TIQTI SUD ALTAR

I think just like your lives in the U.S., life here is filled with ordinary moments. There are also moments of of inspiration, fear, joy, and difficulty. I am trying to find a balance in telling these different types of moments, and to not dwell in one group or another, remembering that when I tell about a joyful moment you may be mourning something. Or when I tell you of another difficult moment in the lives of the people here, you may be struggling to find light in a world that paints darkness with each news cast.

I always felt that news shows should produce more stories of the inspiring things people do each day. If we could see the wonderful things that people do around the country and around the world, we may be inspired to do more.

Fr Joe Nangle ofm was here for a week to accompany the missioners in their work and be with the group for part of our annual retreat. I asked him to say mass at my center in Tiqti Sud, because we usually don't have mass, we have a service, with prayers, the readings, and distribution of the Eucharist.

At the end of mass he shared one more story, I think to inspire folks to mission or good works wherever they are in life. First I will say that my neighborhood is a mix of poor and middle class. Though the middle class here might be considered poor in the U.S., they just have a whole lot more than the poor here.

Fr Joe's story was from when he was a missioner in Peru. A few of the other Friars had gone up into the mountainside to say masses at various locations for the weekend. They stopped at small local eatery on their way home for lunch. As they were finishing, an older obviously poor woman came in asking for their leftovers on their plates. The Friars called the owner over and asked him to prepare a plate for the woman and put it on their tab.

She received a nice plate of food, chicken, rice and potatoes, and she sat herself down in the doorway to eat. Shortly after, along came another poor woman. The first woman sat her down and split her meal with her. The Friars had thought she would say, "There are some rich gringos inside, who gave me this plate of food, you should go in and ask for some food too!"

For the Friars it was an amazing example of sharing, communion and love. Here they had been celebrating the Eucharist all weekend long and this was so concrete to them. Fr Joe shared how this event effected the Friars 40 years ago, you can still see how it effects Fr. Joe today! I think he told it to the people of my congregation to let them know no matter how poor we are there is always an opportunity to share what you have.

He didn't know this story of this past Christmas. I was heading into the city, late Christmas afternoon, to meet the two other missioners. As I headed down the hill, Evelyn, one of the girls in the after school program came running up to me with a handful of cookies. I thought she was offering me one, but she was offering the whole handful! Though honestly I did not want them, I accepted, because she was so excited to share with me one of her Christmas gifts! I put them in my pocket! I was glad to have them because when I neared the missioner's apartment, two families were sitting on the sidewalk begging. I was glad not only to give them alms, but to be able to pull out the cookies for the small children!! So Evelyn made more people happy then she realized!

Below Fr. Joe blessing a worker at a clinic in Sacaba, Bolivia.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Watermelon at Christmas Time and a Brief Reflection on Prayer

 



I had wanted to get a shot of the 3 of us, the Cochabamba FMS missioners eating watermelon at Thanksgiving. I then also missed the shot on Christmas day. I was able to get this one a few days after Christmas at our weekly reflection time. Note the Christmas Book on the table. Nora is blocking the Nativity Scene, but the star is right over her head!! *

We try to get together to reflect every week, share prayer, check in on what's happening in our ministries and lives, and almost always share a meal. This week was my turn, which means meeting at my house, cooking and preparing reflection. Theme of be joyful, pray constantly. (Paul/ Thessalonians I believe). There are many opportunities to pray constantly here, or at least frequently, while waiting for a bus while riding the bus, while waiting for a meeting to start (even during the meeting). One can pray while cooking for people who are coming to eat the meal, and when doing the dishes after all leave. *

I am impressed by two people I know that pray for everyone they know on their long morning walks. Though impressed for more than a decade, I have yet to incorporate anything similar into my prayer life. I tend to focus on a few people at a time. *

I also always like the idea at Jubilee, that would come around at devotions a few times a year, where someone would right down all the names of the people living there, staff and refugees, and sometimes refugees who had just moved to Atlanta, or ones we knew to be particularly struggling. We would divide the the slips of paper with names among all who were present at prayer time and we would prayer for those particular people. I usually kept those slips a long time to remind me to pray for the people longer. Sometimes slips from various prayer times would pile up on a little plate. I would go back from time to time and open each paper and pray again, sometimes for a volunteer who was long gone and back to school, or off on their next adventure. *

I hope everyone will keep me in prayer from time to time. God knows I need it! We will be having a three day retreat in January and will be joined by the other two missioners in Bolivia. They live a days journey by bus (actually 2 buses) so it will be good to reflect and pray with them. Our retreat will be led by our program director Rhegan and Fr Joe, ofm, who is the former co-director of FMS. He was codirector when I originally trained in 1999, and was my boss when I worked as office manager/bookkeeper for FMS. It will be great to have him here. *

I am excited also for Rhegan to come, she has mission experience in both Brazil and Bolivia. I met her many years ago while she was in training. I was able to spend sometime in the US with her, when I was there this year. I was very impressed with a couple training sessions I sat in on. The three missioners in training also kept telling me how much they were impressed with her and the training. *

Be Joyful always and pray constantly. The reflection included the idea that when one prays constantly, joy is the result. *

Update on Fabiola

 

Well here is a recent photo of Fabiola. She keeps growing and she remains a pretty quiet baby. She loves playing with her brothers, mother, father, me, and a few others. She doesn't like getting her picture taken and her mother is even worse. Fabiola is even cuter in person!! Her mom always wants me to erase the the photos! Her mother has her on her back wrapped in an aguayo. Usually women and sometimes men carry bundles, groceries, babies, and children with aguayos. They are great because they fit any load. An aguayo is just a beautiful woven square of sturdy cloth, bordered with a crocheted edging. Sometimes you don't know someone has a baby on their back until you hear some crying. I have seen women work on road crews with their babies on their backs. You just shift them around forward for feeding times!

Snow at Christmas Time

 

Just wanted you to all to know that we did get snow for Christmas too. Usually it melts during the day, but we keep getting more everytime it rains down in the valley. This snow hung around until more was added the next night. Mount Tunari the tallest in the picture (over 15,000 ft) is about 25-30 miles away from my house where I took the picture.

You Never Know Who You Might Meet On Your Way To.... (The Market)

 

If you only took pictures in one direction or one of the three others, you would never get an acurate view. 360 degrees is necessary. But today is just one direction. A little up the hill (North) and along the road to the east. I meet many other animals besides the dogs when I leave home and head elsewhere. the pigs above make their rounds at least a few times a week. maybe everyday, but I'm not there to check it out.

 

I see the goats maybe more frequently than the pigs, and I like them better as they remind me of Jubilee! The other day I saw a cute girl with two sheep one on a leash. If I had my camera, you would have a picture of a country girl. She was even dressed in the style of the countryside. I would have thought I was in the countryside.

 

Here I am with Mario (my neighbor,6 years old now, he is growing like a weed) and Roxanna one of my favorite kids from the after school program, and lunch program too! She is very helpful. Believe it or not she is 12 years old, she bent over to hug my waist. The third child is Eric, what you can't see him. Check out the number of right hands in the photo. Eric's hand is the bunny ears.

Photos from the Entrada de Sacaba

 

I love this photo. It is so hard to get action shots in real time, without some problem.

 

These guys look like angels! If you could see their costumes head on, you would see how much they weigh, and realize it is a real work out to dance 5 km.

 

Each costume costs a lot to make. Many people rent them for each event they dance in.

 

All ages dance from 3 to 70+. If you are obsessed with your weight this isn't the costume for you. I saw a perfectly skinny person put on one of these, and they looked 30-40 pounds overweight!

Entrada de Sacaba

First I want to say that the photo directly above wasn't even in the running, but by some downloading fluke here it is. In the post above are some of the better shots.

The Fiesta for the Parroquia San Pedro de Sacaba (where I lived my first time in Bolivia) is always in November. The date changes slightly so that the Entrada is always on a Saturday. The entire fiesta is about a week long. The entrada is like the entrance parade. Many groups of costumed dancers of various ages dance for hours along the route. The distance is about 5K from a small chapel to the main church. Dancers get breaks along the way and people offer food and drink.

This year the fiesta coincided with the School of Americas (SOA) Protest in Fort Benning Georgia. I went with my friend Hilda to the fiesta. Hilda had become my boss, when she replaced me as the director of the Childcare Center, when it became obvious I was doing two jobs, and became the administrator.

I shared with Hilda, as we sat in her kitchen chairs along the parade route, about 2 blocks from her house, regarding the protest at the SOA, since it was on my mind that weekend. I especially included the 2004 protest my first one after my return from Bolivia. ( I had been at many between the years of 1997-2001) In 2004, the protest leaders included during the solemn procession, a reading of the list of people, including many children who had been murdered in Bolivia in late 2003, by the army during the protests against the President. It was chilling to hear the names of the Bolivians, who had been murdered while I lived in Bolivia. In 2003 all US citizens were advised by the US Embassy to leave the country. (only a few left)

In the 2004 protest I was carrying a cross with the name of a young Bolivian soldier who refused to shoot at the people in the Main Plaza in La Paz. His commanding officer ordered him to shoot, he refused. The office said if soldier didn't shoot, the offfice would shoot him. He refused and was shot and killed.

In previous protests it felt like we were protesting past massacres to prevent future massacres, by closing the school that trained many soldiers in torture and assasignation of it's country's own people (including most famously that of Archbishop Romero of El Salvador).

In 2004 and subsquent years until 2009, the protest became more personal with the list of Bolivia people. This year again it is chilling again, to be back in Bolivia knowing that the protest to Close the SOA goes on. There will be no solemn procession here, it the festival atmosphere of the puppetistas that rules. The entrada of the Virgen del Amparo to Sacaba, hope and faith rule!

Weeks before I was in Sacaba for the solemn day All Souls. Again with Hilda, we looked for the graves of the children who were buried while I was in Sacaba and to give respect for those that had passed on during my time in Bolivia. I remembered those who were massacred and those who have passed on since my leavetaking.