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.