Called to go where one is needed but not wanted . . .

Missioners are called to “go where they are not wanted but needed, and stay until they are not needed but wanted.”

This quote comes from James Anthony Walsh, the founder of the Maryknoll Missionaries. I first heard it from the lay missioner Teresa of the Society of African Missionaries, at Ossining, New York, where the Maryknoll’s Bethany House is located and where we Franciscans were trained for one week. Recently, I heard this again from a Maryknoll priest, Ken (Padre Juancho in Spanish), who is working in a mission site where he feels that he may not be wanted, but needed.

Two weeks ago, I had dinner with Ken and his friends. The occasion was a surprise birthday party for Ken. The dinner was hosted by a longtime friend of his, a physician who has opened her home to one of our fellow students at the Maryknoll Institute. Some of us students were invited to help him celebrate. As it had happened, three of us had visited Padre Ken at his home mission site the Sunday before. As ten of us gathered around the large dining room table to eat spaghetti and a large cake, I wondered at the vast difference between our immediate surroundings, a spacious, well-appointed condominium in North Cochabamba, where the prosperous middle class lives, and the place that Ken calls his home.

Ken lives near K’ara K’ara, the city dump of Cochabamba. The dump is indeed a place where priests are not wanted, at least at this time. There is political controversy about this dump, and although it has been closed three times for its dangerous toxic waste and its unregulated disposal of this waste, it is nevertheless still open. Why? At this point, it seems that the city of Cochabamba needs this dumping ground: when we missioners arrived on January 6 of this year, we noticed in passing that the dumpsters in the city were overflowing with garbage. We found out when we visited Padre Ken on March 14, on a Sunday, that there had been a strike, and for that reason there was no garbage pickup. There is a real need for a dumping ground for the waste of Cochabamba, and there is money to be made by keeping the dump open. Money is made when the town or pueblo of K’ara K’ra fines the mayor of the city for dumping the town’s garbage in its pueblo.

The town can make a lot of money with these fines, but the barrios (or neighborhood districts) closest to the dump get the money, which is held in something like an escrow account until a suitable project worthy of this jointly held money is presented to the mayor or city officials. The issue becomes a delicate one because not everyone agrees about which barrios should receive the money and who will be in charge of how it will be spent. So, to put it mildly, there is a lot of disagreement within the pueblo, and the last priest who lived in K’ara K’ara was asked to leave the town because of his involvement in the town's problems. Ken himself is circumspect about the situation: he has come into the community, living above the dump itself, where we had a bird’s eye view of the pools of toxic waste that actually looked like picturesque ponds from our vantage point above the barrio. Poverty, the determined struggle of humanity to survive, and the ravaging of nature often look pretty from afar. I have seen many strikingly gorgeous sunsets in smog-ridden cities.

We citizens of the United States are very interested in recycling. Here, there is no need to organize a recycling campaign or make it a part of municipal works. The people here rummage through the dump for recyclables, and I would predict that few items that can be sold are overlooked. I was reminded of scenes of garbage dumps from Slumdog Millionaire (and who would have guessed? Sisters from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity have a prominent convent nearby. They must feel at home in performing charitable works among the poor in K’ara K’ara).

The problem is, of course, that the toxicity of the dump poses a terrible danger to the health of those in search of marketable goods. The hazardous waste from hospitals had been placed in a special area surrounded by a protective fence; somehow the fence disappeared. The economic need of the people takes precedence over their own health. In milder form, just living close to the dump poses many health problems for the residents there. One recalls the residual effects of Love Canal, where 21,000 tons of waste were buried beneath 36 blocks of a neighborhood in Niagra Falls, New York; the residents eventually developed cancer and their children were born with congenital defects. Many poor people live in this pueblo because it is so inexpensive. Developers have created small dwellings here, and sold it to families who either don’t know that they may be in danger or have been driven to accept whatever dwelling they can afford.

Our Sunday morning with Ken was pleasant, with much talk about his struggle to initiate catechetic classes and celebrate Mass in a district that has other pressing concerns. He pointed out that the people in the barrios do organize on Sundays for community improvements. At the time when we walked up to his quarters on the hill, we saw a soccer (futbol) game being played by the truck drivers who had the day off.

In Ken’s quarters, we had tea and an assortment of cookies, bread, pates, and snack bars while we were there. As we talked, a three-year-old named Oliver came into the room with us. He had stayed at the doorway, playing with his toy dump truck and bulldozer, his play imitating reality, before I could coax him into our company. The little boy smacked one of the two dogs that were lying in front of the doorway a couple of times, the dog obligingly moved, and Oliver came to sit on my lap. Most children are attractive, but Oliver had dimples, large, lovely brown eyes, and liked affection. As I held him, Nora gently lifted his shirt, with his permission, and we saw a complex temporary tattoo on his tummy, matched by one on his back, and one on his arm. I became aware that his clothes were filthy, but that made me feel even more protective towards this little boy.

Oliver is not an orphan, but his father has died, and his mother is an alcoholic. The mother ran off and left the responsibility to her sister-in-law. Her daughter cares for Oliver.Ken explained to us that abandoned children are taken into families and cared for as one of their own. Oliver is such a case. The older sister who lives in the family where Ken resides cares for the little boy. I have one picture of him, playing in the dirt behind the shed in the yard.

I noticed that after Oliver left our room, his sister changed his shirt. When we left the property, I said a few words to her in Spanish, and she didn’t reply. At first, I blamed her lack of response on my poor Spanish, but later, I reflected that she might speak Quechua.

While we sat there in Ken’s humble room, which actually had molding around the ceiling, along with finished walls, I noticed that Ken was nonetheless connected more than I would want to be with the natural world. A pigeon house just outside his room allowed the pigeons to perch on his windowsill and keep an eye on us. The friendly, but dirty, dogs wandered in and out of the room, and the dishes were washed outside, with the usual cold water that people here use for washing, and dried in a tub placed on a rock. The bathroom facilities were also outside, but the outhouse was private and the toilet flushed extremely well. These were Ken’s digs, where he lives in order to be present, available, for the people in this poverty-stricken barrio seriously close to the toxic waste of the dump. I am including here the view from Ken's big back yard.

After enjoying morning tea, we hiked over to the Maryknollers’ picnic, held at Padre Poncho’s church, where I had some of the best barbeque that I had ever tasted, along with an add-a-dish lunch that reminded me of church picnics in Tennessee. It was the best food that I had had since coming here, and I wondered if Padre Poncho’s origins in Kentucky had anything to do with the perfection of the barbeque. We met Maryknoll priests, missioners (and their families, some of them having young children), and the sisters who had been in Bolivia for at least 45 years. We Franciscan lay missioners were welcomed into the Maryknoll family, and all of us are family unto one another here. We learned about each one of them as they introduced themselves. We too made our introductory speeches. After lunch, there was an organizational meeting of a male and female scout troop by one of the Maryknoll sisters, and for some of us who had missed church that morning, an intimate and moving Mass with Padre Ken, our guide, mentor, and host for the day. Here is a picture of Nora (a Franciscan), Minh (a Maryknoll missioner), Padre Ken, and his two dogs.

At this early stage of my introduction to Bolivia, I am glad that I am not exposed to such outings on a daily basis, although I expect a daily exposure to such poverty and hot-button issues. But the day seeped into my sub-conscious, where so many of these experiences are residing since my arrival here. The beautiful boy, Oliver, came into my mind as I prayed. A prayer for Ken’s well-being and sustenance from God also came to mind (Ken says that God has been very present to him during his 22-month residence at K’ara K’ara). But I pray that he will not lose heart in his poco a poco work there, where it is evident to me that the villagers there know him and like him. A priest sometimes takes quite a psychological beating in these hinterlands. Finally, how are these desperately poor residents at K’ara K’ara to be helped when their immediate need for food, clothing, shelter, and money overshadow their long-term well-being?

I found it necessary to arrange a short dinner with Fr. Ignatio Harding, our mentor (“Iggy”) just to get some stability in my sense of the Franciscan mission here. The Maryknoll fathers and sisters have been immensely supportive spiritual leaders, but I needed to hear from St. Francis, so I turned to a Franciscan priest.

To sum up Iggie’s words, we Franciscans are called to walk with the poor. This occurs on many levels. Some people are called, and actually desire, to be among the poor, living among them, even taking on their poverty. I thought of St. Damian living among the lepers and taking on their illness at the end of his life. Others are called to come nearer to the poor, to be there among them but not take on their poverty. Still on the next level, some are called to have a heart and mind for the poor, to be able to imagine their needs and to feel stricken in the heart when any injustice against God’s poor has been perpetrated.

When Padre Ken read my blog, he agreed, and let me know that he was well aware of those people who brought about change in this world, people who live in comfortable houses but who work through political and social systems to change legislation, as well as people whose prayers are heard by the God who hears the cry of the poor.

I knew that before coming here, I tried to have a heart for the poor, trying to be aware of their needs, as well as the needs of orphans, the suffering of people in violent situations, in war, and the needs of the aged, infirm, diseased, and dying. But I am here to live close to the poor, to be with them in spirit and in daily life. But no, I am not able to live near K’ara K’ara, and knowing my own limits, I continue to pray for and be a friend to Padre Juancho (Ken).

A Late Post: Carnaval in Cochabamba

A blog begun on February 16, 2010, the end of Carnaval in Cochabamba

It is 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 16, 2010, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and in another hour, the Carnival season will end. In my quarters on the second floor of our home in North Cochabamba, I hear the sounds of laughter and shouting, cars passing, and the occasional rapid boom-boom-boom of a pack of Chinese firecrackers just set off. On the Fourth of July in Tennessee, dogs jump their fences when fireworks explode. We always brought our sensitive Dalmatians inside the house to calm their nerves. When Henry, our host dad here, sets off a pack of firecrackers just outside the house, very close to where the family gathers for food and drink, the dogs don’t even flinch as the firecrackers explode.

Joel and I had scheduled this weekend to travel to the college where we are hoping to work in Carmen Pampa. This trip was to have taken six hours by bus on a Friday night just to get to La Paz—we had bought buscama tickets, meaning that we had booked large seats on the bus that reclined into almost comfortable beds. We bought four tickets on Thursday night, for Clare, Nora, Joel, and me, so that we would be read to leave on Friday night. Unfortunately, Joel was set back by a recurrence of an amoeba attack, and was literally unable to get out of bed all day on Friday. Some Tinitazol pills for parasites, the oral rehydration packets, and the blanco (white) diet were the course of treatment prescribed by our doctor host, Henry. By the afternoon, Joel was able to walk around, but the long trip to Carmen Pampa was out of the question. Clare and Nora were still able to go, but Joel and I would have to wait another time. We went on to plan B.

We were invited to spend Monday and Tuesday with our host family and their extended families, a round of Carnaval parties that would introduce us to the festivities of the season. Ever since we arrived, the city has been celebrating, but as the last four days approach, with a weekend and two days off for most working people, the energy, music, and numbers of globos (water balloons thrown at innocent passersby) rise. Best to remain inside those last two days, unless one wants to get drenched by the water balloons and water pistols hurled at us by people lurking on the street corners and on the backs of trucks that pass by.

We went to one birthday party, a cumpleanos for a cousin, on Monday. The children were out in the sunshine as the adults pumped up a large swimming pool for the children. It was dutifully filled, and then the soaking began. Henry and Lily, our host dad and mom, acted like children as they pointed the water hose at anyone who ventured into the yard. Buckets of water were poured on guests as they arrived, sometimes buckets filled at the freezing-cold water spigot. I remained dry longer than anyone. We had gone to Mass that day, a memorial for the grandfather whose birthday was that day, and I was in a skirt and blouse, unlike the others in shorts and tee-shirts. Lily and Henry heartlessly soaked their own children and the friends they had brought with them. The youngest generation, ranging from three to six years old, were continually shooting their water guns and receiving a baptismal soaking from a full bucket of water. As fiesta music played in the background, Andean, contemporary, or Latina dance music, the meat was barbecued, the salsa made, and the side dishes were brought out onto the tables. As all of us tried to get dry before our meal, and tried to stay dry afterwards, a nearly impossible task, we watched as new arrivals were either pushed into the pool or doused with a bucket of water. No one was left with any dignity at this party.

Joel and I walked home—a few blocks—and noticed that no one threw water balloons at us. Why should they? We were already soaked as we trudged home.
The next day, today, is Fat Tuesday, by North American standards. Here, the Lenten season is different from the one at home. We followed the customs of our host family. Joel and I were invited to help decorate the outside of the house for Carnaval. We strung rolls of ribbon on the outside of the house, weaving it in and out of the decorative but protective metal guards over the windows. We threaded the ribbons around the small trees and plants in the garden, like garlands wound around Christmas trees. We blew up balloons and tied them all over the house, inside and out. We started a charcoal fire and placed a pre-packaged collection of ritual objects on top of the flames. This was a koa, the things burned as a way of honoring Mother Earth, or Pachamama, as the indigenous people call it. Finally, we opened a bottle of sweet wine, which tasted like sherry, poured out glasses for everyone, and then poured libations throughout the house, at all four corners. Traditionally, I am told, chicha, the popular fermented drink made of maize, is used, but not this time.
For good measure, I took my glass of sherry up to our own quarters and poured it at all four corners of our large room. It was not holy water, but I felt almost as if I were blessing my own living space, along with that of my host family. I thought of all the traditions observed in my own home at Christmas time, the family rites of leaving out Christmas cookies for Santa Claus, although the children were grown, hanging up stockings, or simply the ritual of selecting and decorating the Christmas tree.

After observing traditions, we all got into the family car and drove two blocks to Lily’s brother’s house, where we were to eat dinner. But no, dinner would not be ready for two more hours. What to do? Joel and I, not knowing what was happening but trusting in our family’s judgment, went along for the ride to places unknown outside Cochabamba.

First, we paid a surprise visit to a nephew, his wife, and two small children. There, we participated in their rites of Carnaval as well. Another koa is burned. I learned more about the symbolic meaning of the objects that were burned. The white objects burned (such as play money) represent the house, money, car, work, books, that is, the things of material worth to the family. Other ritual objects burned were white flowers or petals (for peace), cinnamon (for harmony), sugar (for happiness), and coca (for union and community). The koa ritual expresses thanks for food, the garden, flowers, grass, water, work, and health. Just as some people eat black-eyed peas for good luck at the beginning of the New Year, this practice is a way of asking for prosperity in the coming year: good work, food, money, peace, harmony in the house, happiness, and tranquility.

I thought that the Tuesday festivities before Ash Wednesday, Miercoles de Cenizas, would bring the carnaval season to a close, but I was yet to see the city’s parade of dancers or bailarinos. This procession of dancers, representing many organizations of the city, would dance from 9:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night. The next weekend we would purchase seats in one of the many bleachers set up on the parade route around the city. The exuberance, energy, and costumes of the dancers held my attention as each group danced by, with its musicians walking behind, blowing trumpets and beating drums. However, my favorite moment of the entire day was the one hour when Joel and I left the fiesta to drink some coffee at the Brasilian café, a quiet, darkened place where we could talk, safe for the moment from the globos.





So my experience of Carnaval extended beyond Ash Wednesday, and I found myself between two cultures, one that was exuberantly celebrating life with food, dance, and drink, and one that was focusing on examination of the inner self, fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. As we left the parades that evening, I felt some balance of the two worlds as I watched Henry give three street children the leftover ham and cheese sandwiches from our repast earlier. In the midst of these bright festivities, alms.

Settling into a Routine

We have settled down to a routine here in Cochabamba, most of which involves attending language classes. A typical day involves getting up around six o’clock, studying a little, taking some time for reflection, getting dressed, and then heading down to the kitchen, where our desayuno, or breakfast, is already prepared. If we are not running late, we always sit down to eat the fruit, with yogurt and a sprinkling of a topping that we have been told is good for us. Cheese and bread are next, along with the coffee that we have been drinking since we woke up. After that, we bolt out of the house and walk to the MLI, taking care to avoid strange dogs, since we have been sufficiently warned about the predominance of rabies here. Most of the dogs, we know, and some of them bark at us because they know that is their role, protecting their casas. We walk past the homes in the neighborhood, all behind walls and fences. The gardens (jardins) are enticingly verdant with an abundance of flowers that we have seen only in pictures. The cobblestone roads, which we sometimes have to use when it rains, because the sidewalks are slick, take us to the main road, Avenue Circumvalacion, where we have to carefully cross the road at the red light, ignored by some drivers. Along the way, we notice that there are many restaurants, with beautiful gardens inside, interspersed among the homes. We hear that there is live music in one of these restaurants on Friday nights, and that the food is very good. We also pass photocopy stores, one bicycle store, and an Internet café. Our total distance to school is one half of a mile exactly.

If we are on a morning class schedule, we have two classes before our 9:35 break, when all students have coffee, tea, and bread during which time various announcements are made. Sometimes, a Wednesday lecture is announced—there is always a lecture on Wednesday afternoons after classes, when students learn about Latin American history, politics, and culture—or a new student is introduced. I am accustomed to being the oldest person in most situations, but at the Maryknoll Language Institute, I feel that I am surrounded by my peers, since it is never too late to learn a new language, take on a new direction in one’s life work, and be a missioner in Latin America. We return to our classes, full of bread, coffee, and tea. My fellow classmate and I have learned about the Cedron tree at the school entrance, which furnishes the leaves for a fragrant citrus tea, and we sometimes pick some leaves for a different tea experience. The last two classes of the morning somehow seem harder than the first two.

Classes end at 11:30, and I am always at loose ends. Do I socialize with everyone, or make my way to the student room, where many people are answering emails, visiting Facebook, or talking with family and friends, using Skype? I usually socialize and then rush to read emails before returning home for lunch. Lunch is a huge meal, called almuerzo (which the dictionary defines as a mid-morning snack, and one thinks of the Hobbits’ second breakfast). But no—it is the huge meal of the day, and one may anticipate spaghetti and meat sauce, steak and vegetables, chicken soup with large pieces of chicken in the soup pot, seasoned pork, minute steaks or fried chicken, or Cochabamban dishes, such as pique macho, a colorful stew made of chopped meat, various peppers, onions, French fries, and chopped hot dogs, among other ingredients or sillpancho, which is layers of rice, friend potatoes, and a thin piece of meat, topped with an egg. Lunch always comes with a variety of vegetables, potatoes or rice or both, pickled carrots, onions, carrots, peppers, and green beans. Someone always manages to prepare a fruit juice, made from lemons, water melon, or papayas.

Joel and I will inevitably head back to the Institute after our meal for more work on the Internet. Wednesdays are afternoon lecture days, followed by a social hour, where students may enjoy peanuts, chips, cheese and crackers, popcorn, all the goodies that are so plentiful in the States, and very appreciated here. Thursdays, our Franciscan missioners have an hour and a half meeting, with a check-in and a prayer service, which we take turns preparing. We light the candle that our mentor Fr. Ignacio Harding (Iggie) gave us. Clare presented a reflection on Henry Nouwen’s book Gracias, his journal on his days in Bolivia. My service was a reflection on the liturgical year and the ways that worshippers participate in Mass. How will we respond to celebrating the different feast days and seasons in a country where we don’t know the language? I asked my fellow missioners. After our time for reflection, there is a volleyball game, and I was foolhardy enough to join in last week. Some people went out for dinner, coffee, and ice cream afterwards.

Language school students may or may not get together on the weekends. Friday nights are popular times to explore the restaurants in the city. Last night, a group of students, Joel included, went to a restaurant called Casablanca, a restaurant not on the Institute’s “eating guide,” but all of us are venturing out to new places, where we feel the food is safe for our gringo consumption. I did not go last night. Feeling some low energy and very queasy in the stomach, I stayed at home and tried to learn more verbs, nouns, and phrases in Espanol. It was soothing to have the living quarters to myself. Andean music floated through my open window, and I recalled the band that played for the four groups of missioners who trained together for a week at Ossining, New York, where the Maryknoll school, Bethany, is located. Only one of the Maryknoll missioners is here at the language school, Mingh, and I am the lucky one who gets to take classes with her. As I review my Espanol, I listen to the music. This neighborhood, or barrio, is close, and one doesn’t mind hearing the music from bands nearby as people enjoy their weekend fiestas. I have even become accustomed to the inhuman voice of the fruit vendor calling out the names of fruits he has to sell over the loudspeaker as his truck travels through the neighborhood. Over the loudspeaker, the unearthly sound sends a chill up my spin, but the other day when I saw him selling his fruit, his very human appearance belied his sinister call to buy fruit. The parrot next door is a common recurrent sound. In the States, we are so intent upon our own rights to solitude and quiet, but here, it feels good to know that other people are buying fruit and enjoying their Friday nights with friends.

Tomorrow, Joel will go to buy soccer tickets with our host, Henry. One may feel guilty about enjoying the pastimes of the middle class, so similar to our own at home, but let’s face it, we all love soccer, and the family enjoys making us feel at home in our new country. Henry and Lily have even said that they may visit us when Joel and I go to Carmen Pampa to work (their daughter lives in La Paz); be that as it may, we feel very lucky to be able to converse with them even a little bit. We spent one evening this week just looking at weird animals on the internet, comparing the creatures that inhabit our respective countries: possums, bats, raccoons, snakes indigenous to each continent, some creatures that I have never seen before.

I want to include some pictures here of Cochabamba. The second Saturday when we were here, the Maryknoll Language Institute arranged for us a full tour of Cochabamba, which took us to visit the gigantic Christ statue on the hill over the city, many plazas in the city, and finally to a beautiful restaurant inside a kind of park, where we had a bountiful lunch alfresco or afuera with the other students. After almuerzo, I looked to my right to see Joel swimming laps in the pool just yards away from our dinner table. The park, or resort, was well landscaped, with soft St. Augustine grass underfoot. Exotic flowers lined the sidewalks, and parrots and parakeets peered at us from their capacious cages. Joel and Nora (fellow missioner) took some close-up pictures of the flowers. The setting was tranquil and beckoning. All of us were humble, grateful, in our moment of happiness and peace, knowing that we were privileged to have such beauty and food on this gorgeous day on the hills above the city so full of poor people.

Other pictures were taken by Joel on the Sunday when we met with Iggie at the Franciscan Social Center. We were invited by Iggie to visit the Center, and somehow managed to arrive on the day when all Bolivian schools, churches, and markets were closed, the day when the country celebrated the nation’s acceptance of its new constitution. The five missioners came to the Center, met with Fr. Edwin Quispe, whose parish in Cochabamba is flourishing, and watched the video he had made of his parish’s many activities. We went to Richard and Kristen’s apartment, where they lived when they worked in Cochabamba, and went through all of the boxes that they had left behind, full of CDs, DVDs, books, coat hangers, Spanish-English note cards (which I took) on handy rings, a cell phone that Clare is now using, pillows, bedding, a ziplock of Ibuprofen, and many other useful items. Seeing us look through these boxes of things that would be of use to us as missioners in the coming years, Iggie wished us Feliz Navidad. We found it imperative to have a picture taken of us in the main room where other missioners had gathered before our time, and then spent some time talking about our future assignments and learning more about the country we are becoming a part of.

The center was closed, but Iggie took us to the different sections where social services were offered. Clinics ranged from dental, to medical, to psychological. There was a meeting place for Alcoholics Anonymous, for alcoholism is a big problem here, a Comedor Popular, which is a kitchen serving lunch to many children and adults on Saturday at noon. Very interesting to me was the children’s burn center. Here children who have been burned and are on the road to rehabilitation are cared for as they wait for further treatment and surgery. Without proper care of the burn wounds, the burn victims regress and have to have repeat surgeries. But here, under the expert care given in the center, the children can be treated with dignity and respect while they are on the road to recovery. On the road to recovery? I asked. The best part is that these burns that have ravaged and disfigured the children can be treated, and I was told that after treatment, the children look as if they have never been burned.

I am caught up in learning the language, getting to know our host family, trying to get around in a city where no one speaks English, and keeping in touch with the people I love back home. After that, it is journaling, reading, personal reflection, and developing relationships with other people here, Bolivian, North American, or other. I have received some nice hugs from the grandson, Sebastian, and even got to play with some puppies at a home where we dropped off his mother and him for a play date. But I am continually aware of the many hungry stray dogs in this city, and even more aware of the underfed children and their impoverished parents. As I enjoy the good in life, I am always aware that somewhere others are going without. Even today, as our host family treated us to ice cream and empanadas at a city café, we were interrupted by a family of four, a mother and three children who held out their hands for money. I watched in silence as Henry got up from his ice cream and bought four empanadas for them. Lilly told us, they might get some food with the money but it will probably be taken from them by the father to buy alcohol. What kind of help helps? We missioners have learned to think carefully about this question. It was a good example for Joel and me, as we watched Henry buy food for the uninvited guests. All of us, then, were able to enjoy the beautiful day in good company, without hunger.

Living with a Bolivian Family

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.

“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.

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”