city
to Lima
To begin a "time out of time"
I arrived as a student
I arrived with few words, with the desire to learn.

Three months ago I arrived here
back to ths county
back to Peru
forward to the town of Andahuaylillas
To throw myself into the messiness of world
I arrived as a volunteer
I arrived with fluency, with a desire to serve.

Yesterday I arrived here
back to this city
back to Lima
I arrived with a tourist visa
I arrived with documents, with a desire to become a resident.

Tomorrow I leave here
to go to Andahuaylillas
to go back home
I'll arrive home as a resident
I'll arrive with an official ID, with the sense that I belong here.

Time and space fold back in on themselves.
The world only shrinks.
Home only grows.

A Day to Mark

Today is a double milestone. First, it's the 3 monthiversary of Erin and I arriving to our new home in Andahuaylillas. That means the first year is one quarter over. I can barely believe it.

Secondly, it's the 2 year anniversary of my first arrival in Peru. Little did I know as I quietly rode in the cab from the airport to the welcome hostel that I would be back today applying for a residency card.

That's right, all the previous migrations issues have been sorted out. Erin and I arrived in Lima today to complete the next step in the process. Say a prayer to the saint of efficiency in government offices (whoever he or she may be) that we can head home soon.

Belleza Por Todos Lados: La Cruz (The Cross)

Belleza Por Todos Lados: Textured Grey Sky

Belleza Por Todos Lados: A Delicate Pink

A Trip to Cuatro Lagunas

I've talked before about the community of volunteers in this area before. It's good to have others who are sharing in this experience. I especially like that the community extends beyond the 5 person JVC community to include the four European volunteers. This Thursday was something of a commissioning day for the Quispicanchi volunteer community.