Church loses, Love wins

Last Friday the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops lost on the issue of gay marriage. As good Catholics we have not choice but to be ashamed. We're ashamed because the Catholic Church lost today. Just as it does Cardinal Sean, this saddens me. But maybe the USCCB can take some comfort here.

Last Friday, love defeated hate. And God is love. So maybe that means God won. To the USCCB this may not be as exciting as if they had won. But to the 60% of US Catholics who support gay marriage, to the 60% of us who don't denigrate some forms of love as less than others, it's more than enough.*

Social Justice in Healthcare

First things first: I finished my antibiotics on Thursday morning. I feel right as rain. I'm doing what I can to maintain my good health and care for myself. Now I can reflect a bit on the care I received at Clínica San José and what I saw there.

Overall my care was good. The objective of healthcare is to return a person's body to homeostasis. Objective accomplished. My one complaint about the attention I got was that they forgot to give me dinner. It wasn't until I asked multiple people about food that they finally bought me some soup from a take-out two hours after dinner had been served.

The big problem I saw at Clínica San José was racism. The sixth floor, where I waited for my test results and ended up staying the night, was the tourist floor. It was exceedingly nice. You saw the pics, it was so nice that all it lacked was a kitchen and it would have been a comfortable apartment for 2-3 people. The other floors (not for tourists) were not as nice, at least not the bits that I saw as I passed through them on my way up.

Weather

We almost never talk about the weather here, because it's pretty much the same every day. It's hot in the sun, cool in the shade, and cold at night (remember our house isn't insulated and doesn't have heating). Here's a glimpse at weather report for the valley last week.

Mountain House and Health

Two weeks ago was the first time I had to go to the clinic since I've arrived here. Theresa hasn't been to the clinic yet this year. She and I are the exceptions. Between Theresa and I there's been 1 trip to the clinic this year (mine). Everyone else has gone multiple times.We don't know why this is the case. It probably has to do with the environments we grew up in. Maybe T and I ate lots of dirt as kids?

Illness isn't uncommon here, it's practically expected. The most common sicknesses are parasites, intestinal infections, salmonella, and giardia. The common thread – they're all digestive track issues. The food and water here is hard on our digestive tracks. As I mentioned before, we peel anything that can be peeled (e.g. tomatoes). Things that can't be peeled, like bell peppers and spinach, we soak in bleach water before eating. It's a given that we don't drink tap water. We either purify it with micropur tablets or boil it. Inside the house we work hard to protect ourselves.

Belleza por Todos Lados: Secsayhuaman

The Planet's Pope

This commentary from CruxNow is worth reading if you're interested in Catholicism and ecology at the same time: Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical is even more radical than it appears

The author highlights many quotes from the new encyclical by Pope Kick Ass I. Two of them stuck out to me in big ways,

“The creation accounts in the book of Genesis contain, in their own symbolic and narrative language, profound teachings about human existence and its historical reality. They suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself."

Pachamama (Incan earth goddess, the Earth Mother) is still a big deal here. When I attended the dedication for the new parish center building in Huaro there was a pitcher of Chicha sitting quietly on the table. I'm pretty sure that they used it for the traditional pouring out of a libation to the Pachamama. It would have been wrong not to pour out a libation to her. Andean theology never fogot the importance of the Earth in our religious experience and role as human beings in the world. No one from around here is foolish enough to think the Earth is just a round ball of resources that we can use however we like. This third relationship that the Pope recognizes may be radical in mainstream Catholic theology and surprising to the writers at Crux, but from the mountains of Peru it's just theology at its most basic.

“The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things.”

Two things:

One, anyone else thinking of Thich Naht Hanh with that stuff about mystical meaning being found in a leaf or a mountain trail? If you're not, go read Living Buddha, Living Christ by TNH.

Two, "discover God in all things." That passage is from the end of the encyclical. It looks like the first Jesuit pope let St. Ignatius have the last word.

Health Update

Thanks all for your concern about my recent illness. I'm back home and feeling fine. I've got a round of Cipro to finish off the bacteria that attacked my gut. I'm looking forward to a week where I get Monday and Wednesday off for various reasons, so I'll get plenty of rest. Always remember the rule of thumb with vegetables in the Andes: Peel it. If you can't peel it, bleach it.

Sickness finally strikes

It finally happened. The stomach of steel was defeated and I got sick. Friday morning I woke up at 3 with abdominal pain and spent 90 minutes expelling gas form both ends of my digestive tract. I passed so much gas and burped so much I'm surprised I hadn't been floating near the ceiling like Charlie Bucket and Grandpa Joe when I woke up. I had one of the main symptoms of a parasitic infection: the parasite burps. Parasite burps are just the worst. You know how if you burp soon after eating sometimes you can taste a little bit of you meal in burp? Well parasite burps taste like you just ate a literal shit sandwich. It's like farting through your mouth. Gross to read? Yes. Lots grosser to go have go through.

Having two grandmothers who were both nurses taught me not to mess around with my health. So I took a car in to Cusco at 9 to visit Clinica San José, where they know a number of JVs by name. Erin explained the whole process to me so I got through it all smoothly. I talked with the insurance company and confirmed that they'd cover the visit (every doctor's visit is completely covered in our insurance).

I gave a blood and poop sample (2 separate samples) and waited on the 6^th floor, which is the cushy floor for tourists. When my results came back the doctor told me I had a bacterial infection in my intestine and parasite eggs. So he gave me antibacterials, antiparasitics, anti-nausea pills, and probiotics.* I took my first dose of the meds and left the clinic.

the view out the window of the 6th floor

I had to run an errand for the house at Plaza Vea – the massive supermarket that I, having grown up with a supermarket that has less than 8 aisles, find overwhelmingly huge. It's probably a normal size market for a lot of Americans. I picked up brownie mix and whipping cream. At the register I had to run up to the bathroom where I threw up the meds I had ingested just 20 minutes before. So I decided to return to the clinic to talk with the doctor again.

I ended up puking again near the manager's office. So the doctor decided to give me an IV and have me stay the night - in the fanciest hospital room I've ever seen - to stabilize my system so I can take meds in the morning.

Erin and Theresa were wonderful enough to stop by and bring a bag of items I requested from my room. So now I'm set with wifi, my laptop charger, and Netflix (Agents of SHIELD Season 2!!!). My left hand is very cold (the IV blocks my sleeve from fully covering my arm, but otherwise I feel fine. I'm expecting to go home tomorrow happy as a clam that's not allowed to eat milk or eggs for a week.

This whole episode brings up the issue of health for us volunteers. Sickness is really common in our house. My hope is to develop that theme over the next week or two a bit so that you can get a sense of some of the health risks we run up against regularly. For now, rest assured that I'll be fine and this is probably just a passing thing.

*The probiotics are to help my digestive tract rebuild its population of good bacteria that could have been harmed by the antibacterials.

Noted with Translation: "What a world wants" edition

The world that surrounds us need our knowledge. 

(Hung on the wall of a fifth grade classroom)

Happy Anniversary Hermana Rosario!

Hermana Rosario (sister of the Sacred Heart) renewed her vows at our volunteer mass last Thursday. She's been in the order for 53 years. Que lo cumplas muchas más!

Showing Off

An essay of mine was just published in the most recent edition of the JVC Magazine. If you're interested, check it out here.

Check out my notebook fort!

Don't expect much from this blog this week. I'm busy grading about 360* students' work from the last three months. 

*I did the math yesterday. The accurate total number of students is 386.

Human Tower

Saturday mornings, I work with the First Communion class. There's a team of 8-10 (mostly high school) youth who run the class of about 50 elementary school kids. We always start off with a game. Last Saturday they had to make a human tower. My group wasn't able to pull off the whole tower. They collapsed just as the last person climbed on, but I got a picture before they all fell down.

Belleza por Todos Lados: Libélula

Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi is the feastday that most US Catholics don't really think about. If you took Latin, you know that Corpus Christi means "the body of Christ." If you didn't take Latin, then you still know what it means because I just told you. It "emphasizes the joy of the institution of the Eucharist."*

In Cusco, Corpus Christi is a whole different matter. Within the city, all the statues of the saints from the various parishes are brought to the Cathedral. Last Thursday (June 4) the saints were carried in procession around the streets ending in a circuit of the plaza and carried back into the Cathedral. There's music, there's costumes, and the plaza is absolutely packed. School is also canceled. As one of the fourth grade teachers said "Corpus is Corpus." You just can't stand in the way of the tidal wave of devotion and celebration.

Source

Where does this tradition come from? That's always the question when looking at foreign traditions. Do you remember the way the Incas treated their dead rulers? They mumified them and paraded them around the plaza for important events like the inauguration of a new Inca. The Spanish put a stop to that as soon as they could, and saint statues replaced mummified Incas. Urban legend claims that the saint statues were constructed around the mummies, and that they are still to this day parading around the kings of a defeated empire. While this probably isn't true (and should be really easy to prove or disprove using some x-rays), the connection between the devotion and traditions surrounding the dead Incas and the devotion and traditions surrounding images of the saints is clear.

I missed out on the celebration, but the good thing about a 2 year committment means that I have another chance next year.

Source

The food tradition of Corpus Christi is to eat a plate called Chiri Uchu. The name translates to "cold and spicy." It's comprised of ingredients from each of the 4 regions of the Incan empire. There's chicken, guinea pig, sausage, cheese, Andean popcorn, seaweed, fish eggs, a torreja (a fried pancake-like thing) and rocotos (very spicy peppers often used in ceviche dishes). The sixth grade classes had a party for Corpus Christi on Wednesday, and gave a plate to each teacher, so I got to have a taste of the pinancle of Andean cuisine. Overall I liked it, but the seaweed was hard to chew through.



*From Wikipedia page on Corpus Christi

In some ways, Fe y Alegría No. 44 feels just like any school I've been to - the kids have their classes, there's lunch and recess, special days mean special celebrations. But there are so many reminders how different this elementary school is from the 3 I attended in Boston.

Like, just to take one example, the day a few weeks ago when José Daniel's dog entered followed him into the schoolyard and would not leave. The dog kept trying to climb the stairs to the third grade classrooms. I clapped, told it to leave, and hissed at it (all standard way to get a dog to go somewhere else) and it just would turn away for a second and then try to climb up again. It was a problem, because José's class is rambunctious enough; they would not benefit from the presence of a canine friend. 

Finally we conceded that only José could get the dog to leave. He came out of class and lead the dog down through the schoolyard to the front gate. The 2 giant school dogs then put José's much smaller dog in it's place when they saw him and chased him out. "Be careful not to let your dog in here," said one teacher, "the school's dogs will eat him for lunch!" 

We haven't seen José's dog since, so either the school's dog did eat him, or José's done a better job keeping his furry friend from coming with him to school.

Happy (Belated) Birthday to Luciana!

I think I've mentioned Luciana before. She's a psychology student from la Católica (the university in Lima where I studied abroad) who is here for the year doing work with the children in Inicial (pre-school). She's a good friend to the Mountain House and an active part of the volunteer community of Andahuaylillas. 

Her birthday was May 26. We celebrated at school (above picture) and later at Hermana Rosario's house, which is where she lives (below picture). Jacqueline made sure she got some cake on her face.

Showing of Kid's Work!: María

 May holds Mother's Day, so a lot of the stuff that happened at school focused on mothers and motherhood. I focused my classes on Mary, the mother of Jesus and adoptive mother of us all. One rather successful lesson the kids made an origami image of Mary and then colored it in. Here's a few that stood out to me.

Señor de Qoyllorit'i

Sr. de Qollor Riti
Source

How to explain Señor de Qoyllority? I don't really know. That's partly because I was unable to participate in the recent pilgrimage. That's also party because I don't think I'll ever understand Andean spirituality deeply enough to explain it to another person, let alone to feel like I get it myself. But I'll give it my best shot and if you want to know more you can ask Google to translate the wikipedia page.

Here's the official story: In 1780 a Quechua shepard boy named Mariano Mayta who lived way up in the mountains made a new friend. His new friend was a mestizo (mix of white and indigenous) named Manuel. Mariano's father was pleasantly surprised with the increase in income that his son's friend brought on the family and decided to buy Manuel some expensive new clothes from Cusco. So they headed to Ocongate.* The priest of Ocongate was looking for Manuel one day. When he found him, Manuel transformed into an image on a rock. Thus began a Quechua tradition of devotion to the image. The Catholic Church, a masterful organization when it comes to evangelizing by mixing in elements of a different culture, claimed that it was an image of the crucified Christ. Thus the image became known as el Señor de Qollorriti. Qoyllur is Quechua for star and Riti is Quechua for snow. So an English translation could be Our Lord of the Star in the Snows.

Source

El Señor de Qoyllur Rit'i is perhaps the biggest religious festical in the Southern Andes. The pilgrimage draws over 10,000 people. The most extreme version of the pilgrimage is a 24 hour walk. One of friends did the pilgrimage. He told us that he put his pack on a horse. The horses went a different route than his group. He sorely regreted giving the horse his pack when it started to rain and he didn't have a raincoat. The rain lasted an hour and a half. It's really cold high up in the mountains. But that's how strong the devotion to Señor de Q'oylloriti is.

After the pilgrimage, the Qollas (men who dance for the pilgrimage) danced outside the parish in Andhuaylillas. Here's some pictures. Unfortunately I only had my iPod with me, so they're not as high quality as usual.

The men come out in pairs and whip each other.
The idea is that it cleanses for the year to come. 

When it starts to get intense, someone else steps in to end the whipping.
The two men then hug each other and go back to their lines. Then two
more men come out and repeat the ritual.

PS - At some point while reading this you may have commented "Boy, Ben's really failing in the spelling department today." While there may be some English typos I missed, all the different spelling of Señor de Qoyllorit'i are correct. It's a Quechua name. As you may remember, Quechua doesn't have a standardized spelling the way English and Spanish do. All the different spellings I used are spellings I've seen on taxis, storefronts, and banners.

*Remember Ocongate? It's where I was in February helping out at the academic summer camp.

Earthquake Drills

Did you know that basically all of Peru is an Earthquake zone?

It's true. In 1746 an 8.6 earthquake absolutely wrecked Lima. In 1950 another earthquake "seriously damaged more than half the buildings in Cusco." And the Great Peruvian Earthquake of 1970 was the greatest natural disaster in Peruvian history,* killing as many as 70,000 people. 

So Peru takes earthquakes seriously. Last Friday (May 29), Theresa and I were in Cusco freeloading off the wifi in a Starbucks when we had to evacuate for a national Earthquake drill. It was really chill, we just waited out on the plaza for about 10 minutes. But it reminded me that I never talked about the earthquake drill we did at school to celebrate Earth Day. 

The school earthquake drill was a lot like a fire drill, but so much more dramatic. Besides practicing evacuation, they also practiced what would happen if kids were injured. Two students from every classroom were pre-assigned to be heridos (injured). They had to be carried down to the main office on stretchers. Theresa told me that in the high school they also assign some students as "muertos" (dead). 

It was one of those experiences that reminds you just how weird Peru seems to the US-American eyes. But that distinct Peruvian weirdness is part of why I decided to live here. 

Man down!

5th grade class safely oustide

In case your wondering what to do in case of an earthquake, click here.

*The greatest manmade disaster in Peruvian history was the arrival of the Spanish.

Telefónica Visit

Telefónica came to visit Friday May 22, so we there were no classes. Not being Peruvian, you're probably wondering what Telefónica is. Your best guess may be that it's somehow connected to telephones. Good guess! Telefónica is the largest phone service provider in Peru.

Now you're wondering why a visit from the phone company means no classes. Since Telefónica is a major company, it's got a major charity. That major charity does various kinds of work. One of the works the charity does is put on sports clinics at schools. So last Friday (May 22), we had the equivalent of a field day run by Verizon.

They focused on volleyball, athleticism (basically different ways of running), and “minibasketball.” I put “minibasketball” in quotations because it was a class of over 150 kids. I guess what made it “mini” was that they didn't actually play a game.*

Anyways, here's some pictures from the day. The kids are all wearing their Telefónica t-shirts, and all went home with a Telefónica ball (like those cheap ones you buy at Stop&Shop). It was a really fun day. As always, click the images if you want to see a larger version. Enjoy.