Praying for Rain

In Boston, weather affects the quality of your day. But a spell of bad weather one month is unlikely to affect your entire year. That's the difference between city-dwellers and farmers. For us city dwellers weather affects our outfits. For farmers, weather affects everything.

In September, everyone planted their fields with corn. The corn stalks have since sprouted and grown. In some places they are taller than I am. They're still green, for now. I say for now because it hasn't rained in a long time. People are starting to worry. Herman Rosario says that all the corn in Juliaca (a few hours away) is dry and yellow and useless. People will lose a lot of money if it doesn't rain soon.

Soon and Very Soon

“Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.”

It's Advent!*

It's the time of impatient joy. Will He just hurry up and come join us? Is it Christmas yet? Can we sing Gloria with the angels?

This Advent is, for me, marked by a more specific kind of impatient joy: the impatient joy of knowing that I will be home soon. Soon and very soon, I will go to see my people.

But it is also marked by a patient sorrow. I am leaving a life here. Things are ending. The goodbyes already began last Sunday when I visited my host family in Cusco. There are many more to come in the next 3.5 weeks (I leave on December 22). Some will be simple and easy, others long and difficult. Soon and very soon, I am going to leave this place. Without a doubt I'll know, that I have been revived.

I live Advent full. Full of patience and impatience. Full of sorrow and joy. In all cases, things will be changing soon and very soon.

*Advent is the 4 weeks before Christmas.

Belleza por Todos Lados - Temple at Night

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Enjoy the feast. Enjoy your families (blood and water alike). Since the States is basically offline for the next few days, I'll be offline too.

No new posts until Monday the 28th. Look for the 8th and final Quarterly Review coming up next weekend.

Head's up: I leave Andahuaylillas on December 22. There's less than a month to go. Keep me in your prayers as I finish this up.

Thanksgiving

The feast isn't until Thursday, but we celebrated with our Peruvian and Spanish friends on Sunday. Here's some pictures, and a beautiful blessing that captures the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Noted With Translation - What the Cool Kids Eat

Cool Rice

You're Invited

Sunday, November 20th

2PM, in the Mountain House

Thanksgiving Dinner

Christingles

So I've got three weeks of classes left to teach (so little!), and I was looking online for cool activities (so that the kids will always remember as the cool teacher) when I came across this strange looking Christmas project:

My only post on the election results

Well, I was right last week when I told you voting changes things. A lot is going to change. And, if President Trump is anything like Candidate Trump, those changes are going to be overwhelmingly for the worse. After talking with my family, here are the two Harry Potter quotes that frame my thoughts on where we go from here.

Noted With Translation – Solidarios en Acción

Dear Father or Mother of the Education Institution Fe y Alegría 44 – Andahuaylillas, PREVIO a cordial greeting, the following is in order to invoke the spirit of solidarity and benefit a student from the Preschool Level who urgently needs an operation and whose mother does not have the necessary economic resources, please send a colaboration of 2.00 nuevos soles* tomorrow we thank you in advance for your support.
Attentively,
The Administration

Usually, Noted With Translation posts are short and sweet. I keep my commentary brief. My intention is to let the message itself shine. Today, I'm going to be a bit wordier than usual.

A comunicado is a message sent out to all parents. The administration sends out comunicados about school cancelations, important school events, and reminders to pay fees. Think of it as the Peruvian equivalent of a robo-call.

This comunicado is an example of solidarity at its finest. Most people here don't have enough money for major operations, and the national health insurance doesn't cover very much besides basic doctor's visits. There is no rich part of town in Andahuaylillas where this mother could ask for money to help her child. To be clear, it's not that everyone's poor, it's just that no one is rich.

So the school (which, as I learned recently LINK, also doesn't have extra money lying around) decided to step up and call upon the wider school community. Part of Fe y Alegría's identity is that parents are considered a vital part of the school community, and are expected to play an active roll. I'm sure that most, if not all, parents stepped up and sent 2 soles with their child the next day. I don't know if they raised enough money for the operation, but I do know that this is what it large scale community looks like.

The title of this post is, ironically, difficult to translate. Translating the phrase “Solidarios en Acción” requires an explanation of the word solidario. It's the adjective form of solidaridad, which directly translates to “solidarity.” Here I bump up against the bilingual problem in that there is no English word to fully connotes solidario. It's the reality of being “in solidarity with someone.” You can complement a person by saying they are “very solidario” meaning that they are dependable and empathetic and come aware of other people's pains and willing to share that pain and help end it. So I don't have a translation for my title. But I think you get the idea. If you can think of a translation for solidario, leave it in the comments.

*Peru's money is offically Nuevos Soles, though it is generally just referred to as soles. Nuevo Sol translates to “New Sun.” Interestingly, the last 3 iterations of government issued money in Peru are named for the sun. The Sol de Oro (Spanish for  GoldenSun) was the currency from 1922-1985. It was followed by the Inti (Quechua for sun) 1985-1991. Since 1991, Peru has been using the Nuevo Sol (New Sun). The principal deity of the Incas was the sun. Hmm...I wonder if there is a connection.

My Candle

I divided my candle into 3 home related images.

Boston

Andahuaylillas

My people (I'm not a master painter)

I also put three Bible verses that meet a lot to me.

Psalm 42
"Why are you downcast, my soul? Why do you groan with in me?"
This whole psalm is a wonderful way to face sorrow in the face.
The best line: "Deep calls to deep."

Jeremiah 1:1-10
This is the text of the song "El Profeta" 

John 1:1-15
"A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Youth Group Candles

Remember the pictures from the other week where the youth group was covered in paint? If you don't, here's a link.

Our actual activity was painting candles to use during our prayers.* The paint fight meant we didn't finish the actual painting in one session, so we finished up the next week. Here are the finished products:

Everyone wanted a photo with their candle. Sorry that they're fuzzy; I really should start bringing my camera to youth group sessions just in case a photo opportunity happens.

This is Karla, the practicante who runs the Youth Group with me.

The pastoral group the prayers together, stays together:

*I stole this activity from the Tacna JVs. 

What teaching 1st grade is like

Lauren and I were watching The Two Towers last night and Treebeard hit the nail on the head about working with children.

Noted With Translation - Everyone loves Oreos

In Peru, Oreo's slogan is changed from "America's favorite cookie" to "Milk's favorite cookie."

Voting Changes Things

I saw a slogan last year that said "if voting changed anything they would make it illegal."

It's a catchy slogan for ignorant cynics who have forgotten (perhaps never knew) their history. If you aren't a land-holding white male, then at some point it was illegal for you to vote. They didn't want landless (read poor) men voting because voting changes things. They didn't want women voting because voting changes things. They didn't want black people voting because voting changes things. They didn't want people under 21 voting because voting changes things. Three years ago, they didn't renew the Voting Rights Act because voting changes things. They've passed laws that make it harder to vote because voting changes things.

So go vote. Because voting changes things.

The House of the Volunteers

There are a myriad of ways that JVC manages housing for volunteers in the US and abroad. Some houses are owned by JVC, others are rented. Our house is owned by the parish. It is known as “la casa de voluntarios” (the volunteer house). For the last 6 years, that has primarily meant JVs, but the house is not only for JVs.

The parish sends various other volunteers to our house from time to time. A few years ago María, a Spaniard who was a volunteer and then stayed on as a paid worker, lived with the JV community in the Mountain House. Last year Lucía lived with us all year, and Martha and Victor often visited. This year we've played host to a few different young volunteers, with stays ranging from 1 night to 2 weeks.

Most recently we've hosted Fernando and Clara, two Spanish volunteers who work in Ocongate. They arrived in September and stayed in the house for a week to acclimate to the altitude. As with Victor and Martha last year, or the practicantes this year, I think of Fernando and Clara as similar to cousins. They have their own home and daily lives, but we are related through the Jesuits. They are visiting Andahuaylillas this weekend and next weekend, which has got me thinking about my conception the house I live in.

Fois et Joie

Imagine you have a staff of bilingual Quechua-Spanish speakers* and you have a Cameroonian ??? Jesuit who speaks French-English visiting to learn about the work your staff does. How do you get facilitate a conversation between them?

Noted With Translation - International Trade Agreement Edition

Sorry to get all political on you all, but I saw this in Urcos the other day and thought it was worth sharing. You can probably guess this, but these are anti-TPP slogans.

"No to the TPP"

"TPP doesn't go!!"
(as in, "must not happen")

Noted With(out) Translation - Quechua Safety Message

Cromotex, the bus company we took to Arequipa and back, played its safety instructions once in Spanish and again in Quechua. You can tell it's aimed at a different clientele than Cruz del Sur, which plays the safety message in Spanish and English. 

I can't translate the text above for you because I don't speak Qeuchua, but based on the images I think it's advising passengers about the regulations that limit how long a single driver can be behind the wheel before switching off with a second driver.

Coloquio Sur 2016 - Part 2

The Coloquio itself was a wonderful event. We arrived to the Arequipa bus station at 5:30AM and squeezed into taxis to go downtown. After a tour of the Jesuit church, everyone had 4 hours to explore the city and get lunch. I'd told the students to bring money, but also gave each 10 soles to help cover the costs of food. In the afternoon we headed over to Colegio San José, a private Jesuit school that is right across the street from Manresa, where I stayed before ReO/DisO. My students were very impressed with the facilities, which looked like a lot of well-off suburban high schools in the US. Students and young adults from Tacna, Arequipa, and Arica, Chile arrived soon after us.

The theme for the Coloquio was “Misericordiosos en Acción.” It's a play on the Jesuit slogan “comtemplatives in action” that I would translate as “Merciful (people) in action” that ties in with Pope Francis's Year of Mercy. The idea is that mercy requires concrete action and not just a general attitude of friendliness.

One of the strongest aspects of the Coloquio was the “experience.” They divided all the participants into groups of 10 and sent each group out to do different acts of mercy. My group was sent to work with children who come from extreme poverty and rough home lives. Other “experiences” involved visiting a children's cancer ward, talking with street vendors,* and talking with people at a retirement home. This practical component really drove home the message of the Coloquio.

Plenty of fun was had throughout, but the most fun was the Cultural night on Saturday. Each region presented a cultural performance. There was traditional dancing (from Cusco), modern dance (from Arequipa) and sketch comedy (Tacna). The rest of the night was dedicated to a dance.

Our bus left Arequipa Sunday night at 7:30 and arrived Monday morning at 4:30. I don't know if the 6 students went to school because I was away doing a special task assigned by Pd. Eddy,** but I left a note in the staff room asking teachers to excuse absence and homework.

I felt a little bit old among most of the participants but still managed to enjoy getting to know people from other parts of the country. The students had a great time and got to reflect and live a formational experience. It reminded me a lot of Kujenga, the Black-Catholic youth retreat in which I participated during high school. That was an experience that taught me a lot about how to reflect on and live out the faith. My prayer is that my students were similarly touched during the Coloquio.

*Very poor people in Peru often sell cheap candies to scrape money together for food.

 **More on that next week.

Coloquio Sur 2016 - Part 1

I mentioned the Coloquio (Colloquium) in Busy, one of my first posts this month. Well, the Coloquio is over, and it was a success. But there was plenty of trouble along the way to that success.

Our first issue to handle was money. The pastoral office of FyA 44 has none, which makes it difficult to pay for 5 people (4 students, 1 teacher) to travel across the country and participate in an event that has a registration fee. I talked with Pd. Eddy about money and he informed me that the school has no extra money lying around. So we turned to the biggest source of income for Jesuit projects in the Cusco region: tourism.

Thousands of tourists come to Andahuaylillas every year just to see the Sistine Chapel of the Americas. The Peruvian tourists pay 10 soles, and the foreign tourists pay 15. That money adds up to a lot of resources for local projects. Much of that goes to fund the parish social programs that Erin and Lauren work at, but Pd. Calilo is a savvy enough businessman to know to have funds on reserve. Hna. Rosario and I talked with him and he told us that he could cover the costs as long as the students put in some effort to raise money.

We decided to do a raffle. Every student in the high school bought a ticket for 1 sol. Three prizes were given out: a jacket, a new leather soccer ball, and 100 soles. The jacket and soccer ball were both claimed, but the winner of the 100 soles must have lost their ticket because they never showed up.