Quarterly Review 3

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 back, and mulling it all over.

It seems that being a month late with these quarterly reviews is becoming standard. Two Sundays ago I completed 10 months since arrival in Andahuaylillas. Looking back on the last three months, these are the big themes I see:

• Danza mi país
• Real Friends

Danza mi país

We've had so many celebrations in the last three months. I've danced in two different traditional dances. We spent two weeks celebrating the school's anniversary with dances, mass, and fundraising. We had vacation, which for me meant travel to Puno, where they were celebrating their high school's anniversary with tens of different dances out in the streets. Remember the song Danza mi País? Peruvians certainly are a people who “dance, dance, dance.”

What's the point of all this dancing, all this celebrating? The point is that there is so much to celebrate. It's so easy to think of the Global South as the land of sad poverty. When I told you I was going to Peru, I doubt you thought: “sounds like a party (I certainly didn't).” But the fact is that poverty and sadness are as connected as richness and happiness – the relationship isn't causal. There is so much to celebrate here, and it is all celebrated to the fullest. From the hall where we danced for hours at the quinceañera, to the soccer court where the teachers, parents, and students all performed dances for a total of 4 hours, to the plaza where we danced for one of the biggest holy days of the Andahuaylillas church calendar, this place is alive and dancing.

Celebration is a part of every culture. We need something to look forward to, to enjoy, and then to look back on fondly after it's done - just think of all the old Thanksgiving stories that get told every Thanksgiving. Celebrations are in some ways the focus of a culture. By seeing how a people have fun, and why, we learn a lot about them. Being invited in to celebrations is a big part of enculturation in a different culture. The fact that we have been so welcomed into active participation for so many celebrations shows how welcome we are here.

These types of celebrations are the things that make each JV experience unique. We're the only 5 JVs who participated in a big celebration of the feast of Saints Peter and Paul this year. The JVs in other countries have their own celebrations that we know nothing about. This is part of what we signed up for – to celebrate with God's people in all different ways. JVC talks a lot about accompaniment, about being with people and walking alongside them. This is easily applied to accompanying people in their struggles and their sorrows. But it's just as Christian to accompany people in their celebrations and their dances. Which brings us to the age old question WWJD – What would Jesus dance?

Real Friends

Relationships are a big part of JV life. There's the obvious relationships with your fellow JVs, your co-workers, and the people you serve. There's lots of wonderful friendly people here. But there are few people I would call real friends.

So much of our social circle in Andahuaylillas is people we work with or people who were friends of former JVs and are now general friends of the house. A commonly discussed frustration about JV life in Andahuaylillas is that we are seen as a group, and not as individuals. Part of this is because we do most things as a group, and part of this is because the town is so small. This makes it hard to make personal friends. But in the past few months I feel that I have made some real, personal friends. There's Alfredo, the pastoral agent who takes me to a rural community each week to to catechism classes on Tuesdays.* At first he was definitely just a friend because I was part of the JV community. But over the months of walking together across the valley on Tuesday nights, we've become real friends. I know he sees me as me, and talks to me as just me. And while he was, at the beginning of the year, just someone connected to our community, I now see him as a real friend, someone I can trust and talk to. There's also Babbi and Mari. They're the parents of my two regular violin students. I chat with them before and after lessons. Last month I walked the kids home and stepped in to chat and have some tea. Before I knew it food was being served and what was intended as a short half hour visit lasted over 3 hours. Like Alfredo, Mari and Babbi know the other JVs and are general friends of the community. But that night I realized that we had transitioned to being friends on an individual basis. They weren't so welcoming just because I am a JV, but because I am me. That's the difference that changes everything – when you realize people aren't being nice to you because you're a volunteer and you're foreign and you're friendly, but because you are you. That's where true kinship happens.

 *Have I ever written about this for the blog? I'll have to look through old posts to see. It's kind of a big part of my week. If I haven't, I'll get on that.