What motivates a family to host students for the Maryknoll Language Institute? I know that for many Americans, no amount of money could tempt them to give up their privacy ten months out of the year (there are two sessions at the Institute, five months each) to open up their home to strangers. It takes planning, cooperation within the family, and much prayer. Still, I know that many American families participate in programs that do just that, and find it enriching.
Our host family is hard working, close knit, and hospitable. Joel and I are the sojourners here, and we feel very welcomed. Our living quarters are upstairs from the central living space, with a separate entrance, where we have as much storage as we need, a comfortable bed, our own bathroom, complete with a hot shower (although temperamental), as well as a refrigerator, television, and DVD player. On Saturday, our hostess and her son went with us to the Concha, the huge marketplace in the city, to purchase lamps for our room, so that we have lots of lighting for studying at our desk and for late night-time reading. Although the family is a busy one, with adult children living at home and doing their own laundry, we have no problem gaining access to the family clothesline after washing our clothes in the LG (Life is Good) washing machine.
Senor Henry Rosa, the father, met us at the airport when we de-boarded from the plane, our names on a large placard he held up. Exhausted and wearing warm winter clothing, we managed to get our luggage into his Nissan Pathfinder, where we blinked in the hot summer sun as he drove us to our new home in the northern part of Cochabamba, the most prosperous part of the city. We were residing only four blocks from the Maryknoll Institute.
Henry is a pediatrician who also teaches at one of the universities (Universidad) in Cochabamba. He was on vacation when we arrived almost three weeks ago, but today is his first day to return to work. He teaches three classes at the Universidad. Lily Arze, our hostess, works at the Ambassador Hotel in what seems to me a tourist area near the center of the city, where attractive shops, like the Spitting Llama and interesting cafes may be found. There are three children (ages 22, 23, and 25), one daughter-in-law, and one grandson. The oldest daughter, aged 25, lives in La Paz, where she is a production engineer for the most popular beer brewery in Bolivia. The grandson, Sebastian, is taking swimming lessons and plays soccer and catch in the courtyard with his father and grandfather. His energy is boundless, and he talks nonstop, except for the one day when he was ill. The whole family is present for the main meal in the middle of the day; no one misses the mid-day meal, ever.
Infinite patience best describes the family’s efforts to ease Joel and me into the world of Spanish-speaking persons. How many times have I asked Lily, the mother here, to give me the Spanish words for wash, sleep, or even cherries or oatmeal? Her pronunciation, like that of Henry, her husband, is clear and distinct, yet my middle-aged brain hears a word and promptly forgets it. I have created small note-cards to aid my memory, and Joel and I try to write the new words on cards or put them on the computer almost immediately after talking with our host family. Henry noticed my ring of note cards and asked if he could copy them, in solidarity with our efforts to learn Spanish. Joel offered him his own vocabulary list from the computer. The atmosphere is jovial, and the conversation routine is much like charades. Our mutual encounters will enrich both families’ vocabulary and perspective on the world. The many jokes and stories show us that our cultures and mindsets are not too foreign to each other. Both are solicitous about our well-being, and Lily is particularly understanding of Joel’s so-called addiction to caffeine. Talks around the kitchen table after dinner are the best times for communication. All four of us, the two couples especially, find that the dialogue becomes easier to understand as the night goes on. We talk about soccer (we all went to the soccer game yesterday), our favorite music, how our day went—we even exchange stories about our pasts. Henry, Lily, Joel, and I discovered that we are all the same age, give or take a year, and that Lily and I were the same age when we had our oldest child. We have been married 33 years; they have been married 34.
One Sunday afternoon, when Lily’s mother was visiting, all of us discussed the secrets to a successful marriage (the mother had been married for more than sixty years).
This family has been hosting students since 1984. This is the year when Lupita (Guadalupe), the oldest daughter, was born, and also the year when our daughter, Emer, was born. Lily is so well organized in her presentation of meals that I have to remind myself that this is not a bed and breakfast. Joel and I have asserted our rights as more than guests when we help clear the table and take our turn doing the dishes.
Lily works outside the home, so she prepares the noon meal sometime in the morning before work or at night after the small supper. This morning at 5:00, when I got up a little earlier, I noted that the breakfast table was already set for all of us, and I have seen potatoes peeled and rice cooked before she goes to work. We have at least four kinds of fruit in the morning, from melons, cherries, and grapes, to apples and bananas. The first and last meals of the day are taken in the kitchen; the noon meal in the dining room, with everyone present, including all three children, the daughter-in-law, and the grandson, Sebastian, aged 3. All family members help prepare, from cutting vegetables (plentiful) to clearing the table and doing the dishes. This family is the most egalitarian that I have seen in sharing chores.
Like my fellow missioners, I want to learn Spanish so that I may have grown-up conversations with the family I live with. There are so many questions that I want to ask them about themselves. It could be that our host family is our primary teachers here in Bolivia. They take this task to heart, and I hope that I will not try their patience as I ask them to repeat the same word for the fourteenth time.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
“Poco a poco, lado a lado, lento pero seguro” (Little by little, side by side, and slowly but surely)
“Poco a poco, lado a lado, lento pero seguro” (Little by little, side by side, and slowly but surely)
Since arriving here in Cochabamba, I have come across these phrases many times. I am hearing poco a poco in my language school, as I, along with my fellow students, struggle to learn Spanish, and lento pero seguro from our host family, who has been hosting students since 1984. Lado a lado, a phrase that I found in my Spanish workbook referring to the ways that vowels work when they occur side by side, found its existential equivalent in the candle that our Franciscan mentor, Fr. Ignacio Harding, whom we call Iggie, presented to us when the four of us new missioners came to eat lunch with him at his Franciscan Center (our fifth missioner, Catherine, arrived here in Cochabamba on Wednesday—she is taking a short refresher course in Spanish). The words “Tu va commingo” (I go with you) are inscribed on the tall, sturdy candle, which reminds me of a Pascal candle in church. The five of us Franciscan missioners are to light this candle weekly when we meet for prayer, communal reflection, and, most likely, a meal. Iggy will join us whenever he is available, but the purpose, I think, is for us to support one another in our prayers and reflection. Yes, I go with you is appropriate for us missioners working overseas, and the promise lets us know that our Lord does go with us, along with our mentor, Iggy, each other, and all friends here and at home. We do not go alone here.
In the following blogs that I write, these three phrases will dominate. As I learn the names and places of my new environment, I will supply them. I am determined not to remain in my own abstractions, but to recreate the world as I see it.
"How to Get on a Plane to Come to Bolivia for Three Years"
It had taken all summer for Joel and me to sell our furniture, keeping only our piano and an antique secretary, and giving away the rest. Most challenging was selling some of our books, and boxing the rest. As an English professor for many years, and one whose career change at the age of fifty-something meant that I had to buy even more books to pursue a degree in theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I knew that these books had to be stored for future use. I think of the piano that I inherited from my mother, the one I learned to play on, and the one my children learned to play on, now residing in an Anglican church in Franklin, Tennessee, now being used for piano lessons in the church. I recall the family china and silver securely boxed and placed in my twin brother’s basement in Madison, Tennessee, and the other wares boxed up and placed in a friend’s climate-controlled storage barn in Fairview, Tennessee.
Even the night before we left the country, we took another load of boxes from the Franciscan mission house, where we had lived for three months, to my aunt’s home in the same city, Washington, D.C. In the future, her daughter will take them on to Tennessee. One does not go on mission alone, clearly, since so much help from our family and friends at home is needed. Still, little by little Joel and I culled our things in the five days we had to whittle down our possessions so that they might be packed into two trunk-sized duffel bags and two carry-on bags apiece. I recall leaving two garbage-sized bags of clothes in the basement of the FMS house (Casa San Salvador), all those clothes that I had really never worn much over the years or had been worn until they were worn out. Our daughter, Emer, aged 25, who had come to stay at the FMS house with us before our departure, was pragmatic in her efforts to help me select what to take and what to leave behind.
Most of the books in my library were already packed away in Tennessee; still, I had to pare down my collection even more, and today as I look on the desk in the room that my husband and I occupy in Cochabamba, I count sixteen books brought here.
Painful though it was, all the packing done, the extra boxes dispatched to my aunt’s house, I found myself at the Baltimore-Washington airport with the other missioners. At the last minute, I discovered that I had some clothes with me that I had planned to stuff into a carry-on. No room! No luck! Emer took care of this problem in the women’s restroom at the airport. I could layer my clothes, all extra socks going on top of one another, jeans worn under slacks, and blouses layered over one another. There! Recalling Heidi as she was transported to her grandfather in the Alps, dresses layered over dresses so that her clothes did not have to be packed in a suitcase, I was ushered from the restroom, feeling somewhat confined in my many layers of clothing. Joel recalled the indigenous Bolivian women, who layered on skirt over the other. I was going into this new element with cultural adaptation in mind.
The FMS office had basically closed for the afternoon as everyone accompanied us to the airport to give us a magnificent send-off. Families of the missioners were there, and after the camcorder interviews with all of us, many, many hugs, and some private time with our families, we began to move through security. My daughter remained there at the security entrance until we had been completely declared safe to go after all the computers and carry-ones were inspected. I am sure that all three of us in my family recalled those good-byes during the college years when our two children were leaving for what seemed like an interminable amount of time to go to college or to attend a summer program. Our family tradition is to wave until the traveler is totally out of sight, jumping up to wave as the act of separation becomes more imminent. My last glimpse behind was to see Emer, still waving as we finally turned to go. She would soon be a continent away, our daughter, but we would see her in July when she would visit, and we would talk with her with our Skype connection.
As we went down the narrow corridor, the four of us boarded the plane to Charlotte, North Carolina; to Miami, Florida; to La Paz, Bolivia; and then on to Cochabamba. We were together as a group, Clare, Nora, Joel, and I, but our families, friends, and our FMS support team, were with us as well as we made our way to our new home in a time zone the same as our own.
Since arriving here in Cochabamba, I have come across these phrases many times. I am hearing poco a poco in my language school, as I, along with my fellow students, struggle to learn Spanish, and lento pero seguro from our host family, who has been hosting students since 1984. Lado a lado, a phrase that I found in my Spanish workbook referring to the ways that vowels work when they occur side by side, found its existential equivalent in the candle that our Franciscan mentor, Fr. Ignacio Harding, whom we call Iggie, presented to us when the four of us new missioners came to eat lunch with him at his Franciscan Center (our fifth missioner, Catherine, arrived here in Cochabamba on Wednesday—she is taking a short refresher course in Spanish). The words “Tu va commingo” (I go with you) are inscribed on the tall, sturdy candle, which reminds me of a Pascal candle in church. The five of us Franciscan missioners are to light this candle weekly when we meet for prayer, communal reflection, and, most likely, a meal. Iggy will join us whenever he is available, but the purpose, I think, is for us to support one another in our prayers and reflection. Yes, I go with you is appropriate for us missioners working overseas, and the promise lets us know that our Lord does go with us, along with our mentor, Iggy, each other, and all friends here and at home. We do not go alone here.
In the following blogs that I write, these three phrases will dominate. As I learn the names and places of my new environment, I will supply them. I am determined not to remain in my own abstractions, but to recreate the world as I see it.
"How to Get on a Plane to Come to Bolivia for Three Years"
It had taken all summer for Joel and me to sell our furniture, keeping only our piano and an antique secretary, and giving away the rest. Most challenging was selling some of our books, and boxing the rest. As an English professor for many years, and one whose career change at the age of fifty-something meant that I had to buy even more books to pursue a degree in theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I knew that these books had to be stored for future use. I think of the piano that I inherited from my mother, the one I learned to play on, and the one my children learned to play on, now residing in an Anglican church in Franklin, Tennessee, now being used for piano lessons in the church. I recall the family china and silver securely boxed and placed in my twin brother’s basement in Madison, Tennessee, and the other wares boxed up and placed in a friend’s climate-controlled storage barn in Fairview, Tennessee.
Even the night before we left the country, we took another load of boxes from the Franciscan mission house, where we had lived for three months, to my aunt’s home in the same city, Washington, D.C. In the future, her daughter will take them on to Tennessee. One does not go on mission alone, clearly, since so much help from our family and friends at home is needed. Still, little by little Joel and I culled our things in the five days we had to whittle down our possessions so that they might be packed into two trunk-sized duffel bags and two carry-on bags apiece. I recall leaving two garbage-sized bags of clothes in the basement of the FMS house (Casa San Salvador), all those clothes that I had really never worn much over the years or had been worn until they were worn out. Our daughter, Emer, aged 25, who had come to stay at the FMS house with us before our departure, was pragmatic in her efforts to help me select what to take and what to leave behind.
Most of the books in my library were already packed away in Tennessee; still, I had to pare down my collection even more, and today as I look on the desk in the room that my husband and I occupy in Cochabamba, I count sixteen books brought here.
Painful though it was, all the packing done, the extra boxes dispatched to my aunt’s house, I found myself at the Baltimore-Washington airport with the other missioners. At the last minute, I discovered that I had some clothes with me that I had planned to stuff into a carry-on. No room! No luck! Emer took care of this problem in the women’s restroom at the airport. I could layer my clothes, all extra socks going on top of one another, jeans worn under slacks, and blouses layered over one another. There! Recalling Heidi as she was transported to her grandfather in the Alps, dresses layered over dresses so that her clothes did not have to be packed in a suitcase, I was ushered from the restroom, feeling somewhat confined in my many layers of clothing. Joel recalled the indigenous Bolivian women, who layered on skirt over the other. I was going into this new element with cultural adaptation in mind.
The FMS office had basically closed for the afternoon as everyone accompanied us to the airport to give us a magnificent send-off. Families of the missioners were there, and after the camcorder interviews with all of us, many, many hugs, and some private time with our families, we began to move through security. My daughter remained there at the security entrance until we had been completely declared safe to go after all the computers and carry-ones were inspected. I am sure that all three of us in my family recalled those good-byes during the college years when our two children were leaving for what seemed like an interminable amount of time to go to college or to attend a summer program. Our family tradition is to wave until the traveler is totally out of sight, jumping up to wave as the act of separation becomes more imminent. My last glimpse behind was to see Emer, still waving as we finally turned to go. She would soon be a continent away, our daughter, but we would see her in July when she would visit, and we would talk with her with our Skype connection.
As we went down the narrow corridor, the four of us boarded the plane to Charlotte, North Carolina; to Miami, Florida; to La Paz, Bolivia; and then on to Cochabamba. We were together as a group, Clare, Nora, Joel, and I, but our families, friends, and our FMS support team, were with us as well as we made our way to our new home in a time zone the same as our own.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
All You Have to Do Is Show Up
All You Have to Do Is Show Up
Friday, December 18, 2009
When I was in Divinity School at Vanderbilt, I was friends with a fellow student who had suffered all kinds of setbacks after beginning her program in Divinity School. Keeping up with her academic responsibilities was a challenge for her, but she doggedly continued to attend class regularly and somehow got her work done. Later, when I experienced my own terrible and tragic setback, she took me by the hand and said, “Lynn, all you have to do is show up.” Having watched her move steadily through her program, I knew that I could do the same.
I showed up. I graduated with a Masters in Theological Studies in 2008. I applied for jobs as a campus minister that spring, and then I showed up for an interview at Furman University and was hired as a chaplaincy intern.
The next spring, my husband, Joel Vaughn, and I showed up for the May discernment weekend at Casa San Salvador, and became Franciscan lay missioners.
As I write my first blog, I am again showing up. At this time, I am in my own hometown, which is the town where my children also grew up, Nashville, Tennessee, and its environs. I am saying good-bye to my family and friends. With all my anxiety about missing someone on my list, I have returned to my friend’s advice, “All you have to do is show up.”
I showed up at the Vanderbilt Divinity School all-faith chapel service. It was the last service of the semester, and we were praying over and “sending forth” the December graduates. One of these happened to be a young friend of mine, who had been discerning to be a priest (Vanderbilt is primarily a Protestant and “other” Div School. He was being sent forth by his community of scholars. I had the privilege of placing my hands on his shoulder (along with about ten other people) and praying for him. Another student, an ordained Methodist minister, who had asked me to participate in a panel discussion at her church, was also being sent forth by her peers. When the service was over, I shouted to her, “I’m going to Bolivia!” “I know!,” she shot back, “I got your letter, and I am going to support you!!”
I showed up at my children’s parochial school this morning, around 8:10, and the school was having its first Eucharistic Adoration service for the young students. Memories of my children’s Masses there at this beloved academy came to mind as I watched the children in their uniforms absorb this new experience in the church, one which I as an adult always treasure. Afterward, I happened to see the teacher whose religion class is going to follow my husband and me as FMS missioners in Bolivia. I also saw my children’s teachers, who have never forgotten them. This was a good way for a mother to say good-bye to her children’s childhood.
Tonight, I went to a special service for bereaved parents whose children had died. My husband and I have been in this exclusive club for three years, having lost our son during his freshman year at Middlebury College, in Vermont.
Tonight, at the service, all we had to do was show up. We celebrated Mass with all the parents there who had lost children, as well as those who had come there in solidarity with their suffering. After the service, a couple walked over to us. It was my advisor from the Div School and his wife, another professor of mine. “We were thinking about you during the service, and now you are here. “ I had been anxious about missing out on seeing these people while I was in town.
We showed up. Our trip back home has been one in which we have bumped into friends whom we never would have seen. We have carried our new Franciscan Lay Missioner cards with us wherever we go, and complete strangers have asked for our cards. Is this what is meant by the Franciscan ministry of presence? All I know is that all we had to do was show up.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke, “The Waking”
Friday, December 18, 2009
When I was in Divinity School at Vanderbilt, I was friends with a fellow student who had suffered all kinds of setbacks after beginning her program in Divinity School. Keeping up with her academic responsibilities was a challenge for her, but she doggedly continued to attend class regularly and somehow got her work done. Later, when I experienced my own terrible and tragic setback, she took me by the hand and said, “Lynn, all you have to do is show up.” Having watched her move steadily through her program, I knew that I could do the same.
I showed up. I graduated with a Masters in Theological Studies in 2008. I applied for jobs as a campus minister that spring, and then I showed up for an interview at Furman University and was hired as a chaplaincy intern.
The next spring, my husband, Joel Vaughn, and I showed up for the May discernment weekend at Casa San Salvador, and became Franciscan lay missioners.
As I write my first blog, I am again showing up. At this time, I am in my own hometown, which is the town where my children also grew up, Nashville, Tennessee, and its environs. I am saying good-bye to my family and friends. With all my anxiety about missing someone on my list, I have returned to my friend’s advice, “All you have to do is show up.”
I showed up at the Vanderbilt Divinity School all-faith chapel service. It was the last service of the semester, and we were praying over and “sending forth” the December graduates. One of these happened to be a young friend of mine, who had been discerning to be a priest (Vanderbilt is primarily a Protestant and “other” Div School. He was being sent forth by his community of scholars. I had the privilege of placing my hands on his shoulder (along with about ten other people) and praying for him. Another student, an ordained Methodist minister, who had asked me to participate in a panel discussion at her church, was also being sent forth by her peers. When the service was over, I shouted to her, “I’m going to Bolivia!” “I know!,” she shot back, “I got your letter, and I am going to support you!!”
I showed up at my children’s parochial school this morning, around 8:10, and the school was having its first Eucharistic Adoration service for the young students. Memories of my children’s Masses there at this beloved academy came to mind as I watched the children in their uniforms absorb this new experience in the church, one which I as an adult always treasure. Afterward, I happened to see the teacher whose religion class is going to follow my husband and me as FMS missioners in Bolivia. I also saw my children’s teachers, who have never forgotten them. This was a good way for a mother to say good-bye to her children’s childhood.
Tonight, I went to a special service for bereaved parents whose children had died. My husband and I have been in this exclusive club for three years, having lost our son during his freshman year at Middlebury College, in Vermont.
Tonight, at the service, all we had to do was show up. We celebrated Mass with all the parents there who had lost children, as well as those who had come there in solidarity with their suffering. After the service, a couple walked over to us. It was my advisor from the Div School and his wife, another professor of mine. “We were thinking about you during the service, and now you are here. “ I had been anxious about missing out on seeing these people while I was in town.
We showed up. Our trip back home has been one in which we have bumped into friends whom we never would have seen. We have carried our new Franciscan Lay Missioner cards with us wherever we go, and complete strangers have asked for our cards. Is this what is meant by the Franciscan ministry of presence? All I know is that all we had to do was show up.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke, “The Waking”
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