My last month

My last post took us up through mid-November. In the month since then, way too much has happened for me to tell you everything in detail. Here are a few things that could each have their own post.

*Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani came to celebrate Mass in Tupac. (I really do want to do a whole post on this one so stay tuned.)

*Catherine came for a week and hung out with me so I wouldn't be lonely. We celebrated Thanksgiving with our friends and had the experience of seeing our turkey, alive and looking around in innocent confusion, get its feet tied up and get weighed on the scale before it was taken in the back and killed. We almost felt terrible enough to become vegetarians.

*I went to a fancy-dress wedding, in a truly awesome dress, and danced salsa and cumbia until 3 am. :)

*I finished preparing the kids in the school for their concert and managed to get the thing to actually happen! It was something that's never happened in that school before. There were two choirs, a primary and a secondary, and two groups of girls who sang things alone; the teachers and parents came and while the singing wasn't really in tune, everyone liked it. The vice-pincipal Gaby even made a little speech afterwards to thank me for all my work... for the first time I felt appreciated in that school!! The teachers gave me a gift, a very beautiful alpaca vest that is entirely too big and the wrong color. But still. :)

*Iris had a party with the youth group in the school, and I was there the whole day with them, eating delicious food cooked by Sra. Rosa the wife of the school guardian Reineri, dancing, singing, watching them play soccer outside.

*In between all these moments, I had long days of being alone in my house but not wanting to go to the school, being bored in the mornings when everybody else in the world is working like respectabe people do, feeling the frustration of still not being fully part of this culture or being able to live a "normal" life here... basically, I went in and out of a heavy, deadening depression. It's the feeling of being stuck doing something that has no possibilities for change, creativity, or letting your talents develop--a helplessness in the face of Peruvians' refusal to be put in order, their unreliability that makes me feel like I have no power to bring any sort of project to completion.

*The second-year Confirmation group here had their confirmation. I played guitar at the Mass and later in the day watched Happy Feet, that fabulous movie about a dancing penguin, and then went to Sheila's house with a group of friends from the choir to sing her Happy Birthday.

*With my own first-year Confirmation group, we tried to go to the Parque de la Reserva, which is apparently a huge fountains-and-lights exhibit in the center of Lima... but we spent so much time waiting for people to meet up that we got there late, and ended up coming back to eat hamburgers in Tupac. Typical Peruvian fun. :)

*I came to grips, searingly, with the fact that I don't think I have any talents. It was a very difficult moment brought on by a practice for tomorrow's Christmas concert in the church, which led to a discussion of hitting the notes correctly vs. singing from the heart with expression. The former I can do; the latter embarrasses and terrifies me. I've been reading a book about Aboriginal Australians who give themselves their own names based on talents they have, like Composer, Secret Keeper, Kin to Large Animals, etc; and the way they honor the talents of everyone in the tribe made me realize how little I believe in the value of my own creativity. All I've ever learned to do in my life is complete, really, really, REALLY WELL, the tasks that other people set for me. But something originally my own, that nobody asked for, just a spontaneous idea that I could wave around happily and go, Look! Look what I came up with!!! ... Why do you think the fantasy novel I wrote from age 11-16 is still sitting on my computer, instead of being read? Anyway. A very painful realization. But after a long discussion and a short break, I was later able to sing Silent Night a cappella, in my own rhythm, trying to just feel the music and be the instrument to transmit its message. And it felt good. A moment of new possibility.

*Of course some of the stress of the music was due to the fact that I'M LEAVING PERU IN ONE MONTH, without a definite plan of what job I'm going to enter into at home, knowing only that I feel called to talk about Life, real Life, divine Mystery, God; to live my life deeply, in abundance; to speak a word of hope to people trapped in their own perspectives on life, who haven't had the experience I have in Peru. I'm not going to be a nun. I don't have a career path and I wouldn't want one all set out for me and tied up neatly with a bow (see above!). I don't know in what way my heart will speak to me once I'm there, where I'll end up. All I know is that it is good to be in this Lima world in these days that I have remaining... and that really, "home" almost isn't "home" any more because the place I actually live is here!... and that it's going to break my heart to leave... and that I can't stay where I am. I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

*Miriam came back from the US, understands completely my "desert" experience of being in a foreign country, and listens to me talk. And it's almost Christmas.

*I worked with Dante, Alfredo, and the rest of the church choir to "compose" a Christmas song to be presented at tomorrow's concert: we took the melody of a popular cumbia that's all over the radio, whose refrain is "I hope you die," and changed the lyrics to make a song about the birth of Jesus. It's hilarious and fabulous. Then we rehearsed it and tried to organize everyone to actually be there on Sunday...!

*I finished in Fe y Alegría with one last little actuación, in which I snuck my kids into the program Peruvian style, at the last minute, because they'd forgotten to put them on there earlier; and even got them the honor of singing the National Anthem in front of everyone simply by asking the people in charge about ten minutes before the performance started. See? I'm learning. Also, Sara had a little party for me with the Adelante kids, gave me silver dove earrings, and we ate ice cream despite the fact that one of the girls told me I look like I'm pregnant. Peruvian honesty.

*Today I'm going to Chaclacayo to be Mallco's "godmother" for his kindergarden graduation, i.e. I rented him a little suit for his party. It'll be good to see Tony and the kids again.

.......

So you see there's really been quite a lot going on. I'd give you pictures and all, but the thing is, Peru has stopped being weird for me. (Well, that's definitely an overstatement...) let's just say that I no longer feel like a journalist here. Instead I've become a member of this parish, this choir, this school (although that's a difficult relationship, thank God it's over!!!), this community. So if you don't mind, there may be no more blog posts from here on out. I'm just going to live my life for the next few weeks. I'm planning to travel, so there will be pictures from Puno and Lake Titicaca at some point... really before you know it I'll be home and you can ask me anything you want, and I promise to talk until you stop me. Believe me, I couldn't put it all up here anyway even if I tried.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.