Holy Week

Possibly one of the biggest deals of the year, Holy Week came and went here in Tacna with a lot to do. Despite having Thursday and Friday as holidays, I feel like I did more and slept less last weekend than I have all year so far.

It all started last week with a Friday night reconciliation service and then an early Saturday morning hike to climb the nearby sand dune. It was a small pilgrimage of sorts, and here is the evidence (look how tired my homeroom students look at 3 in the morning. If only they were that calm in class.....):

Wednesday with our first volleyball game as Team Habitat Forever in the local tournament. And though it pains me to say it, we are horrible. With all of the neighborhood out en masse to watch, we certainly provided a lot of entertainment with our inability to set each other up and numerous shots to the face. Oh well.

Thursday I took a nice little trip with my goddaughter (I was the padrino of her first communion, so it`s not quite Godfather-like, though she insists on calling me Padrino all the time) and her mother to visit the nearby valley of Tarata. There we did some walking around and for me it was super special to see Leslie enjoy the outdoors and the change of scenery. She had never travelled outside of Tacna before, so it was very special for her. We also ate some delicious fruit and I bought lots of yummy manna - kind of like big, sweet popcorn.

Friday I went to my host family, and since we are in a super Catholic country, there is no meat to be found in the entire country on this day. We feasted on some fried rice with seafood and some fried calamari - all homemade in the house. Then I returned to Habitat for some Viacruces, or stations of the cross. Although it was not as intense as last year, it still involved some scenes of cruifixtion and some carrying around of a big cross (see photo).

Saturday night I participated in an all-night vigil with the kids of the youth group with whom I worked last year. I have not had a chance to work as much with them since it is out in the neighborhood where I taught, but it was great to share this special time with them. We went to the vigil mass and then had some reflections, watched Passion of the Christ, and had a little celebration for the Resurrection. I got very little sleep though, and was very exhausted all Sunday. Easter was a food-filled day as we invited the neighbors over for breakfast and chatting (see below), then I went to my host family`s for lunch and chatted some more, and then I came home to run (to make space in my belly) and nap before a community dinner of quinua risotto (very very delicious creation made possible by Cara).

So, all in all, very busy and very enjoyable - but what more can you ask out of life?

Holy Week

This week has been a real whirlwind affair and even though yesterday and today are feriados (holidays here), it certainly does not feel like it.

I will begin with last weekend, when I found myself sleeping in the Miguel Pro science lab in order to wake up at 3 am and walk with the entire school above fourth grade on a five hour hike/Stations of the Cross. It was actually a great experience as I was able to know some more of the kids, spend some time hanging out with Martin (who is the father of a student and just generally an awesome, McGwiver - spelling? - like figure who knows a ton about different crops, Peruvian politics, how to fish with nothing but some string, etc.), and witness a great view of our part of Tacna from the top of a big sand dune that we climbed at the end of the walk. I promise I will put pictures up since it was so neat. After we did the second to last station at the bottom of the hill, the woman running the show just told the kids to basically go wild and run up the sand dune. It created a massive, chaotic, and very cool free-for-all as some ran, some walked, many complained, and all made it up to the top, where we did the last station.

Today I have a big Stations of the Cross walk in the community where my school is. Basically the youth group that I co-lead was put in charge of doing this and each little neighborhood community takes charge of one station and we walk from one to the other and at each station our group is doing a little acting out of the scene. It should be a very unique and community-building experience, though it does mean three hours of walking out in the sun and dust of Viñani. Don´t worry though, I will put on massive amounts of sun block and will wear a hat.

We actually did a similar - though much shorter - Stations of the Cross at school on Wednesday. In typical Peruvian fashion, it was bizzarely organized (each class did a station, but they only came out to do their station and then when it was lunch time and we were still going, all the little kids were released anyway and so you had little tykes running up to Jesus as he was on the cross or playing tag through the entire procession that we teachers were trying to keep somber and focused). I did not find the whole experience so religious, but it was nonetheless fascinating for all its little cultural and community aspects.

Also, of big note down here has been Fujimori´s conviction recently, which I will go into further detail at some point since it is fascinating, but is a little too much for right now. So, I will just leave you now with this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/americas/08fujimori.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=peru%20fujimori&st=cse