So What Was I Up to in February?

Well, it´s been a restful, busy, exciting and fun-filled month that has left me ready to start the new school year on Monday with ganas and committment.
The relaxation started on the silent retreat in Arequipa. I enjoyed the five days in silence with good food, lots of reading material, the opportunity to go for a little run each day, and really tasty coffee in the morning. The Jesuit who led the retreat did a great job of offering thirty minute talks with further reading and then just letting us go off and digest and reflect. Two particular Bible passages really stuck out to me (and although I usually only take much interest in the Bible as a metaphorical or storytelling work). The first one is on Love and is from Paul´s letter to the Corinthians:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

The other passage I really liked speaks more to how I view humanity. Specifically, I feel like all of my experiences in life have taught me that we share so much in common as people, despite all our differences. I know it sounds like a cliche, but I cannot help but strongly feel it down here in all my positive interactions we people so different from myself. It is also from Corinthians:

¹²The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. ¹³For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

¹⁴Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. ¹⁵If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" ²²On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Alright, enough semi-proselytizing from me. But I thought about a lot of interesting aspects of life, my relationships with others, and my year that I have left here (I filled like 10 pages in my journal with really little writing).

Ok, so from there we went travelling (with most of our trips being 10ish hours and on overnight buses - though thankfully nothing too bad happened on the buses besides some very smelly and sweaty rides, some sore backs the next day, and some arrivals at dawn while the sleepy cities were just starting to wake up).

Trujillo is a beautifully designed city, while much colonial architechture and striking solid and bright colors. It´s Plaza de Armas is a nice and quiet place to hang out, though the sun was oppresive when we were there and the police would shoo us away from every spot in the shade other than the benches that we found. We also visited the beach there (Huanchaco) and spent a very restful afternoon swimming in the water, getting some good food (Pescado Saltado, which is basically like a stiry fry of fish, peppers and onions served over fried potatoes), and seeing the famous caballo boats the fishermen use (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcvzsWJoAVu_dNGh7Xs7I62UrWGH2Gg9rQ0oVNSQCQ08ipFvRt-P41dK_e5RXQdHZbslAja1gonNvC_rrYOjWiL_onsGUodC6RfiU7CzZLjDyGst0Mmlzma9NHI2WG7Txl0Tk0ORIz6fk/s400/100_5346.jpg)

From there, we went to Huaraz (in the northern highlands between the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra), where we found ourselves on Fat Tuesday. Though we did not participate much in the parties that were going on for this pre-Lent celebration, we could not avoid the giant street water fight that took place.

Though I know this comparison is a little dramatic, it was like being in a harmless street war zone. Just trying to get to a place to eat lunch and then a tour office to ask about prices, we had to hide around corners, be constantly aware of who had buckets, who was lurking on rooftops, and always ready to sprint quickly away. There were brigades of youths roaming the streets ready to toss water or throw water balloons at you. Multiple times our little group of five American Jesuit volunteers had to rapidly disperse when we heard the war cry of ¨Gringos¨shouted from a group of these pseudohooligans. While sitting and eating lunch, we heard a police siren that had us worried until we saw a massive pack of probably around 200 youths of all ages go running by in the street in search of a refill station. In the end, it was a blast.

We also spent some time in Lima, and I am developing a good sense of some of the main parts of the capital city. I soak in its hustle and bustle and cannot help but enjoy the people watching and interactions that develop out of being in a true city.

For instance, while riding on a bus (and bus rides there just among main parts of the city can take thirty to forty five minutes), a young kid sitting next to me just began to talk to me. It turns out that he is 16 years old and while studying for the University tests and finishing up High School, he is also training and trying out for Cienciano (the professional soccer team from Cusco). We had a real pleasant little talk, shared across cultures and languages, he helped me out with where I was going, and I got off the bus with a smile on my face and a good vibe in general. Little moments like that are wonderful to experience down here.

It makes me happy even right now just to think that I still have a lot of those moments to go over the next year here. And I will be sharing them!

Travels Across Northern Peru

Photo essay style! We ended up travelling through Lima to Trujillo and its beach and then down through the sierra to Huaraz before heading home. A recap is to come, but here are some photos to whet the appetite.








The male contingent of JV Peru 2010 posturing for the camera. Next to me is Seamus and then Nate.









Some shots of the snow capped mountains peaking through the clouds in the beautiful cordillera blanca.












Just a remarkably beautiful view in this national park. The lagoon is in the foreground with towering cliffs on either side.










Though it doesn´t look like much in this photo, this is overlooking the town of Yungay, that was completely destroyed (25,000 died) in an earthquake in 1970 when a chunk of the glacier that is behind the hill you can see came off and then slid down and covered the entire town like a blanket. It is a very tragic and eerie place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungay,_Peru






Me, the Plaza de Armas de Trujillo and an early early Sunday morning.














The lighting is a little off, but this is us at the beach Huanchaco by Trujillo.











The nighttime show at the Parque de Aguas (which has some Guiness record for most and biggest fountains)












Inside the Tunnel Fountain (I think I had been wearing those clothes for like three days straight because of all the overnight buses that we took)








Last, and almost certainly least, is a picture of this creepy clown they made out of the trunk of a tree and put randomly in a park in Lima

Quick Photo Update

The whole community together in Sama when we went to visit Nate with Cristo Rey. They are building the staircase you see in the background, although the day we went there were some kids just sitting on the side playing cards. Very different from last year.........










My attempt to participate in the JVI Tacna male´s beard growing context over Mes de Mision. I think I only had some success with the ´stache.











At the clausura on the last day. The women in green was our wonderful cook, Olga.










My group and I (on the right) planting some corn. It is a pretty simple process and actually was some of the best work because you could do a lot, talk while working, and see what you accomplished afterwards.







I promise more to come, though maybe not soon. Sunday starts a five day silent retreat (which I am very much looking forward to. I definitely enjoy silence and time to reflect) and then we are traveling northward to Trujillo, Piura and whatever spontaneity throws our way.

The Return

I want to say that I survived, but this year´s Mes de Mision experience was a lot more enjoyable and easy-going than last year. Obviously, every year many factors are unique to that year (the situation with the food, the type of work being accomplished, the students, etc) and the change from a Cristo Rey, the-kids-should-suffer mentality to a Miguel Pro, allow-the-kids-to-develop-and-mature-in-a-new-service-oriented enviornment both impacted the last month.

Basically, we spent the month pulling out Santa María (a type of weed that somewhat oddly has a holy name), cleaning and feeding goats, working with corn (weeding, harvesting, planting), and playing a lot of sports (from the small field soccer to volleyball to knock out - a wonderful, basketball-like game that we taught the Peruvians). We still had to deal with some of what I have come to see as the usual issues down here in southern Peru. At times, the government officials would tell us there was work, but never send transportation for us. At others, they would not communicate amongst themselves and we would be left hanging in the wind. Additionally, the lack of planning - although I have come to be better at simply being spontaneous, which us volunteers feel is a staple of the part of Peruvian culture that we have experienced down here - also wore on me a bit. I oversaw our finances and held on to all the money (which at the beginning meant carrying around the equivalent of over 1500 dollars in a fannypack all day and night) and my attempts to budget or organize this were expecially difficult with the lack of planning.

At the core of the experience, however, are the students and their personal development. This group of kids was especially respectful, fun-loving, and amiable. There were highs (one night, I was sitting alone in a corner of the school writing in my journal and a group of them came running over to sit around me and tell ghost stories) and there were lows (one kid spent an entire day pouting after I became very frustrated with his lack of participation in the catechesis class we led and told him sternly that he needed to get involved) as are to be expected.

There were many moments of laughter (one student loved throwing out random phrases in English and from time to time would ask me, ¨teacher, are you hungry?¨ when he saw me frustrated. He, of course, meant to ask me if I was angry, but with the silent h in Spanish, it came out in a way that always made me smile) and good bonding with my fellow volunteers and with the students (a hour-long, late night discussion about multiple universes over secretly-popped popcorn comes to mind). There was a lot of the same music (the kids loved to hear me terribly try to sing along to this song without knowing the words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IEG3z7Ze3I. But let´s be honest, it is called ¨My Beautiful Girl¨ and is by Chino and Nacho, how could it now be wonderful to sing along to?) and some really good and greasy food (all the usual Peruvian cuisine of Arroz Chaufa - fried rice with hot dog bits - Ají de Gallina, Papa Rellena, Porotos, Lentejas, Chicharon de Pollo, Saltado, etc.).

Even though the passed in a much smoother way than last year, I still need time and space to process it and reflect. Next week, I will be going on a five-day silent retreat in which I plan to think a lot about the last month and begin to plan the steps I want to take for next December/January, when my time down here comes to a close. I promise there will be pictures and more thoughts to come!