Tambogrande again

(The bridge from Tambogrande to the outlying caserio of Locutos. The bridge is made of sticks and packed dirt and they build it from scratch every year when the river goes down. When the river is high, in the summer, it sweeps the bridge away and the people cross over in rafts made of inflated tires and pulled by somebody swimming. At least this is what they tell me.)

I'm in Tambogrande once more. It's sunny and warm and beautiful!!! That 14-hour overnight bus ride seems like it took me from Lima winter to Bethany Beach in the summer, except less humid, more breezy, and deliciously cool at night. "Winter" in Tambogrande means you sleep with a light blanket, go around in your jeans and t-shirt in the morning and evening, and lie around doing nothing from 2 to 4 pm because it gets HOT. The last time I came here, in March, it was the end of summer and the HOT was all the time, barely even cooling off enough at night to let you sleep. It's not humid like it is in Maryland, but I'm sure it passes 100 degrees Farenheit every day (right now it might get up to 80 or 90), and you just feel like you're baking in a still hot oven.

The locals talk proudly about how those who aren't used to the calor fuerte of the North usually can't take it. They build their houses with high roofs, make them of brick or bamboo instead of wood, and some of the more rural ones don't even have doors and windows that close, just openings in the walls... and even the walls aren't all there; most houses have a few rooms in front and then a back room that opens straight out under a woven-bamboo roof onto a garden, with flowers, trees, chickens, etc. The gardens are not at all neat but profusely alive. This helps me understand a little why so many Peruvians who move to Lima and build houses in the pueblos jovenes don't put back walls on them. The house is not meant to seal you off from the outdoors. (What a concept!... and it works great here... just not in Lima.) In the heat I also see why the women, no matter what their age or what they look like, are much more comfortable than North American women with wearing stretchy skirts and midriff-baring tanks. It's less formal and more comfortable here in the rural North of Peru.

On Sunday we all went to Sister Marleney's final vows, a beautiful, happy celebration at a Mass in the countryside where Marleney teaches in a Fe y Alegría school. The school was in the middle of nowhere down these dirt roads that wind through a half-desert landscape. There are trees and the occasional stream and sometimes whole fields of vibrantly green rice plants, but the ground is sandy and dry. The Mass was under a white pavilion run with green ribbons and decorated with tons of sunflowers, the symbol of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. It was hot.

Before Marleney professed her vows, the priest gave her the microphone and asked her to talk to everyone about how she got to be here. Her testimony was really moving. She talked about the "human ties" that led her from one step to another in her journey toward becoming a Sister of Notre Dame; she said she didn't want to even hear about religious life at first, but little by little, sometimes fighting with God, she discovered that "this is my happiness." The priest asked her if she'd ever been in love and to talk about what love means to her. She said yes, of course; she's a woman, a complete person, and yes she had had a boyfriend years ago, and she is happy now that he is married with kids while she has found her happiness here. "Love, to me, is to give yourself completely and be left with nothing, but at the same time to receive everything. I know that for the rest of my life I will be thirsting for this God, and I am here to give myself over to Him completely, not 'until death do us part' but until death unites us."

I was sitting in the front row with the rest of the sisters and I'm sure everyone there thought I was a nun too. It was kind of awkward to be the only non-Peruvian without an ND cross around her neck, but I tried to make myself useful as a photographer. After the ceremony the whole crowd of at least 200 people wanted to hug Marleney, and while some waited in line the others ate the beans and rice and goat that quickly appeared in the hands of the caterers. There was folkloric dancing by the kids in the school and a neighbor of the sisters sang musica criolla for everybody to dance to.

To get back to Tambogrande, the sisters' truck went first with those who were leaving that night for Lima. Juana Jaqueline and I didn't want to wait for the second trip, so we hopped in with another family... in the back on the truck bed! I got to be one of those Latin Americans you see going by all crowded together in the back of a truck, standing up to fit more people, like a bunch of horses or something being transported home. So ghetto and so very typical around here. We even stopped to pick up more guests who'd started home on foot--the people on the truck bed started whacking the top of the vehicle to get it to stop, their friends hopped up, and they whacked again to say go ahead. It was great. The sisters later said they saw us flying by while they waited at the bus station, and they knew it was us because they picked out my hair right away.

And so I have now ridden in the back of a truck down dirt highways in rural Peru, in my nice clothes, squished between a nun and a cross-dressing Peruvian named Karen (he got out of the car before we took this picture.) This just about makes my year.

Next year

So, it's official: I am renewing my service committment with Notre Dame Mission Volunteers for 2008.

I took a retreat this weekend to think about it, and I had a very relaxing day and a half of reading, sleeping, playing the guitar, praying the Liturgy of the Hours with the retreat house community, and napping outside in the sun. The retreat house I went to is in sunny pretty Chaclacayo, and it had lots of green grass, hanging flowers, pretty gardens, a white-walled house with tiled arches to wander through and pictures of the Virgin Mary in front of the ocean (la Virgen del Carmen). I was so worn out from trying to make this decision that I couldn't tell what I wanted any more, so instead of trying to decide I mostly just relaxed. By the end of the weekend I didn't come to a clear "answer," but I did have more of a sense of peace about it all, so I came back on the buses to Lima thinking that I would decide my fate based on whether or not they can find another volunteer to replace Catherine next year. Staying "alone" still felt too daunting, especially after a long weekend of solitude.

But I got back at night and dropped in on the chorus rehearsal in the parish, and it felt like home! In the end it wasn't the retreat, but the coming back afterwards, that convinced me that I belong here for another year. I also had another conversation with Sister Miriam, a professional counsellor but also a good friend, which really helped, especially in terms of thinking of new possibilities for my work next year that would "give me more life" and less frustration. (No more English groups!!--more parish involvement--working with all my friends in the Confirmation program... so exciting!) So last night in chorus rehearsal I let everybody know and got hugged/strangled by half of them. Then we stayed there until 10 pm singing and laughing at the circus-like antics of Luis Alberto and Dante (everybody was really high-energy for some reason!) and I was absolutely dead this morning when I had to get up at 6:30 to teach at 8. Also, my stomach was acting up in such a way as to suggest I may have parasites again. Ah, Peru.

So: if anyone knows anyone who is female, 21 or over, speaks Spanish, and is interested in helping out in a poor but vibrant parish and school in Lima for 2008, please let her know about Notre Dame Mission Volunteers! (Information available at www.ndmva.org, international service sites.) The opportunities for volunteer work are really limitless, any kinds of talents or interests can be put to good use. Being Catholic is not a requirement, but one has to be willing to live in an overwhelmingly Catholic country and help out a bunch of (very cool) nuns in their work.

Thanks for all your support and prayers! I will be home for six weeks from Christmas to early February, and I can't wait to see everybody!

Two-Thirds-of-a-Year Reflections

Wow, it's September.

In school terms, there's still a whole "semester" to go, but it feels like we have no time left at all. Somewhere around late July I got really busy, and August flew by in a blink after we got back from vacation. I'm still working with the small groups on English in the school, and at long last we have actually moved on from "to be," describing people, and questions like "Where are you from?" and "How old are you?", to starting the present tense and describing what you do every day. Some of the groups remember nothing of what I did with them the last time I saw them (back in May). Others pick it back up with a quick review and move on eagerly. So I suppose we are actually getting a little done in these groups.

[Cute story: One of their exercises is based on a picture of my sister Annie that mom sent me. I wrote a few paragraphs of, "Hi, my name is Annie and I'm from Maryland. I'm 17 years old. I have a brother and two sisters..." using "to be" and "to have" to talk about oneself and one's family. The students have to read it and understand it and try to write one of their own. One of the guys was very impressed with this American girl he was reading about and asked me, "Miss, do you know her? Can I get her email? What's her phone number?", telling his buddies how cute she was, etc. Then at the end, I defined the word oldest for them and said, What does it say about Annie's oldest sister?... and Annie's admirer turned beet red and moaned, "Sorry! Sorry!" when someone finally figured out that she was my sister. It was great. I said I would pass on his compliments.]

Besides the groups, I have a lot of private tutoring students for English, which is great because they are adults and they actually show up. Although even there, there are always adventures, particularly with the guy students. One of them keeps bugging me and Catherine to go dancing or go to lunch with him and his friend, insisting that he wants to be "better friends" with us, and bringing me little gifts like earrings and "little rocks" (his bad English translation of "piedritas," little plastic-looking "stones" that one could string on a necklace). Just what I wanted. Not so much interested in English, that one. Next time I am going to tell him straight up that I do not want to be his friend... he's getting on my nerves. Another of my students came over last week and did grammar obediently for half an hour, and then when I was in the middle of a sentence he interrupted me in Spanish with, "Do you know the origins of the Catholic Church?" He is very disturbed about his religion right now. He also thinks that the Internet is a reliable source of information. "But it says on the Internet that Jesus used to be called Cupid and Mary was Aphrodite! Do you believe everything you read on the Internet? Why not?" Teresa very generously agreed to talk to him about religion (and the Internet). Who knows if he will keep coming to English class. But my female students are delightful. Besides Sister Miriam, my favorite student is a 27-year-old woman named Olga who lives nearby with her mother. She went to college to be a history teacher, but she can't find a job right now, so she has time and interest to study English. She is so sweet and really knows how to learn, being accustomed to studying. She always makes my day when she comes over.

I am still working with my fourth grade chorus and loving them more every week. The other week I got them singing a song I learned from my friends in the parish that has two parts on the refrain. It's simple, and they didn't do it really in tune, but I just thought as I listened to them, My God--they're singing in two parts!! When I started with them in March they couldn't sing at all! And my most recent job is teaching my friend Miguel voice lessons. He is really into classical music and Italian opera, and he has a great voice, he just needs a little ear training and music-reading and tips on technique. It is so much fun! I was nervous about teaching voice lessons because I've never done it before, but when he started singing I realized immediately that I had tips to give him, so it's all good. It's so amazing to find someone who appreciates the beauty of classical music around here--I hadn't realized how much I missed CSPAC and the music world of Maryland. And his lessons encourage me to practice my own singing, and when I do I am almost surprised at how beautiful and fun it is. My voice, like the rest of me, is growing and maturing here even as I take a break from the lessons I had in college... almost without my noticing, it's becoming freer and fuller and less self-conscious. Amazing.

In two weeks I'm taking a trip to Tambogrande to be there for Sister Marleney's vows and the wedding of Sister Miriam's cousin, whom I met earlier in the year. (It's going to be warm there!! Although I can tell it's starting to move toward spring here, thank God.) Very exciting.

And so life is going along swimmingly here. And recently that insistent something inside of me that has been pushing me this whole time towards staying another year... has reasserted itself. I've already told NDMV that I'm going home, but they haven't found anyone to replace me yet... and just this weekend, a plan has unfolded in my head that seems simple and natural. It's scary in more ways than one, but it takes away my anguished feeling of being torn in two between Peru and the US. And it runs thus: This year from now till December, I study for the GREs. (Catherine will be nice enough to bring my prep book back from my house when she visits the US for her sister's wedding.) Then I spend a good month (or 6 weeks?!) at home in January, take the GRE's, talk to my profs at Maryland about grad schools to research, meet my new baby cousins, spend time with everybody, etc. Then I come back to Peru. From February to September, in between my teaching here, I can read (at the suggestion of my teachers) things that will help me prepare to study for a PhD in English, concentrating on spirituality in literature. I can do my graduate applications from here starting this time next year, and in 2009, assuming I get in somewhere, I will have over 6 months to live at home before starting my grad program. ...And the little voice inside me, the one that said "What if I stayed?!" even back in March when nothing was working--that small but undeniable urging quiets down. It's an idea that brings the two worlds together a bit. It gives me purpose and direction in my American life, keeping me in touch and moving toward a career in that world, but lets me spend my time in Peru in the meanwhile, with the culture and the people that have become dear to me this year. (And doing something good, too, now that I'm familiar with the system and can continue my projects.)

Of course all the other voices inside me are saying, "What are you, insane?!" But really I think I have been wanting to want to stay another year ever since I got here, and now I may actually be ready to take that seriously. I need to talk to the sisters about it. (I've already talked to my parents about the possibility... they took it extremely well.) I would like to take a retreat to really mull it over. Today I went to lie down for a nap, and the neighbors started up their Waino again, and I just burst out laughing and crying at once over how unbelievably annoying that stupid music is, and how they're going to do it for the next twelve hours nonstop, and keep me from sleeping, and at the same time how it's so fabulously Peruvian just like everything else that drives me crazy and makes me love this place, and was I really going to spend a whole nother year here?!, amazed at how I was unable to say no even during a Waino Sunday to the insistent something inside me that says Stay and will not be argued with. Just then my friend Matilde came in and listened to me spill all my thoughts about all this, and gave me hugs, and said she thought my plan was a good one. She is Miriam's cousin and is far away from her family like I am, working in Lima to make money to go to college. We don't see each other that often, but she and Consuelo's sister Eliana are like younger sisters here to me and Catherine. They are really sweet girls.

I'm not committing yet. But there you have all my thoughts. I would appreciate any good-decision-making vibes or prayers. Thanks.