Saturday, February 21, 2009

My concert

December started out with my concert in the school. I haven't really talked enough about this concert, not even to myself, I think because it happened in the middle of a lot of other things (I don't remember what now.)

It really was kind of amazing. Fourth and fifth grade choir, high school pastoral group, two high school girls who did several duets, and a group of girls who approached me about three weeks before to ask for a "singing class" after school. I said, only if you sing in my concert. This last group were very clearly novice singers, but luckily their songs were short. ;)

I arranged the date and time with Gaby and made flyers for the kids to color and give out to their family and friends. It was Friday December 5th, 5:30 pm, so that the parents could come but it wouldn't be too dark for everyone walking home afterward. The kids would have permission to get out of class a little early. The teachers and classmates, however, weren't going to be able to go, because class ended at 5:40... but I wanted them to be able to see what the singers had been doing all year, the result of all this yanking them out of class by their hair against the teachers' passive-aggressive resistance! So with Iris's encouragement I voiced this to Gaby, and voila, she sent out a memo saying that 4th and 5th grade would get out early that day at 5. I was stunned at how easy it was. It was like I was a sheepdog who'd been running back and forth barking at every individual sheep in the flock to try to get them in line, and they just kept wandering wherever they wanted to... and then in the blink of an eye the farmer comes driving up and claps his hands, and they all went running into the corral without so much as looking at me. ...Kind of like that.

Anyway the high schoolers helped me set up the chapel and decorate it with balloons and streamers, and a few parents came, and I was there with my guitar and Adrian filmed the whole thing (hopefully I'll get the finished, converted DVD the next time somebody travels between here and there.) The little kids sang first, then the newbie girls, then the big kids, then Jessica and Viviana. Each song was announced by a singer. I don't have pictures of the actual event but here are some of the participants:Christine and Jessica (Jessica did the duets with Viviana at the end)

Fourth and fifth grade. After I gave out the flyers, one of the girls came up to me very concerned to report that the tiny kid in the orange in the front row had been selling them in the market as tickets to the concert--at ten cents each! Peruvian resourcefulness! The next round of flyers I made had "FREE concert" written very clearly on them.

There was also a high schooler backing me up with another guitar and playing the cajon, a wooden box you sit on and play like a drum. We all ended together with the song "Danza Mi Pais"--an upbeat saya about how Peru dances through its good times and bad times with faith and hope. Everybody was clapping and moving.

The kids had never really done anything like this at the school... maybe for some of them it was their first performance of anything ever! They were really excited and the parents enjoyed it too. At the end Gaby made a little speech thanking me on behalf of the school for my two years of service, and the teachers gave me a gift--an alpaca vest, beautiful and expensive and like four sizes too big and a weird goldish color. But it was a really nice thought! (Since I knew I wouldn't wear it, I gave it to Luis to give to his mom.)

The hardest part of the experience for me was learning the humility to present something I didn't consider "good" musically. Seriously--the group of newbies was just painful at times, and the fifth graders had no concentration because they'd never been forced to be in two rehearsals in a row during the whole year, so they went out of tune with the fourth graders, and messed up their round, and... things happened that did not have to happen! It's no mystery--with consistent practice, they would have done amazing things. As it was, it was exactly what you'd expect out of a bunch of elementary schoolers. Pshaw. They're more talented than that. All I wanted was the opportunity to do something well! But that was not to be. For the kids and the parents (and I think for the school too,) it was a great experience. For me, it was... a bit of recognition after all my work, which felt like too little too late; the slightly harrowing experience of improvising the logistical details; and in the middle of all that, yes, the satisfaction of presenting what we'd worked so hard on. The music was fun and everybody liked it. So... Yay! ... I did it!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Other pictures from November


THANKSGIVING!
Caty came back to see us and we got everybody together just like last year. We even cooked the same food.

It was a little weird because I felt like I'd seen so little of these people all the rest of the year, and now here they were at Thanksgiving... kind of like, ok, we can do this once a year, but that doesn't fool me into thinking I won't be alone a lot in this Peruvian life.

BUT... it was a great party.


everyone walks down from Delicias together...























Celina and Magdalena...


















Mary, Celina, and Ever



















And this is NOT Thanksgiving... it's me getting ready for the fancy-dress wedding I went to. Celina was my manicurist and Mary was my hairstylist. To my list of accomplishments in Peru, we add: turning a convent living room into a beauty parlor. :) (Sorry that due to technical difficulties I will not be posting pictures of the actual wedding.)

November part II: the Cardinal's visit

So, close your eyes and let's travel back in time to Lima in late November. The day Katie and I got back from our retreat, Monsegñor Juan Luis Cipriani, Cardinal of Lima, came to celebrate Mass at our church in Tupac!
The Cardinal is the head of the Catholic church in at least Lima, if not the whole country. I'd never seen a Cardinal before. I learned that he travels with a whole possey of seminarians, carries a big shepherd's crook to symbolize his role as pastor of the people, and wears two hats--the big fancy one that you see above, and underneath, a small red one that looks like the type some Jewish men wear. He takes the big one off during most of the Mass. During the Eucharistic prayers, he takes off the little one too--and one of the seminarians has a little silver plate to hold the hat on until it's time to put it on again. Clearly the visit of this dignitary is a very special event.

The week prior to the visit, the Vicar of Lima came to prepare us for it. As far as I can tell, the Vicar is the Cardinal's "mini-me." He goes wherever the Cardinal is planning to come and tries to eliminate all local flavor as well as feminine influence from the celebration of the Mass. No female altar servers were to be allowed when the Cardinal came, and none of this getting up during the kiss of Peace to greet people across the aisle or across the church--complete chaos! Just a little handshake to the right and left is quite sufficient! The Vicar's homily was about how we don't want to go to hell and therefore have to resist our temptations to dirty sinful things. The undertone of repressed desperation in his voice turned his passionate energy into something a little weird and scary. (at least to me.)

So I was all ready for the Cardinal to be even MORE so-ridiculous-it'd-be-funny-if-it-wasn't-scary, especially since I've heard that the Cardinal is very conservative and has censored or opposed Gustavo Gutierrez's liberation theology here in Lima in various ways. But like so many other times in this country, reality turned out different than I expected. Cardinal Cipriani's public speaking style is the opposite of his Vicar's. He has a soft voice and a soft manner, and he spoke very encouragingly about all the beautiful things our Church has to offer by way of the sacraments. I don't remember now what exactly he said, but he struck me as a very intelligent, spiritually balanced, peaceful man. When the Vicar talked about where this chair has to go and why that song can't be played and how there will only be male altar servers, I found myself angrily demanding of him in my head--What words of life do you have for me, Vicar? What WORDS OF LIFE are you brining to us here in our church?? Words of Life were what attracted people to Jesus, after all. Jesus IS the Word of God who comes so that we might have life in abundance. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my pre-judgement of the Cardinal was quite the opposite of the truth of the man: conservative or no, his words were gentle, insightful, welcoming and inclusive... decidedly "of life."

The people were funny, they were totally star-struck by the Cardinal, kind of like a crowd of celebrity fans in Hollywood. His Eminence took it all in stride and was very humble and personable in his interactions with us. After the Mass he came (with all his seminarians!) for some light refreshments in the sisters' house, where supposedly only religious brothers and sisters were supposed to be, but Katie and I were allowed to stay seeing as it was our house too. And the Cardinal talked with everyone in Spanish or English as necessary, including a great conversation with me and Sister BJ about American college basketball! (he's traveled all over the US.) As he was leaving, the choir and the lectors, who had hung around outside waiting, got to take their picture with His Eminence. All in all it was a great night.

Monday, February 16, 2009

one month back

Ok, so my life is very different at the moment from what it's been the past 2 years.
For one thing, it's cold (in case I didn't mention that before). For another, it's sunny and the sky and the trees are beautiful, and there is a washing machine (yippee!!).
And possibly happiest of all, I can do things here like make appointments and schedules and write them in my planner and then go to them at the appointed time and THEY ACTUALLY HAPPEN at that time and that place AS PLANNED! Hahaha! SO BEAUTIFUL! Aaaaahhhh scheduling!
And of course I'm home and enjoying living with my family. :)

But weather and schedules and family aside, I won't lie to you, my faithful readers: it's rough being back. I'm in a full-blown "transition" phase, i.e. living in my parents' house, job-hunting, and all the while trying to figure out what just happened to me over the past two years, so that from there I can figure out what kind of job and life I REALLY want to have in the future. It's very complicated. There's culture shock, brought on by everything from eating cereal out of boxes to throwing toilet paper in the toilet; the isolation of living in a suburb; the lack of a faith community to feel connected to; plain homesickness for Peru and my friends there; and most anxiety-inducing of all, the lack of a clear direction in my life and work. Just to give you a sense of what this is like, imagine your career ideas consisting almost entirely of concepts like "theology," "teaching," "writing," "ministry," and "bartending" (no serioulsy. I think it kind of balances and complements the rest).

Today I gave a presentation on blogging and journaling to NDMVs serving in the United States, and I felt like a poor role model for blogging so little about the end of last year. So, for your delight and entertainment, and in order to shamelessly lose myself in remembering some of my happiest moments in the country I am now missing TERRIBLY--here come some glimpses of late December and January.