Housekeeping

My family arrived this morning! I'll be with them the next two weeks, and then after that I'll be with one of my best friends for another two weeks. So don't expect to hear too much from me until after January 16. Happy Christmas and New Year's to all.

Sunday Song: Ven, Ven, Señor, no tardes

It's the last Sunday of Advent and I haven't posted a single Peruvian advent song! Time to remedy that. 

Why is this Spanish-language advent song sung to the tune of an African-American Christmas song? I don't know. But in the familiar tune I hear the fulfillment of wish so dearly in the Spanish lyrics.

Come, Lord, don't delay...for we are waiting for you.

Translation after the jump.

4 Values Revisited: Spirituality

Last year, I talked about spirituality as “hanging out with God.” I still like that idea. It's still the core of my spirituality. This year my growth in spirituality has mostly been in learning new ways to pray. I've really got into the examen, a review of the day that I say almost every night. It keeps the experience of God grounded in daily life. It reminds me that sometimes God is like Waldo – he's there, you just have to look for him.

This is a real thing

But I would be remiss if I didn't talk about Andean Spirituality after a year of living in the Andes as a Catholic lay missionary. Andean Spirituality is not your grandmother's catholicism.* It's not a spirituality of rosaries or daily mass. It's not a spirituality of scriptural meditation and reflection. It's a prime example of syncretism – the blending of different beliefs. Andean culture is a mix of Incan and Spanish influences. Andean spirituality is a mix of Incan beliefs and Catholicism.

There's no better example of syncretism in Andean spirituality than the pilgrimage to Señor de Qolloritti, which ends in a celebration that looks a lot like worship to Apu Ausangate (the mountain God on whose slopes the image of Señor de Qolloritti is located) than any sort of "traditional" Catholic worship.

Many people, maybe your grandmother,** would look at Señor de Qolloritti in confusion. “This isn't Catholicism,” they might say. But I disagree. This is Catholicism. Catholicism has always been a syncretic religion. Ever since St. Boniface chopped down the thunder oak and told the German pagans to use a fir tree, thereby starting the tradition ofChristmas trees, catholicism has been bringing people to God by connecting to pre-existing cultural traditions. That's why Christmas is celebrated in December (light and hope at the darkest time of the year) and Easter is celebrated in the spring (everything is coming back to life in the spring) – because those time lined up with pagan festivals.

What you do, do it for God. For some people the pilgrimage to Señor de Qolloritti is probably just a chance to have a really intense experience and then booze it up with their buddies. But for some people Christmas is a time to make money and lavish gifts on loved ones in the selfish hope that they'll receive great gifts in return. Going to mass on Christmas Eve isn't any more Catholic than climbing Ausangate for Señor de Qolloritti. What matters is how and why you go. The men who spend 24 hours walking together and singing are as close to God as the grandmothers that go to daily mass are to Apu Jesucristo. If God is in all things, then God is these celebrations that can seem so foreign to the foreigner's eye."There are many gifts, but the same spirit." There are many ways to praise Him, but the same God.

*Unless your grandmother is from the Andes.

**Unless your grandmother really is from the Andes.

4 Values Revisited: Social Justice

I find social justice to be the hardest value to practice here. Crossing cultures means spending so much time and energy just trying to understand what is going on. It would be arrogant to show up and start decrying social injustices without even understanding the society.

We are witnesses to so much social injustice. One of my first graders regularly told me about how drunk her father was the night before and how she and her older sister would hide “Ai, profe!” she would say as she skipped along beside me after school on our way to the parish “my father shouldn't drink so much.” It was just a fact of life for her, like it is for so many of my students. It's so obvious how I'm treated differently than the rest of my community mates because of my maleness; machismo is such an entrenched social injustice.

But through the year I've come to see how the programs/institutions we work for are part of the fight for social justice in Quispicanchi. One of the four core subjects taught at FyA 44 is “Personal y Social.”* It's a class devoted to understanding the self and society. Part of it's aim is to fight teen pregnancy through good sex education (yes there are catholic schools that goes beyond abstinence-only education, they're here in Peru. Catch up, USA). It also focuses on the dangers of alcohol abuse, the realities of puberty, self-esteem building, etc.

The parish's after school program is bursting with social justice initiatives. There's the hot lunch program. Poor parents pay S/.5 a month (the cost of one lunch at a cheap restaurant) and their children get to eat hot meals every day after classes. This helps parents who don't have time or money to cook their children lunch, the biggest meal of the day in Peru. There's the homework help and literacy programing in the library. Admittedly, this should be more highly valued by the parish staff, but the fact that it exists says something. And there's the ludoteca – the playroom where kids are encouraged to be children. Childhood is severely undervalued by many parents here in the hurry to have mature, self-sufficient children. In the ludoteca the children relearn how to play.

I think that part of the connection between social justice and this experience will be born out after I return to the States, when I can apply a lot of the expanded worldview I'm learning to life as a member of the most powerful nation of the planet.

*I don't need to translate this one for you, they're exact cognates.

4 Values Revisited: Community

Community is the hardest value. It's the hardest value because we live in intentional community. I've been part of lots of communities, some wonderful, some terrible, but most communities are not home communities. Everyone gets to go home and get space from each other. Differences are easier to lay aside when you don't go home to the person you are frustrated with.

I've never been married, but I think that the JVC framework for intentional community can be easily compared to a multi-way arranged marriage.* A JV community is a group of well-intentioned strangers who decided to throw themselves into a very difficult experience. Everyone has their own idea of how clean things should be, how much respect should be given to the chore chart, and how the community should work. If everyone isn't on board with how things are moving, things can get off track pretty quickly.

I learned a lot in the last year about how to live in community and how not to live in community. Some of the biggest personal growth I experienced this year came from living in community. I'm generally a “go with the flow” kind of person, but this year I learned how to go against the flow when it felt necessary (funnily enough it's much more difficult than going with the flow).

But community isn't limited to the people inside the Mountain House. There's also “outer community,” which includes everyone I hang out with outside of the house. I've had a wonderful year in outer community, building some really rewarding relationships with people in town and with fellow teachers.  That's been a long process, and it's only been in the last 4 months that I've really felt like I could call people around here “friends.”

Community is the value I'm looking forward to developing most, both inner community and outer community. It's a very good thing that JVC-International is a 2 year program, because it means I have lots of time to build up the relationships that only recently became firm.

*Except without the expectation of reproduction.  

4Values Revisited: Simple Living

As you may or may not remember, the JV experience is built around 4 values: Spirituality, Simple Living, Community, and Social Justice. The idea is to grow in understanding of these values and to live them out inside the JV experience, so that you can take them with you and live them out in the rest of your life. I don't talk about them all the time, but they are right at the core of why I am here, why I do what I do, and what I want to get out of these two years.

So just like it makes sense to step back and do quarterly reviews every 3 months, it makes sense to step back and look at the values. When this blog was still new, and I was still living in Boston, I wrote a short post about each of the values. When I wrote those posts, I was writing about what I understood of each value going into this experience. Now that I'm halfway through it, my understanding of each value has evolved and developed.

“Not voluntary poverty, but voluntary wealth.” That's how Fr. James Martin, SJ describes the Jesuit value of simple living. Last year, simple living was a very theoretical value, not one I'd intentionally practiced before. After a year of living it out on a $60 a month stipend and limited community budget, I'd like to think I understand simple living a little better.

The Jesuit vow of simple living isn't about poverty (they might tell you it is, but if you hang out with the Jesuits you'll know that the idea that they live in poverty is laughable), it's about non-attachment to things. Basically simple living in the Jesuit sense means “people first.” That's the “voluntary wealth” Fr. Martin is talking about – the wealth of relationships and experiences that are available to you when you aren't focused on possessions.

Simple living in the JV context, especially the international context, can be easy to live out. We don't have a lot of money, and around here there isn't much to spend it on. For me that means spending my money on being with people. That could mean baking a cake to share, or going out with other teachers after work for chicken. But what I'm paying for there is more the time with the people than it is the item. I wouldn't buy myself a beer just for myself. I wouldn't bake banana bread just for me to eat. My attempt to live simply means that my money is meant to be shared. The $60 stipend I get isn't for me, it's for the various other people in my JV life that make the experience so much richer.

Simple living also means learning to accept generosity that you can't repay. I like to repay my debts quickly (except for my debts to myfedloan.org). During my college years, I was generally the friend with money. I worked 24 hours a week as a way to escape the academic world, but the thing about work is that it pays you, so I had a consistent income. It was no big deal for me to treat friends to ice cream. And if a friend wanted to treat me to something it was easy to accept because I knew I would return the favor in the near future.

Because my stipend is so limited, because I've shared my house with 5 other people, because our oven doesn't work, and because of a whole host of other reasons, I often can't return the favors I receive. When friends invite me to their home for a delicious meal, I can't invite them over the next week because I don't have the money to enough food to feed them all something nice and because I can't have a small party at my house without inviting everyone I live with. Suddenly returning the favor to a family of 4 for cooking me dinner means cooking dinner for 10! Way out of budget.

So I have to accept such generosity humbly. I bring a dessert, I bring over a bottle of soda. If I were to keep track of favors given and received, my ledger would be covered in red. But I'm not keeping a ledger, because simple living means that the people and experiences are more important than the things.

Letter Home

Is it weird to reblog your own content? Yes. But since this first was published online at the blog commonweal (where my father is a regular contributor), it just seemed easier to copy-paste it from there. Plus, his "notes by way of orientation" are useful for anyone who isn't familiar with my home parish.

Anyways, here's the letter I wrote to St. Katharine Drexel parish after one year of service.

A couple of notes by way of orientation:  
1) "God is good...all them time....And all the time...God is good" is almost as familiar a call-and-response prayer of greeting in the Black church across the US as "The Lord be with you...and with your spirit" is for Catholics. 
2) "Sr. Mary" ran the afterschool program and summer camp at our parish for 33 years and mentored a generation of young people in and around Roxbury. 

Dear Parish Family,

God is good all the time, and all the time God is good. When we see each other, we rejoice.

God is good here in the mountain town of Andahuaylillas, Peru.

God is good at Fe y Alegría 44, the Jesuit-run school I teach religion at. I see His goodness reflected in the faces of my 400 elementary school students as they sing songs like “Padre Abraham” (shout out to Summer Camp for giving me a fun song to translate and teach), as they draw their image of heaven, as they pray for their classmates' ill family members. I feel God being good when the teachers help me with the difficult students, and when the student who I had pegged as the worst behaved student at the school proved Sr. Mary right that there are no bad children, and by the end of the year was the most helpful student in his classroom.

God is good at Parroquia San Pedro Apostol (St. Peter the Apostle Parish), the 345 year old parish in this town that is dubbed the “Sistine Chapel of the Andes.” I hear Her goodness in hymns sung in Quechua (the most spoken indigenous language in the world) that give praise to Apu Tatayku (Dear Father God). I dance Big G's goodness out in traditional dances on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, only after carrying God's goodness as part of the procession that saw all 72 saint statues carried out of the church and paraded around town.

God is good in the rural community of Secsencaya, where I go every Tuesday to help the pastoral assistant out with catechism. You can't expect everyone to come to the church to hear the gospel; sometimes the church has to bring the gospel out to everyone. As the pastoral assistant reminds the kids, we praise God in everything we do if we do it with joy. When we play soccer, when we watch movies, when we sing songs, when we listen to the Bible reading, when we pray – we praise God in our rural catechism class.

God is good on Thursday evenings, when all the foreign volunteers (from the US, from Spain, and from Lima) come together with the Jesuits and a Sister of the Sacred Heart to share a Mass and meal of reflection and sharing of our experiences. I taste God's goodness whenever we host Mass and I bake the communion bread that St. Katharine's offers up on Holy Thursday.

God is good in this Catholic – this universal – Church. That universality is so striking here. But universality doesn't mean uniformity. Mass parts are so easily recognizable and the feast days are so dazzling different. Just as some people might look at our parish and doubt our claim to be Catholic, it would be easy to look at Andean Catholicism and doubt that the people here are even monotheistic. But we know that God makes himself known to each people through culturally relevant means. We know that God speaks every language, and is a native of every culture.

What I've learned here is what I've always known. The more I live, the more I learn just how true it is. As I reach the halfway point of my two years of striving to live out the four JVC* values of Spirituality, Simple Living, Community, and Social Justice in this small town in the Andes, I learn and re-learn every day that God is good all the time...and all the time God is good.
I am so blessed to have grown up in such a profoundly spiritual parish community. Please keep me in your prayers in 2016 and know that I will do the same. God bless. And when we see each other again, we will rejoice.

-Benjamin Hill

*Jesuit Volunteer Corps. That's the name of my program.

Andean Barroque Route Promo Video

Two weeks from today 3 regular readers (going by the group code name of Pham Lee) will be in the Quispicanchi on a tour of the Ruta del Barroco Andino (Andean Barroque Route). It's a tour of 3* Jesuit churches that were decorated in a style specific to the Andes known as the Cusco Barroque school. As the name suggests, it's a mix of Barroque and Andean influences. 

The crown jewel of this tour is the church in Andahuaylillas, called "the Sistine chapel of the Americas." You get glimpses of it at 0:16-0:20, and again at 0:47. 

The Ruta del Barroco Andino is a great tour which I recommend. I recommend it for various reasons:

1. It's a different side of Cusco. Most tourists (myself included) come to Cusco to see Incan ruins. There's lots of them around - Machu Picchu, the Inca trail, Ollantaytambo, Pisac, Moray, Koricancha, and many more. But life in Cusco kept on going after the Spanish conquest. The paintings on the walls of these parishes, espeically the church in Huaro, tell some of those stories. 
2. It's ethical tourism. The funds raised from the entrance fees to the churches, and from the gift shops, go to support the social programs of the Jesuits. These are the programs my community mates Erin, Victoria, Jacqueline, Lucía, and Lauren all have worked with. Programs include a very cheap hot lunch program for students, library and homework help, a play room with special programing designed to encourage kids to play and let loose their creativity (something that often isn't valued in the home). All proceeds from the gift shop are split evenly with the producers of the items. Unlike with a lot of the souvenirs you can buy in Peru, you can know that money spent at these shops is supporting local people.
3. It's just beautiful. You can see a lot of churches in Peru. The 3 churches in Quispicanchi stand out to me because they aren't massive cathedrals. One of them is quite small. But each parish holds a unqiue beauty that tells it's own story. Andahuaylillas has the most gold leaf, but Huaro has one of the most impressive murals I've ever seen.
4. You can stop in the South Valley afterwards for great Peruvian food.

So if you're ever in Cusco and want to see somethign besides Incan ruins, check out the Ruta del Barroco Andino. If you're lucky it might be a feast day and you could see some of the traditional dances in one of the plazas.

So if you're in Cusco

*Technically it's a 4 church tour. It usually starts at the Jesuit cathedral in Cusco. But since we'll be in Andahuaylillas already, and Pham Lee has already seen the Jesuit church in Cusco, we'll only be doing the 3 chuches in Quispicanchi.

Copos de Nieve

As far as I can tell, copo de nieve is the way to say snowflake. The JVs weren't the only ones to make snowflakes last week. For the last week of classes my lesson plan was: 

1. play outside
2. take a class picture
3. make snowflakes

These are kids that have never seen snow, but they know lots about craft projects. They loved the snowflakes. The first graders were shocked and applauded when I opened my example snowflake up to reveal the design. My fourth graders got so into it that they made me tons of multicolored snowflakes that are now hanging from my rafters like some sort of toxic blizzard. Even if snow isn't universal, this project sure seems to be. 

(In case you were wondering "what's the connection between snowflakes and religion?" The answer is, if God took the time to make tiny little snowflakes so unique and beautiful, how much more effort did he put into you. I think it's time to write a new hymn: "His eye is on the snowflake")

Christmas Decorations

It happened so quickly that it's already over before I even got a chance to write about it - for 8 days, Mountain House held 7 JVs covering 4 generations. Victoria and Jacqueline and have left (they flew out Monday the 7^th). On Sunday, Nov 29^th we all got together to make snowflakes to decorate the dining/living room for Christmas. Handily, they doubled as decorations for the despedida (good-bye party) on December 5^th.

Even the masks got Santa hats!

Despedida 2015

This afternoon our 2nd years, Victoria and Jacqueline board a plane to Lima, and then a plane to Miami, and then separate planes to their families. It seems an appropriate day to post about the despedida.

The verb despedir means “to say goodbye.”

From despedir comes the noun despedida, which means the act of saying goodbye. But despedida can also mean a good-bye party.

The Mountain House JVs throw one house party per year. That house party is the despedida. It's the chance to say goodbye to and celebrate friends from all parts of the experience. It means a big pot of chaufa (the Peruvian version of chicken-fried rice) and a whole lot of guests. It means loud music and dancing, and eventually booze. It's the bitter-sweetness that pervades all goodbye parties. This year we were despidiendo (saying goodbye to) 4 women – Theresa, Victoria, Jacqueline, and Lucía.  Theresa leaves near the end of the month. But for Vic, Jacq, and Lu, who all leave this week, the despedida was their last hurrah.

Here's a few pictures from the evening. Somehow things never got organized for a group photo. We wish all four ladies nothing but the best as they transition back into their home countries, figure out next steps, and make their way in this wonderfully difficult world.

Pics after the jump.

Mail Call!

This is the wall of cards:

Every card I have received since I moved to the Mountain House is up on this wall in my room. It's a nice reminder of all the people who love me and are thinking of me.

But sadly, the wall of cards is not complete... It's missing your Christmas card! Today I'm putting out a mail call, the kind where I get mail. I'd love to fill wall up with love from all over. If you want to make sure I think of you often even though I'm thousands of miles away, send me a postcard/card/whatever to stick to my wall. I promise to send a card back to you.

My address and email are always on the "Contact" page. Address all mail to:

Benjamin Hill

c/o P. Carlos Silva SJ

Triunfo 339, Apartado 896

Cusco, Perú

This message has been brought to you by 

the homesickness prevention department of Peruben volunteer industries.

Sunday Song - Happy Birthday

To the Best. You know who you are.

Quarterly Review 4

Quarterly Review 4

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. So every three months I'm stepping back, looking around, and mulling it all over.

Today marks one year since arrived in Andahuaylillas. A yearly review would be appropriate at this point, but I'm going to wait until the calendar year is over for that. For now, I want to stay focused on the quarter, on the last 3 months.

• Feeling appreciated at work
• Countdowns

Follow the jump to read my reflections.

Belleza por Todos Lados - Quinua to be cleaned

Quinua is delicios and healthy and pretty cheap if your neighbor grows it. It's also beautiful every step of the way from plant to plate. This quinoa has been harvested but still needs to be cleaned. That's done by pouring it out repeatedly on a windy day and letting the wind carry away the in edible parts of the plant. 

Catholic Things - Advent

I should have mentioned is last weekend, but happy new year to all the Catholic readers out there. 

Source

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent, which is the start of a new liturgical year. Advent, from the Latin adventus (arrival/approach), is the season of waiting and preparing for Christmas. If you aren't Catholic, you may have heard about advent because of advent calendars. But advent isn't just about a countdown to Christmas, it's about preparing.

Advent is marked by the advent wreath (pictured on the right). It contains 4 candles - 3 purple, 1 pink. The candles represent the 4 Sundays before Christmas. Each week you light a new candle. Purple is used because in Catholic culture it represents waiting, preparation, and is a color of royalty (Jesus is the king of literally everything). The pink candle is lit on the 3rd Sunday of advent, called "Gaudete (rejoice) Sunday." Pink is a color for joy and happiness. On Christmas, the pink and purple candles are replaced by white candles because white represents purity, holiness, virtue, and great joy. 

New JVs!

JVC runs its international like a bakery runs its poolish – there's always some new and some old. In JVC that means that every year old volunteers leave and new volunteers arrive. It keeps the community constantly refreshed, but maintains a connection between generations of JVs. It's a great system for all sorts of reasons, but I'm not going to go on about them here because I'm really just excited about the latest result of that poolish-like system – the new JVs arrived!

Rachel and Lauren* arrived to the Cusco airport around 6 on Saturday morning. Erin and I got up at 4:30 to make sure we'd arrive on time to receive them. We had a funny time talking with our taxi driver while we waited. He clearly felt awkward and nervous about picking people up from the airport. We did feel bad that he felt awkward, but it was very early in the morning and therefore difficult to provide engaging conversation. He filled some of the awkward silence with random observations.

Housekeeping

Hello readers. Just a note to let you all know why I've been radio-silent for awhile. We had a thunderstorm last week that knocked out the parish's internet. There has been internet at the school, but I've also been VERY busy with the end of the school year (last time I have to grade 400 notebooks hopefully ever!) and the arrival of the new JVs. I have some stuff drafted on my computer which I will post as soon as I have some free time and a good wifi connection. At the latest I'll have a new post up Friday, which is my one year anniversary in Andahuaylillas.