January's End

We're now a little over the 1/3 mark of our stay in Peru. I'll not evaluate my 1/3 of the year here (though this reminds me that I need to evaluate both the CapCorps retreat and the experience thus far for my lovely organization), but I do feel the need to put out a few thoughts.

We're planning on revamping the way we work here, so that we'll be able to be fully engaged, but also have more than just the one day every other week off. It's nice to be able to re-evaluate, and I'm looking forward to the future year with a different context. That'll be nice.

There will be a Norwegian guy coming here in the middle of February and staying until Mayish, I think. I believe that he'll be moving into my room, which will be cool. Though very, very crowded: my bedroom is the smallest of the 3 apartments here, and definitely the least outfitted for having 2 people using it simultaneously. Maybe I'll move into the small nook in the library: That way, he can have the mattress that has more firmness than a marshmallow, I can continue to sleep on the floor (don't ask), and we'll both have room to put our clothing. Yeah, sounds good to me. We'll see how this all goes.

Being a theology nerd, I'm thinking about Lent. They don't call it Lent here (big surprise, seeing as that's an Anglo-Saxon word and all): they call it Cuaresma (40 days, roughly, from Italian). It's fitting that they don't call it Lent, because Lent means "spring," and from the natural perspective, we are definitely approaching the beginning of fall and entering into winter as this liturgical season approaches here in the southern hemisphere. It's so weird, because the nature worked so well for my spiritual life during liturgical seasons in the states. Cold just seems so perfect for imagining Advent and Christmastime, i.e., the Light coming into the world that lay "in sin and error pining", and I love how Lent begins in winter, when everything's been stripped of its ornamentation, and the idea that we're like the trees budding as we progress in our practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in preparation for the great mystery of faith that is "Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life; Lord Jesus, come in glory," and what it meant to be a part of that. I love that while Pentecost doesn't occur at the harvest time (as it originally did pre-Christianity), it occurs as everything is at the peak of flowering and about to go into bearing fruit. The naturalness in which nature provided insights into the general milieu of each liturgical season was great.
So I'm anxious and excited about the atmosphere that I'll encounter here during that time. Without such a great exemplar as nature here as a guide in the way I'm accustomed, there's a world of opportunity for new ways of looking at things, having internal motivations, etc. Though of course I still miss that unto which I'm accustomed.

On sunny days when my family and/or friends would go on hikes up in the mountains, the air was so clean, the sunlight so brilliant (yet without humidity), and there was a smell of sweetness...the sweetness almost like ripe blackberries that had gotten enough sun, but I swear it was coming from the trees, nature's assurance that yes, today IS a perfect day. I love that smell.

I saw the Nutcracker back in December. It certainly was no performance like I saw back in the States way-back-when, but the kids had an earnestness, and such care was put into the choreography, and I could feel the family and friends in the audience and their joy and pride in their friends; and family members' performance, it was lovely. The music wasn't live, but the venue was too small for that, anyway. Even so, hearing that music was like meeting with an old friend. Seriously. I've been seeking out classical/romantic/orchestral music ever since.

Well, until our next meeting, January, and the embarking of a whole new adventure as this one ends. After many joys, new experiences, old struggles, homesickness, newfound friends, frustrations, and insanity, and after 12 months, we'll chat again. Until that time, be well.

Things To Do When I Should Be Going To Bed

1) Blog About Colca Canyon.

It's like the second biggest canyon in the world, twice as big as Grand Canyon, there are condors there, and we went to the bottom and climbed back up (though not at the really steep parts). It's gorgeous and there are photos on Facebook but I don't have the photographic knowhow to capture the beauty of what I'm seeing: the camera doesn't catch what my eyes do. Whether it was the shade of blue of the sky, the features of the rock, the cotton-ball clouds, or the oasis below, I couldn't capture good photos at all.

That being said, here's what happened. We got up at like 1:30 AM to catch a bus that'd take us to Colca by around 7:00ish. The ride there was uneventful, though the chairs were very uncomfortable. I hate uncomfortable chairs. We got to Mirador de los Cóndores, which is where condors circle around to gain altitude before heading down into the valley to find meat.

2) Have a tangential reflection on condors.

Look up "El Condor Pasa" on Youtube. Make sure it's not Simon and Garfunkel or that version, because that has nothing to do with Condors and takes away (for me) from some of the majesty of the song. When imagining that 10-foot wingspan, catching thermals and soaring above Andean greenery, the panpipes and flutes really make for an awe-inspiring effect, and the condor has some elegance. Then I remember that they eat dead things and their nobility diminishes. I'm sorry, I have prejudices against scavenging birds: they just don't have the majesty.

3) Resume discussion of Colca

We had breakfast at this viewpoint. Unfortunately, we saw no condors, being out of season and all (I guess they just don't like to eat during some seasons? I didn't really ask, but it's funny to imagine that condors just don't eat for the rainy season. Perhaps that's why they're so rare). We then moved on to the beginning of our 2-day trek. The beginning was a fairly painless downhill venture, but possibly a knee-killer for those not prepared. Lots of loose rock, too, so it wasn't just a "Let's run to the bottom!" excursion. Our team: Me, Alyssa, Tania (CapCorps folks), Kelly and Jessika (from California), and Paul (token Welshman), with Marcos, born in Colca, as our guide. It was a nice blend of people, and when we stopped for small breathers it was cool to get to know them. Because I'm me, and sometimes not all that distinguishable from a dog that continually runs ahead, pauses for everybody to catch up, then runs ahead again, I didn't do much conversation otherwise. I was okay with that, but I did love hearing Paul's story. He dropped out of high school, became a janitor, but was given a chance to get back into school and become a teacher in Cambodia through an organization with the help of a good-hearted person who saw potential in him and gave him a chance. He now works in Colombia as a teacher. Cracked us up for a good portion of the second part of the day.

So we reached the bottom of the canyon and crossed over to the other side of the river that runs through it, where we encountered slightly more difficult terrain (read: uphill). We were carrying our backpacks, and after a nice lunch in a small village about 10 minutes away from the river, we began phase 2, though I was now carrying 2 backpacks. I was later affectionately nicknamed the pack mule.

4) Tangent about getting anywhere in South America
I warn you that this may be a gross and unfair generalization. It seems to me that a communal societal mindframe is at the heart of South America, and as such there's an importance in keeping balance and harmony and tranquility. As such, people are willing to give directions even if they don't know where a location is, will try to encourage you and boost your spirits by telling you that your destination isn't far off even if you need to walk 20 more miles, and other such things. I can appreciate the kindness that is at the heart of these gestures, but as somebody hailing from a more individualistic culture that cares about a different kind of harmony, these are somewhat off-putting. With that in mind:

5) Phase 2 of Day 1

Paul wasn't too thrilled about the amount of uphill terrain we were encountering during Phase 2. He asked Marcos how much of the rest of the hike consisted of uphill, to which Marcos replied that we'd go for another 10-15 minutes and then be done with hills. Sure enough, 15 minutes later, we were on flat land and trekking on fairly even terrain. Marcos pointed out a sour fruit that is used in the cocktail "Colca Sour" (a variation of Pisco Sour, which is lime juice, egg white, ice, and pisco) and a plant whose leaves are very acidic and whose sap is strong enough to kill a pig in less than a day with a few drops. He said it'd be an interesting alternative to asking for a divorce from one's spouse. In honor of that, and the fact that none of us spoke Quechua and its name was in said language, we were on the lookout and avoiding "The Divorce Plant" for the rest of the first day.

About half an hour later we started climbing uphill again, which prompted some frustrated comments from Paul. Marcos said, "Yeah, we finished THAT uphill section in 15 minutes. Now we're on another one." This did little to assuage said frustration. As we finished climbing uphill, it began to rain (we were surprised it hadn't started earlier, although grateful) and we donned our ponchos. Wearing 2 backpacks under my poncho caused several people to ask when I was due. Despite lame pregnancy jokes, we arrived at our destination shortly thereafter.

6) The Oasis

The Oasis is a nice little place with zero cell phone reception, little lighting, lots of green, a nice pool, bungalows, a mess hall, a volleyball field, bathrooms, and not-so-nice biting insects. We got there, used the facilities, bought some water for the night and the following day, and relaxed. There was a raucous group of fellow expatriates who were doing a 3-day-trek: they were all very friendly, and the blend of accents was pretty cool. We broke up into our trek groups for dinner, which was a nice spaghetti. We discussed how smoking was a bad idea on this trip, the excellence of Peruvian desserts (though the lack of real cheesecake, the substitution of real cheesecake for a gelatin-mousse-THING, and a severe privation of pies are disturbing), Paul's love of Peruvian cake, the possibility of hiring a mule for the following day, and other things. Afterward, we chilled a bit and headed to bed. The sky was AMAZING. There was so little natural light, and though the cliffs and some cloud obscured a bit of the starry splendor, the effect was not lost on me. So many stars in such a different array than I'd ever seen (we don't see stars in Lima, generally, and so this was my first view of the Southern Sky)...you know, I can understand where a lot of MesoAmerican and South American Indigenous artwork comes from, how they depict their gods, etc...I could almost see it all painted in the sky. How truly awesome. I then went to sleep in my slightly soggy bungalow with bedbugs for company and a rock-hard pillow, but it beat sleeping outside with no sleeping bag and minimal dry clothes.

7) Day 2

Day 2 was a 3-hour trek, but this trek was entirely uphill. The monster that we had descended became the monster we had to ascend. The plan was for people who wanted to walk leisurely to leave at 4:30 and for people who walked more quickly to depart at 5. Those riding on mules (Paul decided to do this so he could say that he'd ridden a mule in the Andes) could sleep in a little bit, because mules are beasts (I'm a bad writer). Our guide, however, had a bit of a beer-induced oversleeping problem, so we all started at about 5:45 with the other groups. I was carrying 2 backpacks again. I stayed with Marcos for a while, but got antsy, so I moved ahead.

Kyle Bakas has said that when he encounters hills during his runs, he gets a very joyful feeling and feels compelled to zip up them. I still consider this grounds for having his head examined, but I suppose I gained some understanding of what he means through this trek. I wanted to CLIMB, I did not want to slow down, I did not want to take breaks, and I lived for the climb.

8) Warning
If anybody is even THINKING about Miley Cyrus right now, I will frown upon you singing "The Climb" and connecting it in any way, shape, or form with me.

9) Day 2 continued

So there was a guy from Scotland, a guy from Australia, a guy from Ireland, and a guy from London, and they practically took off running. They reached the top in 90 minutes. I continued climbing upward, feeling a competitive part of me refusing to let anybody I passed while climbing catch up with me. As a result, I reached the summit in just under 2 hours. I've been told the locals can do this climb in 45 minutes. We hadn't yet eaten breakfast, as 3 hours of solid uphill exercise doesn't bode well for a full stomach, but I was hungry. The Australian joked that I was a beast for carrying two backpacks and my beard up the canyon.

We had breakfast, made our way to Chivay, enjoyed the natural thermal baths there, and had some lunch. We then headed back to Arequipa. As we drove through the canyon, I noticed something black in the opposite window. Sure enough, upon closer inspection, I realized I was in fact seeing a condor. This first sighting was followed by two more, so the experience was very complete. The road we had to take to get back to Arequipa, however, was NOT complete, making for a very bumpy and slow ride in uncomfortable chairs. I HATE uncomfortable chairs.

Upon our return, we had some dinner and cleaned up, then headed to the central plaza to meet up with Kelly, Jessika, and some of the folks from the raucous gang. We had a good time watching them eat Cuy for the first time (and probably the last. Note that cuy is guinea pig), not to mention watch Ben, the American in their group, waltz by himself to the garbage truck's tune as it passed by, as mentioned in the previous post on Arequipa. We then went to check out the bar scene. The first bar had some decent deals, so we stayed for a while, and listened to Robbie (from London) name 49 of the 50 states. We then all admitted that none of us knew how many counties were in England, not even Robbie. People then moved to another bar, and that's where I began to realize that I really don't like bar/club scenes much. As such, I left early.

Before going to the second bar, Ryan told me that he wanted to rub his face in my beard. While I was already thinking that I needed to do some trimming for hygiene's sake, this was definitely the clincher. I think beards are cool, but sometimes I get scared when I see that more men are attracted to men with beards than women. Regardless of which gender is more attracted to me, I'd hate to think that they were using me just to cuddle with my facial hair.

10) Becoming self-aware

Sometimes I say really weird things.

11) Random memory

My junior year of high school in Spanish IV was an interesting one. There was this guy Slade Norris who now plays on the Oakland Raiders in my class. One day, out of the blue, he came over and started stroking my chin. I'm not sure what prompted this. The next day, he did the same thing. Sometimes it would happen in class, sometimes not, but he made it a ritual. It's just strange to think that I'll remember somebody as the professional football player who used to stroke my chin during the 2003/2004 school year.

12) In conclusion

I'm very tired, and have sacrificed sleep to make this post, so I apologize for adverse effects that has made on this post. But then again, my posts are all weird, so I'm not sure that I can blame any of it on sleep deprivation. I'm (kind of but not really) sorry for my personality, in that case.

What? Another One?

Contrary to what I had said in the end of my last post, this will contain neither Colca descriptions nor photographs. This will touch on my retreat, and as the retreat mostly has to do with my mental goings-on, I'm not sure there will be another full post about it. Colca definitely needs its own, though, I think.

While I was on retreat with Brother Larry, Tania, and Alyssa, I had ample time to think. The tranquility that Pueblo Libre, a small village in the province of Ancash (just north of Lima) afforded us was truly premium stuff. Maybe 12 cars passed through the village a day, so we rarely heard car noise, never heard city noise, and the constant loudspeaker of fruit venders did not sound once. I've heard fruit venders shouting about Platanos (bananas and plantains) with their megaphones to make me want to give them a very concrete suggestion as to where they ought to put their platanos.

So there weren't noises to distract nor megaphones to test my fragile charity. Additionally, the scenery is unreal. Just google Caraz if you want a small taste of what I mean. The snow-topped mountains almost looked fake because the snow was just so perfectly shimmering in the sunlight. When there weren't clouds, the sky was a brilliant shade of blue that's deeper than you can get in a more connected setting: there's too much smog and the elevation isn't high enough. Here, the air is crystal clear, the humidity does not irritate, and the sky gets to such a deep cerulean hue that you may think you're approaching the outer layers of the atmosphere. The flowers are lovely, the smell is refreshing, the people are beyond incredible, and while we had our doubts about the house when we first arrived, we concluded that Hermano Hugo knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he was doing when he recommended that we went there.

So what did I do with this time? I reflected on the questions posed, obviously, but I also had ample time to go on my own reflective adventures.

The craziest one: contemplating silence. What is silence? Is it the absence of noise? We use it that way, but what other connotation is there? One definition involves stillness. When I think of stillness, I don't think of just things being immobile or in suspended animation or paused. There is a peace and a tranquility that I associate with the word that I lose when I make it synonymous with "muteness."

As I wondered about this, I realized what a lack of silence there is in my life. I fill it with music, I fill it with thought, I fll it with conversations and seeking others, and none of these things are bad in and of themselves, but one can add too much to the pot. I used to get mad when priests would talk about Ipods and cell phones and email and facebook and goodness knows what other newfangled things young people (22 and already feeling old) use. There was a part of me that thought, "Gosh, stop harping on it!" I don't think that the priests actually talked about them all that much, but the fact that the theme was always the same probably irked me, because one of my flaws is that if I feel that I sufficiently know something, I don't want to be retold or treated as if I knew nothing on the subject. I'm quiet about it (usually), but I'm fairly arrogant and hate having what I think I know to be true challenged.

Anyway, silence. Really, back in the states, could I have gone a week without texting somebody? Calling people? Checking my messages? Doing compulsive email checks? I know I certainly did not immediately equate being alone as a desirable thing; perhaps others considered the situation in a similar way. Is it that I don't like to be alone? Is it that I feel like I'm somehow less of a person if I'm not intentionally doing something more active? Am I afraid of silence?

Why would I be afraid of silence? Possibly because when silence arrives, it grows. It can be peaceful, but when people go and go and go and go and suddenly come to a halt, and every excuse they have given for every little thing falls silent, when a million protests and rationalizations and qualms and explanations and justifications lose their voice, silence plays tyrant. People talk about justice being blind. I think that truth might be silent. Enough time in silence, the truth wells up and becomes indomitable, unignorable, insistent. It's amazing and humbling to all of a sudden realize, "Oh. Duh." It's painful to face a next step that involves sacrifice or putting oneself on the line or taking control of one's fears. It's disconcerting to see how every defense one might make crumbles like sand castles when the truth stares one in the face.

With silence, with ears to listen and eyes to see, a heart open to being filled, many of the modern-day complications we make for ourselves can dissolve. Of course, that requires silence. I had a taste of it. And I want more.

So my resolutions this New Year: Cultivate silence and work on praying rather than just thinking. I'd also like a 6-pack, but that falls a little bit more under the "vanity" category.

Of course, after saying I want to pray more than think, I spent a good 30 minutes today figuring out a syllogistic apology to "It is in giving that we receive" and its connection to the Communion of Saints and "Whosoever seeks to save his life shall lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake shall save it," and "I live no longer I, but Christ in me." Me? Cerebral? What?

Oh, and the apology makes no sense. Not that any of us were surprised. I think that is all that I've got. I'm going to go for a run and work on repairing the elevator that runs between my head and my heart. Pax, all.

Arequipa: Adventures in the White City

Lord of the Rings fans might be slightly upset that I am not referring to Gondor when I talk about the White City, but it's what they call Arequipa: the older buildings in the center of the city are made of sillar, a volcanic rock (made possible by a generous donation from the three active volcanoes nearby), and the result is that the central plaza's buildings are pleasantly whitish, but bearing the marks of age in such a way that I genuinely felt that I was in a city that had been around for quite some time.

It's a beautiful place. There's always sun during the day, it's always a bit chilly at night, it has sunsets to rival the Bahamas, has amazing vistas, and the downtown area is completely accessible to pedestrians. We took a taxi once, not including the trips to and from the bus terminal.

But let me begin with the bus ride: it was very long.

I think that's all that needs to be said. The owner of our Hostel ("Amazing Home," and it lived up to its name), Alex, greeted us as we left the bus. He runs the Amazing Home with his family, and they couldn't be more helpful, kind, nor hospitable. They made us breakfast in the morning, Alex helped us plan a bus tour and a trekking adventure in Colca Canyon, and they all have amazing smiles. If you ever go to Peru, go to Arequipa. And go to this hostel.

I got my fair share of sun on this trip, especially when we were on the open level of a double-decker tour bus. Yes, I did a touristy thing. Let's not dwell on it. Nor on the ridiculous visor they gave us. Especially not on how burned my nose got because I, in a rush, didn't put sunscreen on. That day, I literally saw the undersides of my arms change color: from a white color that would make nobility of the 16th century jealous, I saw little red specks appear. It was amazing to actually see my Northern European heritage in action.

On our third and fourth days, we went to Colca Canyon, which will be getting its own post.

We went to the museum where they keep Juanita, the mummified indigenous child sacrificed atop a mountain to please the gods. She's famous because of how well the ice of the mountain preserved her. I went away with a couple of observations: 1) That girl is TINY. I know that she was young, and that I am taller than many, many people in Peru, but goodness gracious. 2) I want the lung capacity and cardiovascular system of the Inca. They climbed that mountain without rock-climbing shoes, with minimum rope, without mules or llamas, and probably managed to maintain their religious procession the entire time. And it is a STEEP mountain.

I have a habit of emulating accents. In Peru, this is nice, because I quickly shifted from sounding like I had a Brazilian accent to having a Peruvian accent very quickly. In fact, I might have overdone it and emulated the way my kids talk too closely, which would make me sound like a mumbling adolescent Peruvian, which I'm not too keen to have, but whatever. So yeah, great when speaking other languages. Not so great when meeting other expatriates. When I talked with the Australians, I had to fight not to go Australian. When I talked with the English guy, I'll be darned if I didn't notice myself beginning to imitate him. Not much happened with the Scottish guy, because my instincts told me that I just couldn't imitate his accent without sounding like Willy the Scottish Janitor from the Simpsons, and if I were a native Scot, I'd be none to thrilled to hear that as feedback to my thoughts. I blame this habit of mine on my mother (love you, Mom) after hearing that when she and my dad picked up a hitchhiker from Dublin, Mom was droppin' her g's an' givin' a lilt to her words. So yeah, on Wednesday night when we met up with some folks we had met on our excursion to Colca, I had some issues.

All in all, the best thing about Arequipa was the fact that it was vacation. I needed some time to breathe and be in a new atmosphere.

Oh! Arequipa has great food. Rocoto Relleno is lovely, Ocopa is delightful, and they're a good shrimp/crawdad city.

As an afterthought, my only real complaint would probably be that the trash collectors have an obnoxiously loud noise to alert people that they're coming so that people can drop what they're doing, grab their bags, and toss them in the truck. The form the alert took? The beginning of "Fur Elise" by Beethoven. However, our friend Ben made up for that by waltzing with himself on the balcony of a restaurant for our restaurant and all of those restaurants sharing said balcony (and possibly passerby in the Central Plaza below) to see.

That's all I've got at the moment. Next post: Colca and/or Photos. And maybe emo musings if I can't muster enough interesting information and/or photos.

After Some Christmas and New Year....

I would say that it is high time for an update. Please note that most formality in this blog, aside that which I can blame on tiredness, comes from the fact that the keyboard is not wanting to let me use apostrophes. I know how to use them on these Spanish computers. The simple fact is that through some electrical fault and stubbornness, I have been denied the use of a very useful piece of punctuation for expressing possession and for contractions. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Where to begin? I suppose that Christmas is as good a place as any. I expect that after my retreat that begins on Sunday, I will have other updates as well, as a sufficient number of substantial events have transpired to merit at least a few of them having their proper and individual posts. In any case...

The month of December, as I believe I have mentioned in a previous post, lacked the regular contitution and schedule unto which I had grown accustomed in the past few months. I lacked chickens to herd in the daytime, tasks were ever more strange, and the experience served as a wonderful means to disorient me entirely. That being said, the anticipation for Christmas was palpable at the Ciudad de los Niños, and the season was thusly transformed into a delightful form of chaotic preparation. Each house made its own Nativity scene, because that is a big thing down here. I was amazed to see the meticulousness, the grandiosity, and the sheer interest put into each one. Well done, Ciudad. I also began learning Christmas songs to play at Mass with Hno. Polo and the choir.
While I greatly admire him on many points, patience is something he lacks. We have very little time to learn songs, especially songs that are complicated, and while the kids just need to get some guts and sing into the microphone, sometimes his frustration at them irks me. I hope that the boys get some actual voice training, because presently one cannot hear a single word that they sing. Should Hno. Polo fail to sing, no one will sing, because nobody will hear a leading voice. I have some sympathy for the next frustration: I know how to play any number of songs, but having to explain which chords to play when can sometimes be a daunting task. Hno. Polo, in rush for time, sometimes failed to notify me of some (or any) of the chords to certain songs. I know 6 chords on the guitar, so I was able to read his hands and thusly play the correct progressions for many songs, but if he played something outside of those 6, I was in trouble.
All things considered, music was fun. I must say, though, that liturgical musicianship is a huge challenge for me. The temptation always arises to treat the music as performance. In a sense it is, clearly, but I always focus so narrowly on that one aspect of liturgical music that I fail to recognize the prayerfulness that should accompany well-executed hymns. When I fail to let prayer into my music, i.e., into my mode of functioning or a Mass or Rite or anything, the privation of prayer in the totality of my time spent in the church building is incredibly noticeable. I did not have as much of a challenge this Christmas, not having people to joke with and less of a perfectionist attitude.

After Mass, we had dinner. After dinner, we waited. At 11:59 PM, we had a countdown. At midnight, December 25th, the kids opened presents. I cannot tell you how much excitement, joy, happiness, and goodwill was in that room full of boys aged 3 through 18. After they all had opened their presents, people commenced to hug. If I had complained about a lack of hugs in my life for the past 4 or 5 months, this one night was recompense. Everybody hugged a little more tightly, a little more lovingly, with a little more feeling. Small children with whom I had never interacted asked for hugs and high fives. The heads of houses were, if possible, more giddy than the children. There was enough earnest and sheer joy within the confines of the Ciudad to bring any person to a beaming smile.

I will not expand on this thought too much, but I enjoyed being posed with the question: What are you giving Jesus for His birthday? I also like thinking about the 3 Kings and all the metaphorical and literal subtleties that their gifts entail about His nature and our own.

The kids left the Ciudad for vacations Christmas Day. It was a day of melancholy and awesomeness. On the one hand, a sort of freedom to relax without the slightest feeling of guilt was opening its arms to collect me into a month-long embrace, but on the other, an unfilled schedule was skulking on the horizon. Also, though I would think it goes without saying, I was saying goodbye to some boys whom, for better or for worse, I have come to appreciate and (dare I say it?) love.

After that, we commenced to...do almost nothing. The first week of vacation was an unplugging of sorts. However, that did not last long. The evening of January 1st we jumped on a travel bus and headed for Arequipa, a city in the Province of the same name, where it is brilliantly sunny in the day and chilly at night, where the clouds are a minor part of the day, not the main presence, where the elevation is high, snow-capped moutains have taken up residence, there are less than 8 million people, and the vegetation is not all brown. I am currently writing this blog entry from said city. As such, I will give you the layout of how I imagine the next few blog entries will take shape: I imagine that I will discuss Arequipa in depth, although our largest adventure, trekking the Colca Canyon, will need its own, claiming the second future blog post, and I am sure I will find the need to post some small musings about Caraz, site of our CapCorps retreat that will be starting oh-so-soon.

As such, I have nothing more substantial for now. Bear with me and in a week or two I will hopefully have something more to say than a mere outline of what has happened.

Going Crazy!

This title does not refer to my sanity: this refers to the state of things as the school year draws to a close here at the Ciudad. As a note, this is being written over several days whenever I have free time, so bear with the choppiness.


(Written on Sunday) We have just come back from Lima Centro after a late morning/early afternoon of exploration. Shelly, our boss, is in town to see what we do and what Lima's like, so we took the chance to be touristy. We went back to San Francisco, which has the catacombs for all of Lima underneath and has a really cool convent and tour. We decided to go in Spanish this time, as when we were first here we went in English. I was surprised that I was able to understand the majority of what he said...without incredible focus. Mighta had something to do with having an idea of what was going to be discussed, but I still was happy. I also really enjoyed getting all of the tour guide's knowledge this time around; the language barrier made the tour last time a lot shorter. There was a lady with our group who was kind of rude and interrupting and probably had a personality disorder, but as the tour guide was explaining the missionaries' assimilation of Incan culture into Catholicism, how the Virgin Mary took the place of the Earth Mother and another god and how the Body of Christ took the place of the Sun, the lady interjected: "Y el Papa en vez de la papa?" or "And the pope in place of potatoes?" I interiorly thought it was a great pun...which I hardly ever laugh at, but will appreciate and find clever. The tour guide was less thrilled.

On the evening of the 12th, 3 brothers got ordained as deacons. It was absolutely AWESOME. So many people were at the church in Chama, the choir was terrific, the Bishop was really cool, and there was a feeling of community like none other! I can't get over how good it felt to be there. What was even cooler was being able to recognize people in the congregation and at the party afterward. I was amazed: people from the Ciudad, a huge number of people who had gone to FestiAsis in Huánuco, some of the leaders from our staff retreat, friars from all over...Seriously, it was awesome.

I can't get over how beautiful people here, either. The women who work here at the Ciudad just overwhelm me sometimes. And I don't just mean those crushes that I talked about several posts back: there is just something that shines through their hellos, their laughter, their moments of anger, and just the way they carry themselves that doesn't quite make my heart flutter in that crush sort of way, but it does make me just think, "Wow, how beautiful, how warm, how kind!" You met people like that? For whatever flaws they may have, whatever guards they might put up, there isn't a bit of guile in them. What you see is them, and you can FEEL it, and it's like hot apple cider on a cold autumn night: it warms you, but in a rich way that goes down to your toes.

(Written on the 16th) The guys overwhelm me, too, because they're just so funny, so knowledgeable, and the earnestness is just...winning. What is the most amazing, though, is the fact that not owing to any virtue or quality of my own other than existing and being here, I'm welcomed, loved, invited, appreciated. It leaves me questioning, "How can this be?" though I already know the answer. In fact, it's more the answer that's awe-inspiring, almost unbelievable: "It's how we do." It's powerful enough, striking enough, that there's almost the temptation to ask the question again in incredulity. The trick for me is swallowing my pride, my arrogance, my assumption that I've got the most important and best interpretation of the world and how it works, and welcome something new.

The school year is over. The kids are recuperating. All of a sudden, there's something I hadn't seen in them. Maybe it's because the end is in sight. But then again, there's the question, "What have I done to merit them missing me? What have I done that could possibly have an impact?" In those moments, I just have to trust that I'll never know the effect of what I do. I'm sad to think that most of the kids I've hung out with these past 4 months will be in a different pabellón next year. I'm glad that they aren't buying so much into macho culture to say things like, "I'll miss you," or show affection, though it's not through hugs or explicitly saying it, like younger kids might do.

It's not snowing, it's not cold, and family's far away, but...it's still managing to feel like Advent.

Half a Month Later

November has been pretty action-packed, I must say. I will go ahead and say it's for that reason that I haven't updated, but that would be ignoring my laziness, which is such a key factor.

I've been working on getting into a regular exercise routine, which is a huge source of comfort. I had forgotten how much I need to be active to feel my best, and how I need to give it some variety so it's not just another monotonous thing that makes me tired. That was probably why I got so irritated with my swimming routine in college: it was always the same and I never pushed myself. Then again, when I was sick for several days the one time I pushed myself wayyy too hard and was unhappy for the many-hour flight to Berlin and the first 1 1/2 days I was in the city, I figure that I probably instinctively decided against going crazy in the swimming pool. Regardless, exercising is nice.

Two weeks ago, I had the chance to go to Eduardo Talancha's house in the north of Lima. Eduardo works in San Felix, the oldest group of kids, and is an alumnus of Ciudad. I had mentioned last month that I was having trouble with empathy because I had had the world handed to me on a silver platter, and he then said, "Well, I could show you what a lot of kids are coming from. Come look at my house and my neighborhood." Amazing gesture, no? So we went to his house, and it was very small. I wasn't incredibly surprised at the living situation of not having individual rooms for cooking, doing laundry, and getting dressed; I feel like I'd be really dumb if I hadn't picked up on that being the norm from my other experiences in mission work and service. No, I'm not really dumb; I'm really arrogant (though they are invariably connected). While I haven't gotten a doctorate and am very quick to forget stuff that I don't use with frequency (i.e., school skills) and haven't traveled extensively or for long periods of time, I have a college education, a good high school education, very well-learned parents, and have traveled more than many people. The funny thing is, those experiences are supposed to open people up to other cultures, ways of life, struggles in others' lives, and the world in general. I'm now struggling with opening myself to that, because my life has been privilege, opportunity, and abundance of material and spiritual blessings. Here, there are kids who've never been outside of their native neighborhoods, save for going to Ciudad de los Niños. Here there are people who have never had the experience of seeing a North American person, a European, or somebody generally outside of their own heritage. Here there are boys in abundance whose only memory of a father figure is the turned back of a man who walked out on his wife and children when the boys were only 3. Do people have to go to a foreign country to experience interactions with people of this background? Most definitely not. It just so happens that I'm experiencing this in a personal way now that I'm here in Lima. I'm growing up (or at least being given the opportunity to do so) right alongside these kids. Never really thought of myself as having a narrow mindset, but then again, I'd never had to work with adolescents from tough backgrounds, either.

So it's been beautiful, trying, aggravating, and educational. Like it has been every time I've posted. Are you getting bored yet?

In other news, Thanksgiving was this past Thursday, and we decided to have the Capuchin brothers over for a Thanksgiving dinner, of sorts. We found a turkey to cook, weighing a whopping 20 pounds. We cooked it in the bakery's oven, as we lack our own. Its name was Jeffrey, because that was the name of the turkey that Joan, Leah, Sarah, Chelsea, and Sr. Bon Secour (I really hope I spelled that right) cooked for Junior year when they had 50 million people in their apartment and probably violated fire code. I really don't care about fire code, I just remember it being awesome. Jeffrey just seems like a great turkey name, so mixing in gratitude for college friends, which inspired gratitude for friends and family from home and friends from LeaderworX, the great turkey name was icing on the cake. Not that we had real cake...we had a pie that we (meaning Alyssa and Tania, I was busy in the morning and then did salad cutting and a few other not so amazing things because I am lame) made from a kind of squash that resembles pumpkin. It was fantastic, actually, though very rich. But getting back to Jeffrey: one of my jobs was washing him. I thusly took him to the cafeteria kitchen, more equipped to handle a 20-pound turkey than our showers or bathroom sinks, and started washing away ice and body fluid. I then reached into the first cavity to find a bag containing Jeffrey's heart, liver, and stomach. Renee, the head lady (I think) of the kitchen, kindly cut off the parts of heart and liver and stomach that we shouldn't eat. I also pulled out the legs (I guess the feet more than the legs: the scaly part). Renee kindly cut off Jeffrey's toes, though in my head I thought it would probably not make much of a difference, as the three of us collectively abhor poultry feet as food. I then reached into the other cavity to find...Jeffrey's head and neck. Renee severed the head from the neck, instructing me not to eat the head. I told her I had no intention of doing so, thanked her profusely, and went to share my findings with Alyssa and Tania, who were just about as thrilled with the head and feet as I was. We proceeded to slather Jeffrey with olive oil and salt, toss some butter into one of his body cavities, and send him to be baked. He was delicious.

The brothers who came (Hno. Walter was busy) were a delight to have. Hno. Hugo, our local coordinator, is knowledgeable, mellow, fun, and his Spanish is a bit easier to understand. Hno. Sergio works with San Francisco, the second-oldest pabellón in Ciudad. He's a fairly quiet individual with a kind smile, but a beast of a soccer player and no-nonsense when it comes to getting stuff done. Hno. David is in San Felix, the oldest group of boys, has a great sense of humor, and is also very laid-back. He's got an impressive English vocabulary and just needs practice to be semi-proficient. Hno. Polo was there, and was definitely the comedian of the night. I love seeing him away from the kids, because he's a lot less...stressed, I guess. It was a great night.

The following day, I went to Huánuco, a province (and city) to the north of Lima. They were hosting the second annual FestiAsis, which is a gathering of various Capuchin parishes and projects in this particular province to share their ministry, hang out, and have a songwriting competition. Hno. Polo had written a song, gotten four kids together to sing it, and asked me to accompany on piano/keyboard. Thus we went to Huánuco, 8 hours away by bus, hidden away in the mountains, near the jungle, and as green as Lima is brown. The drive there was breathtaking, because I got to see jungle, I got to see mountain, and I got to see desert. I also did NOT get elevation sickness, although one of our kids did. I considered this a personal victory. I now have gastroenteritis, so I guess that Joey (the sick kid) won in the end. Huánuco is up in the mountains, for sure, and the mountains are much greener than the mountains of Lima. Thank goodness. Oh, there is actual rain there, too. In fact, the one thing that Lima has over Huánuco (well, two things) are: The coast and lack of small flies that bite and sting like crazy. Huánuco lacks the former and has the latter in abundance. As we were exploring a temple on Sunday, a giant black winged insect flew near me. Nobody else seemed to think much of it, but in my mind I was thinking, "The insect is the size of my index finger and has something looking suspiciously like a stinger. How are you all not even slightly alarmed at this?"

Huánuco was a great experience, to be sure, but also very trying. The friars who went all stayed at the convent, but due to a lack of space and resources at the convent, the rest of us stayed in hostels in the area. This meant that I was, for the majority of the trip and for all intents and purposes, the voice of authority with my kids. I would not have minded so much if A) I had been told beforehand that this would be the case, B) I had even the slightest semblance of an idea of what was going on, and C) If I could have some authority that wasn't derived from the fact that I'm at least a head taller than 3 of the 4 boys, much stronger than any of them, very hairy, and distressing when angry. However, none of these three criteria were filled, so I felt like I was vested with a whole ton of responsibility without any real idea of how to be responsible, especially when chaperoning in Perú is slightly different than chaperoning in the US. I was looking forward to a fairly stress-free weekend, but when that failed, I decided it was my baptism into the new liturgical year and offered it up as Advent sacrifice. That didn't make me much more cheerful to be around, as I am still learning how to be joyful when all I really want to do is scream, but it helped a bit. We were mainly with other groups of people, so that helped out a lot, too. A group of people from the local parish provided for our meals spectacularly. There were 17 groups there with songs to perform, so our kids were very nervous. I can't blame em, but they kind of refused to listen to any advice I gave them (I think this is payback for all the times I shot down the advice of my parents or other people by insisting that they wouldn't give that advice if they only knew the situation like I did). I think what made me most frustrated was the fact that my kids looked to me as the guy who knew what was going on, and were surprised every single time I told them (it was frequently) that they probably knew more about our plan of attack than I did.

Sunday was a tourist day, so that was fun, and Hno. Polo was there, so I didn't have as much responsibility. I was very happy about this, especially because this weekend was the last "Salida" of the year at Ciudad, meaning that majority of the kids go home or to friends' houses for 24 hours or so, and that we volunteers get to sleep in, go about our personal business, and breathe a little bit. The tourist part of the trip was like my opportunity to partake in Salida time that I otherwise couldn't have had that weekend.

One of the 15-year-old girls from a group near Ciudad was very giggly and probably had a crush on me (or was very amused by the fact that I looked like some artists' interpretations of Jesus). My boys translated this into MY having a crush on HER, which should make anybody who has gone through the Sex Offender training (shout-out to LeaderworX people who've gone through VIRTUS) feel very, very uncomfortable. It sure made me uncomfortable. I staved this off last night by saying that if they all must know, if my eye fixed on one girl throughout the weekend, it was the chaperone of said 15-year-old's group, which immediately led to questions about her phone number, house, the possibility of my bringing her to America, etc. (the last one is not hyperbole, they ask that about any Peruvian girl I admit as being attractive). I just have to laugh, because there isn't any way to explain to them that I'm content just reflecting, "Wow, that girl is truly beautiful," without having much interest in romantic pursuits. They are unable to grasp this concept. I decided to explain to José in seriousness how I just wasn't wanting to use this time of self-discovery and learning to date, especially because of the complications of only being here for 18 months without much intention of being here for a longer, more permanent basis. Explaining that I still had some hiccups in my faith life from a previous romantic endeavor that I'd avoided dealing with until now also didn't do much good. Mentioning discernment didn't aid my cause, either. He responded to all of this by saying, "But Brother, si en 5 años se diera cuenta de que Pamela es su amor verdadera..." ("But brother, if in 5 years you realize that Pamela is your true love...") I responded, "I supposed I'll just have to come back to Lima, then, huh?" Because there really wasn't much else to say. It's gotten less bothersome, but so awkward at times when they ask me my opinion about which high school girl is hotter...because at this point, my tastes have changed just a little bit.

Also awkward: sexual questions. I wish that they'd just use the real words for things instead of jargon or very, very crude gestures. I had forgotten what it was like to be so absolutely hormone-driven that the idea of losing virginity was the pinnacle of existence. Oh...wait...I was a high school kid who felt natural desires, but who looked with supreme disdain (judgmental bugger that I was) on those whose idea of a great conversation was an in-depth discussion about how much more well-endowed one celebrity was than another. This juxtaposition led to several self issues, explaining my slightly more emo phase, but I really strove not to talk about girls that way or make sexual gratification my point of being. If I can't explain not wanting to date right at this moment to them, I don't know how I'll ever explain why I'm grateful for retaining my virginity or why I hold certain conversational topics and gestures in very bad taste. Maybe it's another cultural thing, because I do verge a little bit more on the prudish side, but this will open up to another topic:

Cultural differences. I know that I'm biased just on the basis of coming from my own culture, but I really do think that cultures have some things to give each other. If the US is too much one way, another culture isn't enough. If the US isn't enough, the other might be too much. I don't think it's as easy as, "We have our way, you have yours," with every single issue. I'd like to see some attempt at dialogue and at the very least looking at how different things really are rather that just writing things off as, "Another culture," and therefore exempt from all comparative analysis. That doesn't mean "WE SHOULD JUDGE."

Final tangent of this long, long post: I'm ready. I'm not sure how to word it, and I don't want to word all of it, particularly, but I feel that I need to at least say what I just did: I'm ready.