Bolivia meets Calcutta

Bolivia is a popular place for volunteer work—after all, it is the second poorest country in Latin America, next to Haiti, and attracts volunteers of all ages, denominations, and occupations. Civil engineers, like Jason Obergfell,  a Maryknoll lay missioners; Minh Phuong,  a hairdresser from North Vietnam by way of Maryland, another lay Maryknoll; Lil Mattingly, a nurse and Maryknoll sister from Louisville, Kentucky; physical therapists;  as well as educators, psychology and sociology majors like our missioners; a chaplain like myself, and English professors like Joel and me, want to bring our different skillsets to Bolivia.

The Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s order, whom we call the Sisters of Calcutta, have also been drawn to Bolivia. This order has had its own church and school for many years in Bolivia, but recently opened a house for the dying in Santa Vera Cruz in the spring of 2011. We Franciscans had seen the Calcutta Sisters’ church and school from a distance at the top of a hill where Padre Pablo, a Maryknoll, lives. I was awed that the Missionaries of Charity had come here to help the Bolivian poor, but as months passed, I came to know the sisters better and thought of them as fellow missioners.  Joel teaches English to the AIDS residents there (called SIDA in Spanish) on Tuesday mornings.

We first visited the mission in Santa Vera Cruz after our return from Carmen Pampa, well over a year ago. The clean, white buildings impressed me.  The chapel itself was simple, open, uncluttered. Upon our arrival, we were given coffee and sandwiches (we had come at lunchtime) before talking with the sister who was to take us out to the prison where we would start our English classes.  Her name was Sister Mary Oceal, from Argentina, and yes, she did look like a younger Mother Teresa.  We met sisters from Africa, and Sister Jocelle from Peru, a key advocate for the men in the prison where we serve.  She was there when one of the inmates was about to receive his sentence for drug trafficking, a spiritual support; while Joel was there for friendship; and Joe Loney was there for legal counsel—all of them missioners from other countries, helping a man from Mali.

Later on last spring, we returned to the Calcutta Sisters’ mission, along with many Maryknoll missioners, for the grand opening of the Sisters’ residence for the dying.  Tito Solari, Archbishop of Cochabamba, celebrated the Mass.

Last Friday, July 13, 2012, the Mother-General  of the Missionaries of Charity, Mary Prema (whose name means “love” in Sanscrit) , came to Santa Vera Cruz to visit her order and bless their work.  Joel and I were among the guests.  We met Michael Reddell, fellow Franciscan missioner, at Kilometer 7, the exit that leads to the Calcutta Sisters’ church and mission, and then caught up with Leslie, a short-term lay volunteer (nine months) with Maryknoll. Walking down the hill from the school and church and onto the campus of the hospice, we saw other short-term Maryknolls, two young men, hoeing in the gardens adjacent to the buildings. The campus had been transformed since I had last been there, landscaped, with neat vegetable rows lining the ample garden plots. So much order and industry in the midst of poverty and disorder!

At the Mass, the children from K’ara K’ara (basically pronounced “K” with a clicking sound, Cada Cada) were sitting on the front rows. They were as poor as any children I had seen at Carmen Pampa. They were friendly and excited, squirming in their seats and even a bit inattentive to the Archbishop who directed his homily to them, with only a couple of students answering his questions. But he persisted in addressing them, the adults watching on approvingly.

Sister Mary Prema, who is the second Mother-General  (2009) since Mother Teresa’s death, sat in the front row. She smiled happily throughout the Mass.

Some of the residents sang in the choir and served as lectors.  Many residents were in wheelchairs, one man without legs, but nevertheless playing the tambourine.  All appeared to be glad to be there, and the music was energizing.

The ceremony afterwards honored the visiting Mother General. Dancing and reciting were the order of the day. One of Joel’s students, Jorge Luis, danced the Cueca, a courtship dance.  The children performed their dances, and two young men break danced, a popular activity here in Bolivia. Various gifts were presented to Mother Mary Prema, an aguayo bag, other artisania, flowers, which she accepted with the graciousness of royalty and the gratitude of a real mother.

When the offerings of song, dance, and oratory came to an end, Mother Mary Prema gave all of the guests a small folder with a picture of Mother Teresa, a prayer and holy medal of the blessed founder, and two miraculous medals. I was able to talk with Mother Mary Prema, briefly, in English. She was kind, humble, and grateful to visit a mission so far away. It was then that I remembered that one of Mother Teresa’s greatest joys, as recorded in her dark journal, Be Thou My Light, was the divinity of Christ that she discerned in the sisters of her congregation. Their joy in serving their Lord, their faith and sense of peace—all were God’s gifts to these sisters in their service to the poor. This Mother General reflected the same joy and faith.

Mary Prema, Mother-General
 of the Missionaries of Charity

On the sidelines were the residents too ill to take part in the ceremony. Many had come from their rooms despite their pain, in order to attend Mass and watch the performances. What did these dying men feel and think as they watched the ceremony before them?  I just hoped that these men who had been momentarily upstaged by the performer would once again be at center stage tomorrow and the day after that when the fiesta was over.  

Corpus Christi, June 7, 2012

the procession of people behind the Monstrance

one shrine in Ave. Heroinas

Thursday, June 7^th was the Feast of Corpus Christi in Bolivia.  In the United States, it is celebrated on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday.  The liturgical calendar shows that there are seven Sundays of Easter, followed by the next three Sundays that are solemnities: Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and The Body and Blood of Christ. [1]  In Latin America, the Feast of Corpus Christi is celebrated not on the Sunday following Trinity Sunday, but on the Thursday  that follows Trinity Sunday.  The feast day reminds Catholics of the institution of the Eucharist and their belief in the real presence of Christ in the elements of Communion.

another shrine

In Bolivia, the Feast of Corpus Christi (meaning the body of Christ) is a public holiday, like All Saints Day (November 1).   I am one who stumbles upon holidays while on mission in Bolivia. During Mass on Trinity Sunday, I heard the announcement that the Corpus Christi Mass would be held at 7:00 p.m. in our neighborhood church.  Later that week, when attending the feast day for St. Norbert at the Franciscan Church, on June 6^th, I learned that there would be a procession the next day, Corpus Christi, in which the Monstrance (the large receptacle in which the Host is displayed) would be carried throughout the center of the city, in a path that encircled the Cathedral. 

I had participated in most of the processions during Holy Week this year. On Thursday night during Holy Week, Catholics in the city make a pilgrimage to all the churches in Cochabamba, a flood of people moving from one church to another, stopping to pray at each altar. On Friday during Holy Week, a funeral procession in memory of Jesus’ death on Good Friday, takes place. One of our friends informed Joel and me that this re-enactment seemed so real, almost as if one could actually experience Jesus’ death on Good Friday.   Of course, Jesus did not have a funeral procession years ago. He was hurriedly placed in the tomb on a Friday afternoon, the anointing of the body to be carried out the following Sunday.

The procession of Corpus Christ reminds me of the Bolivian Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, when the faithful walk from shrine to shrine (fifteen in all). In this ritual, we walked from one house to another in our neighborhood, where the families had created shrines for each station of the Cross.

In the city at Corpus Christi, different churches have set up shrines throughout the city.  The procession stops at each shrine, where the liturgy is read, the Lord’s Prayer and a Hail Mary are recited, a song is sung, and the people move on.

I joined the procession when it was moving through Heroinas, one of the main streets in the city.  I marveled at the simplicity of the procession, the people following the Monstrance of the Host, beneath a white and gold protective canopy. In the procession was a band, playing solemn music, children from different Catholic schools, in uniform, and of course, at the head of the procession, Bishop Tito, and as many priests from the archdiocese as one could imagine—at the end of the procession, the Maryknoll priests, some of whom had come from far away, out in the countryside.  Sometimes the music from the loudspeaker overlapped with the music of the choirs, and sometimes the brass band, with percussion, of course, began its music too soon. It was not choreographed perfectly, but its simplicity was pleasing.  The people were solemn, and there was no sign of street vendors hawking cotton candy, buñuelos, or plastic toys. In a culture where color, lights, loud music, and dance usually hold sway, this procession was subdued, stately, reverent.

as the crowd circled back to the Cathedral
we passed the floral designs of the Eucharist

---

[1] A solemnity is the highest ranking feast day in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, commemorating an event in the life of Jesus, his mother Mary, or another important saint. The observance begins with the vigil on the evening before the actual feast day. So what event is being commemorated in Corpus Christi? It is the feast day that commemorates the institution of the Eucharist, even though this institution is part of the Easter Triduum (the three days before Easter—Holy Thursday,when the Eucharist was instituted by Christ--, Good Friday, and the Holy Saturday vigil before Easter).   Church history states that this solemnity was established to set aside one day for the Eucharist itself, since Holy Thursday Mass commemorates Christ’s giving a new commandment (that Christians love one another just as Christ has loved the early disciples), the institution of foot washing, and the agony in Gethsemane.

Moral Dilemmas: Beggars in Bolivia

Beggars in Bolivia

I tried to google the topic of "beggars in Bolivia," with few results, except for different travellers’ experiences with beggars in Bolivia. A google search of begging led me to the “Wikitravel” section entitled “Begging.” I had little experience with beggars while I lived in Nashville, Tennessee.  There was a beggar outside the Catholic Cathedral on Broadway, and another at the Starbucks on 21^st Avenue, across from the Vanderbilt Divinity School. When one turned onto Broadway from Interstate 440, there was usually a man holding a sign declaring that he was a veteran in need of money.

In Cochabamba on Sunday afternoons, beggars (mothers and children) cluster around Dumbo’s, Donal’s, and Cristol on Heroinas, one of the main streets of the city, where middle-class families go for Sunday dinner or treats.  In these places, mothers or their children come up the clients to try to collect extra change. The children are dirty, typically dressed in indigenous clothes, and sit on the sidewalk when they are not imploring the clients to give them money. One Sunday after the missioners had eaten dinner at Donal’s, a well-dressed woman began to plead with us to help her pay her doctor bills.

Beggars like to gather around the church doors on Sundays. When I was in language school, I would count out Bolivianos (equal to 15 cents) to hand out to the children outside of Santa Ana Church at Cala Cala, where we missioners used to attend Mass.  I wanted to be able to randomly give money to those outside when Mass was over. One Sunday, a very dirty woman who could have been my age followed us missioners across the street where we would buy ice cream cones. We also bought her an ice cream cone, but as we were walking back to our respective host family homes, she kept stepping in front of me, holding out her open hand, moving it up and down like a lever, insistently, as if I owed her more money.  

One time when I was walking down the Prado, the boulevard leading from Cala Cala to downtown, a little girl accompanying her mother caught my eye. The girl was athletic, clean, and sharp.  She danced in front of me, holding out her hand for money. I was angry with her mother for encouraging her daughter to take up this line of work at such an early age. As the girl pranced along beside me, I told her that she should work hard in school and think about what she wanted to do when she grew up.  Afterwards,  I felt a bit silly for lecturing her, but I was saddened by the possibility of her throwing her life away.

I like to keep some change in my pocket as I walk down Heroinas or in the Cancha (the shopping district in Cochabamba, actually an open air market that extends for blocks and blocks), for someone who seems as if he or she really needs the money. But my giving isn’t based on any set criteria. Some people, like the host family we lived with in Cala Cala (where the middle to upper class townspeople live) would give money to very old people who could not work, or sometimes to children. Once when we were eating ice cream and empanadas on a Saturday afternoon, Henry bought a family of four empanadas and ice cream as well. Another time after we had watched the carnival parades, he gave our extra ham and cheese sandwiches to a group of street children.

Begging is a profession in Bolivia.  I have seen many women with sleeping children beside them on the dirty sidewalks of the city. The children are always under five or six years old, wearing a chullo hat, with Alpaca sweater and buzos (sports pants).

chullo

 I don’t like to think of these families situating themselves on the dirty sidewalks. But here the mothers make their living. Some women simply sit on the sidewalks holding out their hands or a cup; other women walk up to the passerby, asking for money. Yesterday, when I was waiting for my ride  from Super Haas, where we buy groceries, I was standing at the foot of the stairs, with my backpack and a bag of groceries.  I was ready to go home after teaching my classes, ready to start baking pies for the men at the prison, since I had promised them I would do so, and the chocolate chip cookies for the film series the next night. I noticed the woman whom I refer to as the tambourine woman, singing and tapping her tambourine on the other side of the stairs. I had seen and heard her before. She often sits atop the hill where the Christo is located (the gigantic statue of Christ that overlooks the city, so tall that people walk up to the shoulder height and look out, so imposing that I can see it no matter where I am in the city of Cochabamba.

 Although her voice is so-so, she sings hymns loudly, enthusiastically, with the rhythmic shaking and tapping of her instrument. Her face shines when one talks with her. She is singing for the glory of God, but she will accept money in thanks. I gave her the last of my change, and returned to my spot on the steps of the grocery store. A young mother came up to me, where I was compelled to wait for my husband. She was pretty, dressed in a pollera, with the Quechua wide-brimmed sunhat.

I knew she wanted money. She kept talking to me, staring at me as if I were the odd one, there with my backpack and groceries. I had no idea what she was saying, and was about to feel terrible about my Spanish, when I realized that she was talking to me in Quechua. I was stuck, since I had agreed to meet my husband there. She kept talking to me, asking for money, looking at me as if I owed her my money. Eventually, after making it clear that I had no more money to give her (“No lo tengo!”), I just started to stare in the distance, as she kept talking to me, until she finally left me,  stopping to talk with the tambourine lady.

Because we are from the United States, people assume that we have money to spare (my stipend from FMS is supposed to cover my basic needs, not the needs of others).  Some people we work with have asked to use our credit cards to help conduct those very businesses where we are working. We can’t do this. Other people for whom we work have asked us to buy books for them online or bring back items from the States when we went home. We have learned the hard way that we cannot do this even for our Bolivian friends. We were warned about this when we worked at Carmen Pampa—never loan anyone money; you will never get it back. It must be said that some people have repaid us, though.

The Wikitraveler website gives the following advice about giving money to beggars:

* Give only when it is your choice; don't encourage the obnoxious or intimidating beggars by buying them off.

 *Keep the amounts in proportion; in a country where many people work long hours for a few euros a day, giving a beggar a euro is wildly excessive. 

* If you do give, be discrete. Otherwise, you may mark yourself as an easy target and attract all the other beggars to see what they can get out of you; this can quickly ruin your trip.

 

 *Make an effort to spend some where it will go to the poor. Give the street musicians a few coins, buy some flowers from the hawkers, take a rickshaw or a donkey ride. Pick up some local handicrafts. Play the game; bargain hard and try not to get grossly overcharged, but accept that some people need to make a living off tourists. You are probably going to pay more than a local would; don't worry too much about it.

<http://wikitravel.org/en/Begging#b>

I have developed habits that help me to decide when and to whom I give my few coins. For example, I buy manzanilla flowers (used to make chamomile tea or when mixed with boiling water, used for soaking tired feet or irritated skin) and bags of lemons from women on the street. The women who sell these two items, usually together, seem to be the poorest vendors in the city. I try to pay street musicians who really can play and/or sing. I buy gum from the vendors on the street. I buy all of my flowers at the edge of the Cancha, from the flower women. If I see an item that I need as I walk past rows and rows of street vendors, I try to shop with those vendors who cannot afford to sell their wares in stores. I do not buy from vendors who come into the restaurants where I am eating lunch or dinner because I feel that I have paid for the right to not be hassled.  I favor buying ice cream cones or sweets for children whose parents have asked them to beg for money. I feel that these children should receive treats like other children, and I don’t know what my money would be used for. I try to always give money to the the quadriplegic who begs on San Martin, and I give to the old people who beg, feeling that they have no other way to obtain money.

I understand about bargaining too. Three weeks ago, I went shopping with my young friend in the neighborhood, Lizbeth. I found a top that I liked, she had made friends with the shopkeeper, and I got a straight answer to my question, Am I supposed to pay the price that is quoted to me from the salesperson? The answer was, No.  Politely, I queried the salesperson, How much am I really supposed to pay for this sequined purple blouse? I got a straight answer, and paid a reasonable price.

There are many conclusions to be drawn. I am in a poor country where there are no holds barred on the profession of begging. People are poor here, and many people beg. They use their young children to bring in money. These beggars are insistent: they will follow the other person for at least a block, or go into a restaurant or even department store to seek money.  I am uncomfortable, still, with the beggars on the streets of Cochabamba. I never reach into my purse to get change because I don’t want anyone to know where I keep my money. But if I have put some change in my pocket, I may empty the pocket if I am moved to do so. I don’t like the tactics, using children to ply the passersby or poor, dirty people who stand outside the churches after the services. Beggars, like street vendors, know where the crowds gather.

A couple of weeks ago, I learned from an English conversation class that those sleeping toddlers and infants who are have been placed beside their mothers who are begging on the street are quietly sleeping for a reason. They have been given glue to breathe so that they will not bother their moms while they are begging. I had wondered about the children with the shiny immobile faces, whose eyes were sealed shut almost as if they were dolls. They seemed so unnatural, and I learned from one of my conversation friends that the mothers don’t have enough milk, due to malnutrition, to nurse their children, so they curtail both their own hunger and that of their children with the glue they breathe (such a fix is inexpensive, I hear).

There are many organizations in Bolivia that are trying to work with indigent mothers, abused children, and the huge orphan population. Amanecer is one organization. It has provided education and safe shelter for street children since 1984 (http://www.amanecer-bolivia.org/). One of our missioners works at a branch in Cochabamba, and other missioners preceding us have worked in these homes as well.  One of our missioners works with street children who have been cleferos (glue sniffers); another with girls who have been taken from abusive home situations, as well as with  abandoned infants. 

Some children on the street are learning how to make and sell handcrafts. The children whom one finds along the tourist tract are vendors of collectables. This is one way to make a living. Here is a picture of a large group of children in the streets of the town Concepción, in the Chiquitania (the tropical savannahs near Santa Cruz, in the eastern part of Bolivia) where the Jesuit missions were begun. They sell handcrafts.

We bought these children's artesania, which we still treasure.

These children also love blue ice cream, and here's the picture to prove it.

A young man who came to Bolivia as a tourist stayed to create a non-profit that trained children in the art of circus performance. One may see jugglers and acrobats at many street intersections in Cochabamba.  (See http://performinglifebolivia.net/wordpress/?p=571)

Some missioners here are training women as hair stylists.

The German Swiss technical school, Christo Rey, located on the mountain that leads up to the Taquiña (Cochabamba’s beer) factory trains auto mechanics, construction engineers, and hairdressers, to name a few trades taught there, in a three-year degree program.  The lawyer who works there, who also works at El Abra,  the men’s prison where we teach English classes, informed us that a college degree in Bolivia doesn’t always guarantee employment, whereas a three-year technical degree takes less time and provides a better opportunity for a job. Next to the technological school is a free elementary and high school for the children of incarcerated parents.

The way that one helps beggars is to offer opportunities for education and work. For some of us, these problems are to be addressed by the government, with programs set up by tax dollars. In Bolivia, the church (and I mean all denominations) has taken on a large share of social aid, education, and job training.  Non-profits from other countries have stepped in to educate, train, and provide safe homes for children and their mothers.  Poco a poco (little by little) and sin prisa ni pausa (without hurrying neither pausing) serve as incentives for those of us who live here, who view poverty every day.   

Carnaval Once More

The Spanish word cuaresma has two different meanings: Lent and Carnaval.  On Ash Wednesday, United States Catholics fast and abstain from meat. And while U.S. Catholics indulge in Fat Tuesday practices, consuming stacks of pancakes or whatever constitutes a feast before famine, Ash Wednesday, while not a holiday, receives lots of attention, the services very crowded as the church begins the Lenten season.

Wednesday before last, Miércoles de Ceniza, I went to the Ash Wednesday service at 7:00 a.m., taking Joel’s cane with me to ward off menacing dogs as I walked in the early morning to Mass.  The La Salette Church was half full (it’s a large church), and we received our ashes in pairs, facing our partner and saying, “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (“Conveírtase y crea en el Evangelio”) as we made the sign of the cross in ashes on his or her forehead. I went up with Maggie Magenda, a Maryknoll sister from Tanzania. It seemed right that all of us would make the sign of blessing on each other’s forehead, while advising that one turn away from sin and anticiipate God’s Good News.

In our neighborhood parish, it is a tradition for the nuns, priests, brothers, missioners, and the other lay people to have breakfast in the priests’ house after Mass. I had brought a bag of milk and some blackberry jam for my contribution. I intended to simply drop these off, supposing that there would be no breakfast on Ash Wednesday. But there was!  A La Salette brother from Argentina was visiting, and he was making stacks of pancakes for everyone. I sat at the end of the table with the visiting brother,  Adrian,  another La Salette brother who is taking English classes from Joel, Padre David, and a teenaged boy who is also taking English classes from us, who just announced his plans to go into seminary. His little brother sat next to him. The rest of us were Maryknoll and Franciscan lay missioners and two sisters from different orders. One missioner, who was returning to the United States the next week, with the intention of coming back to work for three years, had made scones, with vanilla frosting. Another person had baked a cake.  It was truly a Bolivian breakfast, sugar and starches.   I tried to eat moderately; after all, today was a day of fasting. But as I observed everyone eating with zest, I wondered what kind of Ash Wednesday breakfast I had stumbled onto.

I had plans to go to three services that day, but only made it to one (how many does one need?) Joel went to the Ash Wednesday service at the prison where we work, El Abra, but I did not go because I had to prepare my classes for the afternoon at the high school where I had two afternoon classes.  After Joel attended Mass at the prison, which began at 11:00 a.m., he made the discovery that during lunchtime, from 12:00 until 2:00, the guards at the prison lock the doors and gates: no one gets into the prison and no one gets out. It was at this time that he was able to reflect on his Ash Wednesday experiences as he waiting patiently to be allowed out of prison.

That afternoon, I took the bus from the high school into the city where all the Franciscan missioners were to meet for 7:00 Mass, to be followed by a mission meeting. As I was boarding the bus, an elderly man informed me that there was a bloqueo in the city. I got on the bus anyway, thinking that I would be able to get information after boarding. I asked one of my fellow passengers in this bus were going into the center of town. She said yes, and then turned to the driver himself to get the official answer. “Yes,” he said, the bus is going to the center of town.

I sat on bus for the usual twenty minutes as the bus threaded its way into the cancha.  Now any tourist guidebook will tell you that the cancha  (which means ground or court) in Cochabamba is the biggest open air market in Latin America. Our visitors from the U.S. who had left us only three weeks ago had insisted on experiencing this phenomenon.

As we neared the cancha, the bus driver stopped his bus, looked at all of us, and told us that we had to disembark. Looking at me, he said that I should be especially careful because of the thieves in the cancha at this time.  It was agreed upon that I would have an escort until I could find a trufi, which is a car that fills up with passengers and goes on a set route. Yes, today was the festival day in the cancha, with lots of loud music, eating, and drinking. I had been warned by my neighbors to avoid going into the cancha at any cost, that it was dangerous, particularly for someone who looked so different. But I had thought that the celebration was to be on Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, not on Ash Wednesday. Who would have thought that there would be so much partying on Ash Wednesday, especially in a predominantly Catholic country?

I looked around at the cancha: everyone was drenched because of the water balloons, water guns, and buckets of water that were customarily targeted at people during Carnaval. Was I going to get off the bus? No way! I asked the bus driver where he was intending to go.  Back to the outskirts of town, he said. Well, I was going with him, I declared. I reached for my cell phone to call Joel to let him know that I was not going to be able to meet him or anyone else in town, and advised him to return to Zona Sur, our part of town, near Laguna Alalay. The bus driver quickly motioned for me to put away my phone: cell phones can be stolen from bus passengers while they are talking.

As we left the cancha, more and more people piled on the bus. We headed down a long highway that  leads out of Cochabamba.  Unable to see out the window, I had to ask the driver where we were in order to getmyself out of the bus, somewhere close to my neighborhood, about three miles or so away. I got out of the bus and huffed up three long hills to get to Suisse Avenue, where I hoped to catch the “C” bus. The sidewalks were deserted as I moved along, one lone white person in a neighborhood that I had vowed never to walk alone in with my backpack. I finally made it to Suisse—where suddenly there were lots of people. It was at that time that I learned that the “C” buses weren’t running.  I tried to flag down a taxi, but all of them were full or were not radio taxis, which all of us have been trained to take here in Cochabamba.  Finally, I called Joel: please come get me!!

As I waited in front of a hospital, I began a conversation with a woman carrying her ten-month-old daughter in an aguyo sling, her nine-year-old at her side. We sat on the curb of the sidewalk, talking about the differences between our countries. As it turned out, she lived in my neighborhood, and we made plans to visit one another. Finally, Joel came to pick me up, and we headed home.  It was seven o’clock, and getting dark.

But to return to my first point: Cuaresma means carnaval as well as Lent in Spanish. Of course, Carnaval and Lent mean two different things in North American usage. If we are in Lent, we are fasting or giving up something. If we are celebrating Carnaval, we are letting ourselves go. And I recall last Easter weekend, celebrating Good Friday with the Velize family. We took part in the particularly Cochabambino custom of the “12 plates,” in which the family brings in twelve different courses of food, representing the twelve apostles. That is one way to recreate the Last Supper, at least it is a custom in Cochabamba (not many other places, as I have discovered). And so, we all have to eat 12 plates of food, one after the other. The Velize family was conciliatory, though: “Don’t worry!!  We only eat 6 plates!!”  And oh yes, the plates were vegetarian, because it was Good Friday. But here in Bolivia, it is hard to fast. Not on Ash Wednesday, and sometimes not even on Good Friday. Where is the sacrifice, then?  How do we show God that we feel that these days are special? How do we show our love for our God?  Today’s reading from the Liturgy gave me a clear answer. These are the words that God said to his people in the book of Isaiah, when they complained that God did not hear their cry for help, that God was ignoring them, even when they fasted. He posed the following question, and then presented his definition of an effective fast:

Is this the manner of fasting I wish,
of keeping a day of penance:
That a man bow his head like a reed
and lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
Your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am! **

** In his "Apostolic Constitution on Penance," Pope Paul VI did more than simply reorganize Church law concerning fast and abstinence. He reminded us of the divine law that each of us in our own way do penance. We must all turn from sin and make reparation to God for our sins. We must forgive and show love for one another just as we ask for God's love and forgiveness.

The Code of Canon Law and our bishops remind us of other works and means of doing penance: prayer, acts of self-denial, almsgiving and works of personal charity. Attending Mass daily or several times a week, praying the rosary, making the way of the cross, attending the parish evening prayer service, teaching the illiterate to read, reading to the blind, helping at a soup kitchen, visiting the sick and shut-ins and giving an overworked mother a break by baby-sitting—all of these can be even more meaningful and demanding than simply abstaining from meat on Friday.

from Ask A Franciscan, St.Anthony Messenger magazine

My Reflections on Ash Wednesday, Miercoles de Cenizas, in Bolivia (in short lines)

Back home, the people pray, give alms, and fast.

But here, it is the Fourth of July.

Children chase one another with water guns,

Throw water balloons like North American children throw snowballs.

It is February in the North,

But here in Bolivia, it’s summer, and

The firecrackers mark the season of fiesta.

As I pass on a large bus through the cancha, I see

Chicha and plates of food that I cannot eat (I do not buy street food)

Balanced in the hands and consumed.

The long ribbons of color flow from cars, bedecked with summer flowers.

Soggy ribbons and deflated balloons hang from the front of houses

(we are still in the rainy season).

I have somehow found myself here in the cancha

With a loaded backpack and no way out.

This morning, in the safety of my own barrio,

I went to early Mass to receive my ashes.

The marking of the forehead, with the words

“Conveírtase y crea en el Evangelio”

Seemed to be punctuated with the rhythm and tempo of a Mariachi band.

Like the acts of penance in the daily Mass, ten piedad,

We sing joyfully, loudly, somewhat off key, that our sins will be mercifully forgiven.

No shadows here,

In these celebrations, there is only light.

Today, in the priests’ house, we eat pancakes, scones, bread and marmalade,

Pass the syrup, please.  Another piece of cake for you?

The brother who made the American pancakes speaks to me about his vocation,

Why he serves God better as a brother, not a priest.

His vocation sounds just like mine.

We talk (sometimes in English) about the transmigration of souls.

He speaks firmly about church doctrine, not be to disputed,

About the newness of each soul that is conceived.

I wonder what kind of God can make so many new souls?

And how can human beings possibly be the crown of God’s creation?

But such is Catholic doctrine, and I think of all the beautiful souls that have passed

Before my eyes in my lifetime, souls that grew to greatness in a very short time.

The visiting brother tells me that many people see the Catholic Church

As doctrinaire, immovable in its laws,

But he lets me know that really, in truth, 

We have many choices.

December Celebrations

December in Bolivia works double-time as a month of celebrations. Whereas those of us from the United States spend the month Christmas shopping, decorating our homes, and writing Christmas cards, people in Bolivia are also commemorating the rites of spring, which includes the commencement of summer vacation, graduations, and even dance recitals. In the picture below is a high school graduation, which is called a promotion. These students have completed programs in the technical arts: computer technology and fashion design, among others. In the picture below, Hermana Elsa, the head of the school, introduces the dancers who will perform during the graduation ceremony. I have seen many traditional dance performances in the past two years, and even performed myself, but this student performance was of a profession calibre.

This school is called San Francisco and Santa Clara Colegio, and the tuition is $3 a month. Because the tuition is so affordable for people of little means (and the education excellent), the parents work together, almost as a co-operative, to keep the school going, working on the school grounds and in the large beautiful garden between the buildings and the walls that surround and protect the school.

I am going to teach for the second time in my life at a high school. I had just agreed to teach English classes the next year at this school, as well as take on a catechesis class. In fact, I am at this time teaching two interim English classes in the summer session.  At the time of the ceremony, when I thought of myself as a mere onlooker, I suddenly found myself being introduced to the crowd of parents, relatives, and friends in the auditorium as the new English instructor. Not in the least a known quantity, I was the subject of applause in a room full of people whom I did not know. I had not done anything worthy yet; I had merely agreed to try to do something worthy. So I was surprised by the show of appreciation, or rather, the welcoming applause of the people whose children I was teach.

Another graduation or promotion ceremony took place the next day, Sunday. My husband and I have a young friend in our barrio. Her name is Lizbeth, and just a couple of weeks after we had moved to Cochabamba, we were sitting on the bus, talking in English, when a girl behind us asked us if we could give her English lessons. Apparently, she had been listening in and heard that we were teaching English classes. We agreed to visit her at her house sometime, meet her family, and have English conversation with her once a week. She took us up on our offer, and called us up to make these English conversation lessons happen. After being here for a year, we no longer offer private tutoring, not even to Lizbeth, but we have developed a strong friendship with her and her family.

In addition to introducing me to the shopping venues of Cochabamba, Lizbeth has been an active participant in the campus ministry film series Filmania, which Joel and I have helped to promote. The campus ministry of San Simon University, called pastoral juvenil, sponsored two film series last semester, in which we screened films and led discussions about the moral, social, and political dilemmas that emerged in the films. Lizbeth has been an avid discussant, bringing her friends and high school teachers to the film series. When we showed the classic film To Kill a Mockingbird, definitely a relevant film for us in Bolivia because of its theme of racism, Lizbeth almost finished the book in English before attending the screening. Sorry to say, the film ruined the book for her because she did not expect Tom Robinson to die at the end of the narrative.

Lizbeth was also the only Bolivian to attend our all-Franciscan Thanksgiving dinner. She takes care of our pets when we are on vacation and drinks hot chocolate in our house when it is cold and rainy outside. She introduced us to her older brother Nelson who is mastering Japanese, German, and English in his work as a travel agent in Uyuni (he is an economist by education and trade, and continues to look for work relevant to his degree). The four of us watched Happy Feet at our house one Friday night. Her parents have offered us hospitality on many Saturday afternoons (almuerzo [lunch]), as well as providing the twelve plates of food on Good Friday (a Cochabamba tradition in which families eat 12 plates of food on the afternoon of Good Friday, a plate for each disciple. While most Catholics are fasting, Cochabambinos are struggling to force down another plate of food. It should be noted that the plates do not contain meat.). We had Christmas breakfast with them as well, a meal of many varieties of sweet breads, one of which was very much like the beignets served at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans.

One last celebration in December: my birthday dinner. The Franciscans--the missioners and Padre Iggie--came, as well as Lizbeth and her parents (the Belizes). Fellow missioner Nora made my cake, and I received a number of thoughtful gifts.

Consecrated Time

Recently, I have been seeking a definition of the term consecrated time. I know that the consecrated life refers to the dedicated lives of the religious (nuns, sisters, brothers, and priests), wherein the individual takes vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity. I also know that just as a life may be consecrated, objects may be consecrated as well. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines consecration as "act by which a thing is separated from a common and profane to a sacred use, or by which a person or thing is dedicated to the service and worship of God by prayers, rites, and ceremonies. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04276a.htm) .

What, then, is consecrated time? For Christians, Sundays are consecrated to God; therefore that day is set aside as a "Dia del Senor" (the Lord's Day), as our Sunday liturgical bulletin reads. God was the one who consecrated that day to sacred use, a day for us to rest and to think more about our Creator. One web site I found suggested that any time spent alone, exclusively alone, with God, is consecrated time. Any time that is separated from the common time and dedicated to the service and worship to God may be consecrated time. So when I am sitting alone, reading the Bible or praying, I am consecrating my time to God.  While I was in Vanderbilt Divinity School, many students there told me that they wanted to be in the presence of the Divine at all times.  One could turn to Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God, where one reads that for Brother Lawrence, "common business," is the medium through which one can experience God (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/innertravelers/brotherlawrence.html). Brother Lawrence probably felt that he was practicing what he would be doing for all eternity. Also, Christians receive the promise that if they give a cup of cold water to one of Christ's "little ones," it is as though they are giving it to Jesus himself. Here too, one is in the presence of the Divine.  

I hope that my blogs will focus not only on the events here in Bolivia and my cultural interactions with the people here, but my own moments of consecrated time. In this blog, I am going to write about two recent events that I witnessed and participated in, wherein the time allotted was, in a sense, time set apart for sacred us: the 100-year celebration of the founding of the Maryknoll order and the Transitus of St. Francis, the 802-year anniversary of Francis' death, when he passed from this world to the next, his transitus.  In these two events that I was able to participate in, both orders, or families, as we say,  set aside time to reflect upon their mission, past, present, and future, that is, their participation in God's work on earth . The time set apart was consecrated, in my view, because the Maryknoll family and the Franciscan family withdrew from the world in order to contemplate their roles as God's people in Latin America, and to seek guidance from one another and from God.

At the symposium of the 100 year anniversary of the Maryknolls, celebrated at the Maryknoll Mission Center in Cochabamba, as well as in other places in the world, I encountered  not only the Maryknoll fathers, brothers, sisters, and missioners, but also missioners from other religious orders. Some  idigenous people participated as well, talking about the role of the Maryknolls in their lives, and assisting in the closing ceremony, which invoked practices and rites from their own religion before the missioners arrived. Father Mike Gilgannon, a Kansas City diocese priest, who has been in La Paz, Bolivia, for 37 years, was also there to lead discussion. He has been our friend since we moved to Carmen Pampa, and back here to Cochabamba. He has been a primary source for our education about Bolivia, along with Father Ignatio Harding (Iggie), our Franciscan mentor in Cochabamba.

The questions asked in the course of the symposium were two-fold: where have the Maryknoll missioners been, and where are they going? Of course, there were many in attendance who were not part of the Maryknoll order but missioners belonging to another order, like the Franciscans, for example, that the questions extended to us all. An important question for me was, How can we be "church" to the people here? By "we," I mean the entire Latin American Catholic church, since all of its members are actually on mission. One aspect of this is how do we reach those people who are Catholics but who don't participate in church, Mass, religious feast days, and other activities? How do we reach the young people? How can we be relevant to the people here?

Barbara J. Fraser, a former Maryknoll missioner who works now as a photographer and journalist based in Lima, Peru,  one of the presenters at the conference, reported on the current status of the Maryknoll order. Its numbers are down, and the age of the priests and brothers is up. Some of her major points focused on the contributions that Maryknoll has made and continues to make to the Catholic Church. For example, as Father Raymond Finch,Maryknoll superior general from 1996-2002, and director of the Maryknoll Mission Center in Cochabamba, states, the Maryknolls support "the value and individual worth of all people and cultures," wherever they are, primarily recognizing the "contribution, the worth and beauty in people who are on the margins and have been hurt by society."

Further, as Maryknoll priest "John Conway, 81, says, citing the motto of a Maryknoll founder, "We come, perhaps, when we're needed and not wanted, because we're unknown. We leave when we are wanted but not needed." Fraser goes on to write in her article that this concept of mission is born out in the continuance of  those projects begun by the Maryknoll fathers, brothers, and sisters, long ago, that bear fruit to this day. The local churches, schools, and centers are run by the people themselves, a testament, I would say, to the foresight of both the Maryknolls and the people in the regions served (see http://www.americancatholic.org/news/report.aspx?id=3654).

I heard this motto from a sister who trained missioners in the Society of African Missionaries (SMA's), when I was in Ossining, New York, training with three other groups of missioners, among them the Maryknolls hosting the sessions. This is to say that the Catholic mission movement today goes forth to serve the people on the margins, working for peace and justice, and advancing the protection and sharing of the world's resources with all cultures, but especially the marginalized ones.

The symposium began on Thursday, August 25, and finished on Saturday morning, August 27th. It was energizing to return to the Maryknoll Language Institute, to visit the campus where Joel and I had studied Spanish for the first time. We were glad to reconnect with the Maryknoll fathers and one brother, as well as visit with some teachers and staff who were part of the conference. The beauty of the campus still overpowered me. Here is the Maryknoll Fathers and brothers' house, which is located behind the language institute.

Here is the back of the language institute, where Joel taking some time to write between panel discussions.

After the panels, the talks, and the small group discussions, the Maryknolls awarded gifts of appreciation to the contributors. Among those honored was our friend Father Mike Gilgannon, from La Paz.

Mike has worked in campus ministry for years, while also fulfilling his duties as a priest at different churches through the La Paz region. He is a well-known writer for the National Catholic Reporter, as well as a recognized authority on Bolivian culture and politics.

The month of October found Joel and me spending more time with the Franciscan family. Whereas the "Transitus" of St. Francis was not celebrated per se here in Cochabamba, as it was in the Franciscan monastery in Washington, D.C, we had a three day tridium, in which the Franciscans celebrated Mass for three days prior to the feast day of St. Francis. The Franciscan family was out in force for all four Masses, but particularly for the Mass on the day of St. Francis' death. I had heard that traditionally, a Dominican preaches at the Transitus Mass, to show the solidarity between the two orders. This was the case at the San Francisco Church in Cochabamba. A Dominican priest preached, and Dominicans also sang in the choir.

Our mentor, Brother Ignatio Harding (Father Ignation, "Iggie") processed in with the other Franciscan priests and brothers.

Iggie is on the left

Afterwards, there was a fiesta in the Franciscan Center, with dancing, music, and refreshments. The friars served us drinks and delicious food, as all well-wishers celebrated the life and legacy of our founder, Francis.

I recalled my introduction to the Transitus at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, D.C. two years ago. It was the 800-year celebration of Francis' transitus, truly a special anniversary, marked by our candlelight vigil at the church grounds, with hundreds of people present. This Mass at Cochabamba evoked the earlier Transitus in my mind. And as with all Masses, it was consecrated time, the Eucharist, the "source and summit of Catholic life and Mission," in Pope John Paul II's words.

Here in Latin American, birthdays are very important. The word for birthday, cumpleanos, comes from the verb, cumplir, which means to achieve, to fulfill. When one has a birthday, the year has been fulfilled. At this time one looks backwards at the year that has passed and anticipates the year to come. The two celebrations, of the Maryknolls' first hundred years and of the Franciscans' 802 years, were moments of reflection and anticipation. This time was consecrated to God, and as a witness and participant, I was swept up in the spirit that surrounded me.

Thoughts on Labor Day

The last time we Franciscan missioners met to have a reflection together (sometimes we check in, sometimes we just eat together, and other times we pray and reflect as a group), I wanted to talk about the Catholic Church's "Labor Day Statement" that was published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. How does the Church's stand on the rights of the worker help us to understand our role as missioners in a poor country? The title of the statement, "Human Costs and Moral Challenges of a Broken Economy," while written in the context of the problems of the United States, elicited a strong response from us as missioners in Bolivia

While in formation in Washington, D.C., all of us had studied the Rerum Novarum enclyclical  by Pope Leo XIII that served as the foundation for over a century of Catholic social teaching and its view on the dignity of workers. In this country where we live now, college graduates drive taxis or find other ways to support themselves, while beggars line the streets of Cochabamba. Of course, the U.S. bishops' Labor Day Statement called to our attention all the problems facing workers in our own country, drawing attention to the failing U.S. economy.

 I have thought a lot recently about unemployment and underemployment in my own country, simply because it is all over the newspapers.  I graduated years ago and experienced a recession that could be construed as just as bad as the one that has hit college graduates in the past few years. My son's graduating class, 2010, was hit hard by the recession as the new graduates sought meaningful work.  I watched anxiously as they looked for work, some taking internships, one going to the Peace Corps, another working for a year before returning to school this year, while others persisted until they found acceptable or even suitable jobs.  I know that the Middlebury graduates were full of optimism, energy, and idealism, desiring to take the values of their college into the workplace. I admired their patience and their trust that they would lead lives of meaning, that they would be able to make their  own contribution to the world.

Similarly, I watch my daughter working in her Ph.D. program and teaching undergraduate classes. Both she and her husband are following their separate career paths, trusting that their professional lives will continue to evolve as they advance in their fields.

This trust that one's life will have purpose, the faith that opportunities will eventually allow one to forge ahead in reaching career or professional goals, as one adapts to the circumstances one finds onself in, is not a mode of thinking for North Americans alone. As one who worked as a campus minister one year at Furman University, besides teaching college for 28 years, and then coming to Bolivia to teach at the Catholic University in the yungas and currently working with the college students at San Simon University,  I find that students here are just as aware as students in the U.S. that jobs will be scarce when they graduate, that it will take time, networking, and strategy to find one's place. These students lead interesting, purposeful lives while going to school, and their optimism and good works will continue as they make their way in an economy with fewer opportunities than those for U.S. graduates.

College students in Bolivia seem to remain in school longer than the four years in the U.S., with the  medical and law students remaining much longer, as expected, although here they begin their professional training in their freshman year. The students whom I have met from San Simon are majoring in law, medicine, communication arts, business or engineering, to name a few majors (or carreras) and I read in the Bolivian Weekly that more trendy, marketable, and relevant (to the needs of Bolivia) majors are being developed. I have been told that younger siblings choose their major  according to the books that their older siblings have bought--books are so costly here. The students at Carmen Pampa (the Catholic University in the yungas) come to school to get an education in nursing, agonomy, eco tourism, education, or veterinary medicine. The students could carry their education and training back to their communities and work there. They could be leaders. Some students from Carmen Pampa eventually come to the larger universities, in La Paz, or here in Cochabamba, at San Simon. The students have hopes that they will get work, and here in Cochabamba, students seem to be selecting majors based on what work is available when they get out. At the Cristo Rey technological school in the city, the administrators believe that the tech students who spend about three years learning a trade, whether in auto mechanics, engineering, or styling and cutting hair, stand a better chance of making a better wage than the college grads.  It should be noted, also, that as all students have to write a thesis to complete their licenciatura (undergraduate degree), which in theory takes four years, many don't finish their thesis to complete their schooling.

Most of the jobs here are in agriculture, services, and industry, in descending order.  Here, the unployment rate stands at 8.3% , according to the Index Mundi website, but a campesina selling lemons and manzanilla (good for tea or skill ailments) is counted as employed. According to the U.S. Department of State website, Bolivia is an entrepreurial country, where most college grads intend to start their own businesses. The average salary is under $300 a month per person (that equals our stipend and living expenses). The two pervasive problems in Bolivia, according to the Bolivian Weekly, is the percentage of income necessary to buy food, and the deficiencies in access to safe water and sanitary services. (http://www.boliviaweekly.com/report-bolivia-poorest-of-latam-countries/2259/). Next to Haiti, Bolivia is the poorest country in Latin America, with 2/3 of the population, mostly farmers, living in poverty (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35751.htm). The life expectancy for the average Bolivian is  67.5 years of age, and the median age is 22.5 years old, which accounts for why I often feel that I am the oldest person in the room or on the bus. (http://en.worldstat.info/South_America/Bolivia).

According to the UNICEF report this year,¨ in Bolivia there are 2 million children who live in extreme poverty, 800,000 who work in the street, 6,000 who live in the street, 2,000 who live in pentitentiaries with their parents, and more than 32,000 who live in homes for abandoned children¨ (http://www.boliviaweekly.com/category/education-youth/page/2 ).

The entrepreneurial system accounts for why doctors seem so accessible in Bolivia. Doctors here  have to scramble for business; the simple fact of having an M.D. is not a guarantee of an excellent income. One must develop one's reputation and business. Our anfitrion (host), Henry, a pediatrician, works in a clinic in the mornings and teaches in the university in the evenings. He is not a wealthy man; his wife works as an accountant, they lived frugally, and they take in Maryknoll students as boarders. But he has an excellent reputation in the city, and is a tireless worker.

Further, last week when I stopped in at the medical center on Guayacan, not far from my house, I asked the attendant which medicine I should take for an infected bite on my arm (my arm was swollen from the elbow down). I told the attendant that I was afraid that I had been bitten by a benchuga (a beetle whose bite can lead to Chargas, which eventually enlarges the heart after a period of ten years, unless the disease is intercepted in its early stages). He looked at my arm, declared that I had been bitten by a spider, and proceeded to get me some antibiotics for my injury. When he was counting out the pills, he looked up and informed me that he was not a pharmacist, but a doctor. I had begun to think that I was dealing with a professional, so I was not surprisedto hear that a doctor had waited on me. He did not even charge me for my consultation. But the relief that I felt when I left the medical center was immense: I was terribly afraid of the benchuga beetle, and not so afraid of spider bites.

Dr. Wendy at Carmen Pampa was a mere thirty-year-old whose job was to care for the college students, faculty, and the townspeople. She was astute, energetic, and idealistic about her work. She delivered babies, coaxed mothers into vaccinating their infants, and managed all of the campus healthcare needs. She knew English because her older brother had insisted on her taking English classes. Considered tall (my height), she was athletic, traveling up and down the mountain with ease, and always available. All these examples point out that doctors don't take their clientele for granted and don't always have a receptionist or a nurse who runs interference for them.

I learned before coming to Bolivia that many professionals are out of work, that lawyers and doctors and university professors drive taxis.  In a country of subsidized gasoline, taxi drivers make a good wage, but who would want to drive a taxi if they could be working in their field? Taxi drivers are usually among the friendliest and kindest people in Cochabamba, answering our questions and getting us where we need to go, with benevolence and solicitude.

The job market in Bolivia is an intensified version of what is occuring in the United States: few prospects for new college grads, record underunemployment. More so than in the United States, there is a large gap between the rich and the poor.  And in Bolivia, begging is a business. I would prefer to buy the over-priced peanuts from the woman who holds out her wares to buses and automobiles caught in the afternoon traffic jam than to drop a Boliviano (worth fifteen cents) in the outstretched hand of a beggar. Once while walking down the Prado, I was accosted by a young girl, very bright looking and full of energy, who kept jumping in front of me, demanding that I give her money. I saw that her mother was with her, working the same side of the street. I wanted to shake the girl and tell her to go to school; I wanted to upbraid the mother for teaching her daughter her own trade, begging.

One of the labor issues that is bothering people the most here these days is the problem of Bolivians' migrating to other countries in order to support their families. A Maryknoll sister who has been here for over fifty years informed me that parents with young children will work in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, and the United States (I have also heard that Italy is country that employs Bolivians who can't find work in their own country). In these instances, both parents (or the one parent, if the family is a single-parent household) will work in another country and send a lot of money back home to the grandparents or aunts who are caring for the children. I was told that the parents intend to work for only a couple or years in order to straighten out their finances, but wind up working many more years than planned.In these instances, we see children raised by grandparents who cannot control them or cannot connect with them. Some children are left in the incapable hands of their older brother or sister, who may be as young as fourteen. These are only some of the situations that I have heard about. But the instances of children left behind while the parents earn money abroad


But as I read the statistics about the United States--unemployment, underemployment, children living in poverty, college grads with school debt and few prospects of employment, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, economic stagnation, uncertainty for those who are retiring or who are unable to work because of illness, and the government's difficulties in finding solutions for these problems--I see that the United States, although not in as impoverished as Bolivia, had a lot to think about on Labor Day this year.

To this end,with both the United States and Bolivia in mind,  I want to offer some words from the  "Labor Day Statement" from the chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

"Our faith gives us a particular way of looking at this broken economy. From the prophets of the Old Testament to the example of the early Church recorded in the New Testament, we learn that God cares for the poor and vulnerable, and he measures the faith of the community by the treatment of those on the margins of life. . . .

"This long tradition places work at the center of economic and social life. In Catholic teaching, work has an inherent dignity because work helps us not only to meet our needs and provide for our families, but also to share in God’s creation and contribute to the common good. People need work not only to pay bills, put food on the table, and stay in their homes, but also to express their human dignity and to enrich and strengthen the larger community (Gaudium et Spes, no. 34). Human labor represents "the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 378).

"Over the last century, the Church has repeatedly warned about the moral, spiritual, and economic dangers of widespread unemployment. According to the Catechism, "Unemployment almost always wounds its victim’s dignity and threatens the equilibrium of his life. Besides the harm done to him personally, it entails many risks for his family" (no. 2436). One of the most disturbing aspects of current public discussion is how little focus there is on massive unemployment and what to do to get people back to work. In Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council declared that 'It is the duty of society to see to it that, according to prevailing circumstances, all citizens have the opportunity of finding employment' (no. 67). As Pope Benedict warns, "Being out of work or dependent on public or private assistance for a prolonged period undermines the freedom and creativity of the person and his family and social relationships, causing great psychological and spiritual suffering" (Caritas in Veritate, no. 25). A society that cannot use the work and creativity of so many of its members is failing both economically and ethically."

These were strong words for me, as I reviewed my efforts since graduating from college years ago with a "useless" English degree. I had always felt bad when I could not find meaningful work, and always wondered why it made me feel degraded when was between jobs. The church's teachings that work "expresses human dignity and enrichess and strengthens the larger community" helped me to understand that we are made to do work, that it makes us feel a part of the whole, even to the extent that we are collaborating with God to perfect God's visible creation." And the church also warns about the harm done to people who are out of work and dependent upon others, private or public: they suffer great psychological and spiritual harm.

As our Franciscan group meditated on the Labor Day Statement, we compared our findings on work in Bolivia. One missioner pointed out that a talented and well-educated teacher could not get work in a school because she belonged to the wrong political party; hence, she worked in an after-school center. This would no occur in the United States, but again, there are many well-educated workers who do not have jobs simply because there aren't enough to go around.

So on this labor day, I see the problems of a broken economy in both Bolivia and in my own country. I see the many vendors in the cancha, and wonder who is going to buy all the goods displayed for blocks and blocks for consumers. I rejoice when a young person who has just graduated from college, either here or in the U.S., finally lands a decent job.

As a missioner, I have the ability to choose where I work. My question is where will I do the most good with my education, training, and ability to speak Spanish. I feel lucky to have my job, a job where my purpose is to supply what the people want and need. So far, people here in Bolivia need English teachers. Yes, I can do that. I taught English for twenty-eight years at the college level. I am also trained as a college chaplain. Yes, there seems to be a need for chaplains here. Other opportunities emerge: writing, singing in the choir, running a film series, and I hope many more chances to work here in Bolivia.

I am grateful to those who have supported me financially here; I am also grateful to those of you who are reading my blog; I need to have friends from home to be with me on this mission. Emerson said, "Do your work that I may know you." I know enough about the Victorian work ethic, as well as the Puritan work ethic, to know that work itself can be over-emphasized. But work is indeed our way of collaborating with God.It is one means by which we express ourselves,use our talents, and feel that we are making a difference in our world. It gives us a sense of communty. Work also, in the most expedient sense, is the means by which we can support ourselves, our families, and maintain self respect in being self-sufficient. If we are paid a living wage, we may then eat healthy food, live in decent housing, have adequate healthcare, and provide for an education for our children and even provide for ourselves in retirement .

I am glad that the Catholic church has a history of addressing the ideals of the dignity of work and the inherent rights of workers. I understand better my own drive to engage in meaningful work, and will strive to advace its ideals in the real world.