Friday, November 23, 2007

Thanksgiving... and I'm almost home

The first two weeks of November were insane with the Lord of Miracles, the chorus performances, a late-Saturday-night birthday party followed by Mass at 8:30 am, plus regular English classes, plus trying to find time in the evenings to record a song with the other chorus I'm in. I've been participating in a group of young people, sort of connected with the parish because it's some of the same people, that gets together on Sunday nights to sing. We were trying to enter a song in a competition and had to record it and send it in, which meant getting everybody together at the same place and same time, plus the instrumental accompaniment, during the week--almost impossible!... but somehow we got enough people there to put in all the parts, and made the recording and sent it in, and believe it or not we got chosen to go to the competition! We have to sing live on December 1st, and before that, we have to go record the song in an actual recording studio. The time I put into this group, and I do put substantial time into it, isn't exactly "service" on my part, but it is pretty sweet just for my personal enjoyment in being with my friends and getting to make music at a higher level. The group and the competition is exciting for everyone else as well because they've never done anything like this before... not to mention that the song is an original one composed by the director, in typical saya style with drums and zampoña and a flute-like thing called quena and three-part voices. Very cool and it totally deserves to be performed live. My only concern is that the voices and their tuning issues won't do it justice, because they usually don't.

So that's how the beginning of November flew by. Then this Tuesday, just as things had quieted down a little, our friend Jess from Maryland flew in to visit us! She and I had coordinated her visit since October as a surprise for Catherine. All the sisters knew about it. All I said that day to Catherine was, "I'm going to bring you a surprise... something you haven't been expecting." And when I walked in with Jess and asked Catherine to step out from her tutoring for a moment into the hall--priceless. Jess speaks Spanish very well, so she has had a great time meeting everyone from the parish and seeing the center of Lima a little.


Three gringas seeing the city from Cerro San Cristobal

...and our very decorative lunch.


That Thursday the three of us spent all day cooking a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner for the sisters and our friends. I learned to do turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie from scratch... some of it turned out kind of weird but it was all good! I was so unbelievably tickled to be eating turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce (Jess brought it in cans from the US) on Thanksgiving! The holiday was a hit with the Peruvians. It was kind of nice having to explain why we do Thanksgiving, too, instead of just saying, Oh, it's Thanksgiving... ok, let's eat pumpkin pie. Before the meal everyone shared something they were thankful for--Catherine and I were of course thankful for all of the people there to share the day with us, but I was really touched at how all the Peruvians said they were thankful to us for inviting them, for choosing them to be with us on our special holiday, and for having met us this year. Of course, one has to make a few cultural concessions--instead of football on TV, there was dancing after dinner. :)

Turkey feet!!!!



Peruvians discovering Thanksgiving dinner

...and dancing afterwards.

And now there is UNDER FIVE WEEKS until I am getting on a plane to Washington, DC! Unbelievable.

The weather is warmer--sometimes I even go out in t-shirts--and sunnier, and it seems like that long, gray, stale, changeless winter of plodding, pointless English groups in the school and students who didn't come... has finally moved into something with more life and more possibility. It's amazing how much you can put up with cheerfully if the weather is nice. (It's very weird though to think that it's almost Advent and almost summer at the same time. Gah! Brain spazz.) I'm already planning my possibilities for next year... who I'll teach, fourth AND fifth grade choruses in the school, maybe getting into the Confirmation program... and am very happy to be coming back. In a way very characteristic of my Enneagram type (the nuns got me into the Enneagram this year), I just know in my gut that it's the right place for me to be next year. Call it, if you like, the blessing of finally realizing clearly (after many many months of being torn in two!) what my friend Naomi ironically but wisely said to me over a year ago: "Why are you going to Peru? Because God wants you to go to Peru."

I say this because there are times when it's the only conceivable explanation I can think of for why I am staying another year. Peru and I have a love-hate, love-frustration sort of relationship. I'm either crazy busy or painfully bored; I often feel utterly useless; my social life and my students and my projects have minds of their own and do not respond to my efforts to plan or control them in a structured way, but rather go their own way if and when the spirit moves them to do so. For an American raised on the idea that "if you can dream it, you can do it! Go out, work hard, organize, apply yourself, and make it happen!", this is excruciatingly frustrating. So many of the quotes we have read this year from Saint Julie, the foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame, are about patience and waiting for God's time... and I'm trying, trying, trying to learn to do that.
It's especially rough when this is true of your friends, the people in your life... sometimes they show up to church choir, and sometimes they just don't and you don't see them for weeks... but then they come to your Thanksgiving dinner and want to take you out the next day to go dancing and you get an invitation the same weekend to go to another party. You can't force anything and you just have to sort of go with the flow. I might as well also share, since it's no secret to anyone around here, that this has been exactly the dynamic of the something that may or may not have existed between me and a certain guy here. There, not there. Extremely frustrating. So frustrating in fact that it has been almost a relief to discover recently, beyond all doubt, that it is definitely not there. So, ok. I'm just concentrating on finishing up my year. In Peru, the ideas are always big and marvelous, and every now and then (when you're least expecting it) they burst into reality in surprising, exuberant, beautiful ways... and the rest of the time, they fall flat. No han venido.--"They didn't come."

For all these reasons I can't wait to go home right after Christmas. After that, we'll start thinking about coming back in February.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The Pollitos perform

The week after the Lord of Miracles procession, my fourth grade chorus at Fe y Alegría performed twice. Friday was the concert at the school itself: The art teacher had organized an afternoon of theater with the secondary-school kids, where they performed skits they had written and directed themselves, and I coordinated with him to have the chorus perform on the same program. They had a red curtain strung up from the rafters of the auditorium and rows of chairs set up for the parents and students and teachers in the audience. My singers presented three songs: the Spanish version of Frére Jaque in a two-part round, a Christmas song I sang in middle school and translated into Spanish, and an upbeat church song in two parts. Unfortunately my two strongest singers were absent that day, so the tuning was not good. But they were trying really hard and did pretty good getting their entrances in the two-part sections. Everybody duly applauded and the kids were really proud of themselves. I congratulated them a lot because they really have worked amazingly hard this year, all those twice-a-week rehearsals when I'm yanking them out of their class or their break and they whine and say, Nooo, Señorita! and I say, You have to come or you can't sing any more!! and then they come and we sing do-mi-sol and practice listening and breathing and vowels and watching me for entrances... It's been a big committment for them and I am so proud of what they've accomplished. They couldn't sing at all when I started with them in March. At all! And even though the concert didn't represent their best, I have heard them do incredibly well in rehearsals, so I know what they're really capable of.

The day before that, however, was the real triumph for me and four of the kids. On Thursday we went to the Museum of Art in the center of Lima to participate in a city-wide school arts competition! I had to run around like a crazy person getting all the details worked out beforehand. There were forms to fill out and send in by email along with a picture of each kid, the school's and the principal's contact info, etc; there was musical accompaniment to work out with some older students; there were permission slips to make and print and get them to bring back signed; there were details to communicate to all the kids and their parents, which I wrote up in nice little information slips that nobody read--they all looked unimpressed at my little slips, glanced at them once if that, and then proceeded to ask me a zillion questions until I'd explained it orally to each and every one of them, one random question at a time. The vice-principal told me to make sure we had transportation, with the helpful advice that in the past they'd contacted a combi driver to take an instrumental group to perform; I called two taxi drivers and got it all arranged, only to have the other vice-principal have a heart attack at the cost and tell me to just walk them down to the park and take a couple of taxis like normal.

Then there was much angst and drama because the competition set a maximum of FIVE participating students, and there are eleven of them in the chorus, so I had to choose the five that would make the best small group and be able to sing in two parts at the competition. There were six girls that I thought might be the best ones but wasn't sure. I made the mistake of first telling five of them they would be going, but then going back to listen to the six of them in different combinations just to be sure. Finally I chose one that I hadn't chosen at first and had to tell one of the original five she couldn't go. It was pretty terrible of me but I felt like I had to do what was best for the sound of the group (and it did make a substantial difference). The poor thing who'd gotten her hopes up was crushed and said she wasn't going to sing in the chorus any more. It broke my heart, but all I could do was tell her, You have a wonderful voice, you're one of the best singers, it's just that your voice isn't as similar to all the rest, and we have to have similar voices in the group, that's all... (The truth, that the other girl sings more in tune, was not a wise thing to admit in this situation.) For about three weeks she didn't come to rehearsal despite my repeated, gentle invitations to come back whenever she wanted and that it would really be a shame for the group to lose her because she sings so well. Then one day, when we were getting ready for the concert--she came back, and after one rehearsal, she was back for good with a big smile! Little Leslie had the bravery to get over it and keep singing anyway. I am prouder of her than of any of the rest of them because she's had to something much more difficult than perform in front of a crowd.

Anyway the competition went very well. I went with Catherine, two older boys who accompanied us on the guitar and zampoña, the four little girls (because one of them didn't show up at the last minute, despite the fact that her mom promised me on the phone that she would be there!), and a few moms to the Museum of Art. They have a big amphitheater and each little girl got her own microphone and there were microphones for the instruments and everything.


The kids were nervous, especially waiting backstage, but they did really well! It wasn't perfectly tuned and when they split into two parts they messed up a few times but we were all so happy with ourselves that it didn't matter.

In the picture above, from left to right: Rafael on the zampoña, Pedro (a blind kid with a great ear for music) on the guitar, Jacki, me, Claudia, Natali, and Keyssy. Alison didn't show up at the last minute but she and Leslie were there in spirit.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

The Lord of Miracles


October is the month of the Lord of Miracles, the biggest devotional celebration I've seen here. Churches are decked in purple all month, and processions go out from tons of parishes, including the Cathedral of Lima, carrying the image of the Lord of Miracles. The story of the devotion goes like this:

In the 17th century, when slavery still existed in Peru, an African slave painted an image of the crucified Christ in Lima. It was called the Cristo de Pachacamía, Pachacamía being a place where slaves were bought and sold in the city. Tons of slaves went to this image to pray and call on God for help in their suffering. In the image of the crucified Jesus they found a God who understood the hell they were living and who could be there with them in all the ways they were dying every day. Eventually the devotion grew so popular that the local authorities considered it dangerous and ordered the image removed from the church where it hung in Lima. But when they tried to remove the image, an earthquake shook the city and destroyed the church, the surroundings, everything--except the wall on which the image hung. (The painting did in fact survive an earthquake in the 17th century.) For those who stop to think about the reason for the processions, therefore, the idea is that God intervened through a miracle to keep this image of herself present to the oppressed people of Lima, as a way to say, I am with you in your sufferings and I hear you when you cry out.


The festival itself, though, becomes something like Christmas in the US in that people gather for the pomp and ceremony of the processions themselves, and if you asked them why, would probably say, "It's the Lord of Miracles!". There are whole societies of devotees to the Lord of Miracles who dress in purple robes to carry the image around the city. In the center of Lima hundreds of thousands of people come to see the original painting get paraded around; in our neighborhood, probably several hundred came and went during the six-hour course of the procession. The image is mounted on a big wooden platform like an altar that has four wooden arms sticking out from the corners, two front and two back, and decorated with gorgeous flowers, balloons, lights, everything. It takes twelve people to lift the thing and carry it around. Three people get under each bar, which when the anda rests on the ground is about at elbow height, and the guy in charge hits a bell on the front and says, "Ready!" -- Ding! -- "Arriba!" and the twelve people stand up under the huge weight. Everyone applauds because this takes considerable effort. Once it's balanced on their shoulders they begin to sway back and forth, right, left, and with each sway they take a little step forward. And thus the Lord of Miracles advances slowly out of the church and down the street. There's a brass band walking behind him and when people see the procession, they come to walk along for a while and then go on their way. Every hundred meters, or about 20 minutes, the carriers put the anda down and a new group takes over.








Along with a couple of friends from the parish, I managed to get myself on the committee that organized this event. I'd never seen a real Latin American-style religious procession and I thought it'd be cool to see one from the inside, so to speak. Thanks to several colorful personalities, the organizational meeting was a 2.5-hour argument / complaint session about why things didn't work last year and what the president of the committee had to do about it. (Don't get me started on the Peruvian tendency to back off from committment, or to commit to something and then not show up, but then come back later and angrily criticize the work of the one or two people who have actually take any responsibility for getting whatever it is done.) But I did discover the kinds of things one has to think about in order to have a procession. The whole route has to be marked beforehand, at night, with stops every 100 meters where the carriers will switch off. At these stops the people often gather their religious pictures, rosaries, etc and arrange them on tables with flowers, making a nice sort of image for the anda to stop in front of for prayers and blessings. Sometimes the anda actually makes a little bow to these gatherings of people and items--the carriers in front stoop down and then stand straight again at the sound of the bell, very difficult to do, and everyone applauds. People also take advantage of the stops to bring their babies up to the anda so that the guy in charge can lift the baby up-down-left-right in the sign of the cross in front of the Lord of Miracles. This was funny when the director, Martín, was all stressing out about the time and moving the procession along and they kept passing him baby after baby.

Before the day of the procession you have to put out flyers to all the houses it's going to pass by, so they can be ready. We drafted the church choir to do this one night and the whole group of us ran up and down the neighborhood in the dark, walking in pairs and scurrying quickly past the unlighted sections, slipping papers under people's doors. Then somebody has to think about who's going to carry the thing and have refreshments available for the carriers when they finish; call the band and make sure they will actually show up (the first shift didn't, the second did); invite the mayor, the local functionaries, etc, none of whom actually come; argue with the committee president about why the priest says he can't say a Mass beforehand and yell at him to convince the priest to do so, etc. My job, supposedly, was to sign people up in groups to take turns as carriers. It was complete chaos because I was running around in the crowd looking for people of about the same height and asking them to take a turn, except there was no way I could remember the faces of group after group of twelve strangers dispersed throughout the crowd, much less tell each one when it was their turn, and they didn't all step forward when the lady with the megaphone took a break from the songs and Rosaries to call them. So Martín, the guy running the whole thing, was yelling at me to come up with people to carry and I had no idea where the other five people I'd asked had gone, and we ended up sort of shouting for volunteers each time the anda stopped. I was so stressed and begging my friends to help me, until Eymi told me, Relax, Kata, there's never any carriers. Every year we end up doing this.--It would have been real nice if somebody had told me that before. As usual my expectations were for everything we planned to actually function the way we planned it, thus stressing me out when this did not happen... but the Peruvians knew better. My mistake.

By the time it got dark I'd decided to resign myself to the chaos, ignore Martín's yelling (he's just one of those people who likes to yell), and enjoy the whole plodding, sprawling, noisy, glorious shebang. A few more of my friends showed up and in a spur-of-the-moment decision, once more lacking people to make up the next group of twelve, I jumped in with them to take a turn carrying. Finally I was out from under Martín's yelling and just had to listen for the bell, stand up!--shift the weight, balance it--steady!--and then just think about walking, swaying, right, left, pulling forward and trying to stand straight under the swaying weight of the anda on my shoulder. I was right in front on the same bar as my friends Victor and Alfredo (our girl friends took a turn later but very few Peruvian women are my size, so our group was mixed). It's really, really important for the three people on a bar to be the same height, because if not, the taller person can't stand up under the weight and it's painful for everybody. I think this may have been the case for me because I had a cramp in my back after about 10 minutes, when we switched sides to change shoulders. After my 20 minutes were up I stepped out gladly, feeling almost like I'd been swimming because the exhilerating tiredness of hard exercise was not in my arms or shoulders but in my whole body.


After this experience I was utterly astounded to see that about eight women from the community--all moms in their thirties or forties and all exactly the same height, 5 foot 0--jumped in to carry when a group of shorter people took over towards the end, and didn't leave for the next hour until the anda reached the church again. We kept asking them if they wanted relief and they said, No, no, we do this every year! We're good! Their faces were red and wet with sweat but they were smiling and determined. The groups of tall men in their purple robes had gone long ago, after very chivalrously and self-importantly taking the first four or five turns in a row; now the Lord of Miracles was left with his most fervent devotees, these short, average-looking, amazingly strong women from the pueblo, to carry him on the last long uphill stretch home. And that wasn't all. When they got to the door of the church I thought for sure they'd let the thing drop. But this is Peru: before retiring, the Lord of Miracles has to dance. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Right at the church door the band suddenly struck up a lively marinera, and I heard my friend Luis say to the carriers, Ok, I don't know how you all are going to do this, but we're gonna make this thing dance!, and the group of carriers started skipping around and turning from side to side so that the image was actually dancing the marinera. I was speechless. All I had energy left for myself was to go get the tray of hot chocolate and rolls for the band when the whole thing was over. (It was the best hot chocolate I have ever had--it tasted like Señora Sofía had put in cinnamon and honey and who knows what else.) One of the band players did a funny little eyebrow-lift thing whenever I looked at him. And that was the procession of the Lord of Miracles.



Friday, November 9, 2007

We Got Books!

Two weekends ago, Sister Iris and I finally found a Saturday morning to go into the center of Lima and buy books for the school with the money donated by you, my friends and family. We had a total of $255 to spend, or over 750 soles, which goes pretty far when most books are between 15 and 35 soles! There's a street near the Plaza de Armas that has all these little bookstands one after the other, and at one point a whole market-like plaza of bookstands under a tent, selling an eclectic selection of everything from classic English literature (translated into Spanish of course) to modern Latin American writers to cookbooks to cheap romance paperbacks. Iris and I had a great time, two literature junkies browsing from one stand to another saying, This is great! Have you read that one? They have to have this! We got one copy of each of the following titles, except for the abridged Moby Dick and The Little Prince, which we got about ten of. All will now be available for the students to check out of the library.

My picks:

Pride and Prejudice

Moby Dick

The Lord of the Rings

The Canterbury Tales


Iris's picks:

The complete works of Isabel Allende (13 novels)

The complete works of Paulo Coehlo (10 novels)

Travesuras de la Niña Mala, Mario Vargas Llosa

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Emilio, Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Libro de Buen Amor, Arcipreste de Hita

Novelas Ejemplares, Cervantes

De Profundis, Oscar Wilde

Cuentos de Amor, de Locura, y de Muerte, Horacio Quiroga

Elogio de la Locura, Erasmus de Rotterdam

Las Flores del Mal, Baudelaire

Rimas, Gustavo A. Bécquer


And with all this, plus our bus fares and a snack for the hardworking book-buyers, there is still about 70 soles left. Iris couldn't find any poetry by Gabriela Mistral, but we'll have to see if we can locate that or other Latin American poetry to spend the rest of our allowance on. Meanwhile the books are staying with us until they can be checked into the library, so I intend to enjoy The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende in my spare time... Thanks again to everyone and please know that although you will probably never meet the kids in Fe y Alegría, you can be certain that somewhere in Peru there will be more than one young person who falls in love with a certain book and has her life changed by it because of your help. If you've ever had that experience yourself you know what a blessing it is, so I will just say, thank you for helping to give that to the kids here, and may the Lord repay your kindness with tons of blessings!