April Update

Greetings! My last entry came as we were preparing to celebrate Holy Week, so there is much to catch you up on – beginning with the Way of the Cross in the streets and the visit to Peru of my brother and sister. Returning to Chimbote after the visit to Cuzco, I´ve been involved in our JUMIFRA Mothers´ Day Celebration, the beginning of the 2009 Confirmation program, the first steps in an exciting youth center project, the formation of a new parish acting group, a new cycle of parish English classes, and the standard choir and personal music rehearsals – even warmer showers in the house with the coming of a bit cooler climate (finally). So, here goes an attempt at a concise summary (some new photos are posted a the link at right)…

HOLY WEEK
The central event of Holy Week for me was rehearsal for and the acting out– on Good Friday – of the Way of the Cross in the streets of the neighborhoods around the parish. I was chosen to play, somewhat by default due to lack of others willing to take the role. Despite initial fears that I wouldn´t have the power of voice necessary for the role, the procession – punctuated by short, acted scenes at each ¨station´ -- was a success even given a couple last minute no-shows. My friend Roger served as the main soldier, duly castigating and pushing me around, red water-based paint smeared around my face and over the white tunic I was given. I drug the cross behind me until Simon of Cyrene gave me a hand, and I remember vividly lying flat on the dirt street after one of my falls – youth actors and the general public gathered around in the growing dark – listening to Brother Tino give a short reflection. One arm of my newly-built cross busted as it fell to the pavement at the station where I was stripped of my outer garment, and the soldiers switched my cross for one of those of the two thieves, rapidly tying the other one together. I was a bit scared at the precariousness of being on the cross, picturing going over face first – but the soldiers and other actors successfully kept my cross, wedged into a hole in the ground, from tipping over. The point of view – looking over the assembled crowd in the dark, the disdain of the priests, Mary and John at the foot of the cross crying – all part of a very unique and moving experience that I was honored to have. Had to keep from smiling (I was dead, after all) on the 10-block trip back to the church after being taken down from the cross – friends from JUMIFRA carried me, wrapped in a sheet, on their shoulders, complaining about how heavy I was and even tugging a couple times at my chest hairs to see if I would respond. Will definitely remember the whole experience next Good Friday.






SCHMIDTS IN PERU
While I was being whipped and crucified, my brother Ryan – and his wife Michelle – and my sister Suzanne with her boyfriend Cory were arriving in Lima. The next evening, Holy Saturday, I was very excited to meet them at the bus terminal, where we had a short scare when Suzanne couldn´t find the luggage claim tags. We packed in a great amount of visiting and activity during their four-day stay in Chimbote, as I wanted to help them experience some of the sites, sounds, tastes, and friends that are a part of my Chimbote life. Our time together here included: Easter egg dyeing with friends (a foreign curiously-viewed custom here), a Sunday morning walk to the waterfront and shopping/tour of the chaotic Progreso Market, preparing and sharing Easter lunch here at the house with the Incarnate Word Sisters (they loved the Easter egg hunt, a first for the Peruvian sisters), Easter night mass (I sang with the choir, complete with drumset and electric guitars for the occasion), music and song with friends on the patio after Mass, a climb up the nearby Cerro de la Paz with Courtney and my girlfriend Susan (since January) for a great view of the city and the bay, squeezing seven people in a small taxi, eating hot soup and sweating profusely, a fun en-of-term potluck with our English class, a morning walk out in the fields where I usually go running, a tour of the sisters´ hospice facility, ceviche (no one got sick, and they actually liked it), shopping and Chinese food downtown with friends, and of course the daily afternoon nap to make up for the early mornings. Suzanne just barely tolerated the various smells (lucky it wasn´t full fishing season), and Cory was a good sport about getting up early and compiled a great collection of mototaxi photos, Ryan received a number of ´Oh, un otro Raymundo!´ greetings, Michelle would hear ´chinita´ in the street, and everyone made good efforts with their Spanish. They did manage to avoid hand-washing their clothes and made limited use of the cold showers .

Following our stay here, we traveled to Lima by bus and then by plane to Cuzco. Though I had been there with my mom and aunt Janie, and with Michi, the year before, we had a few new experiences. First, staying overnight in the Sacred Valley town of Ollaytantambo – a small town with a difficult name, more-impressive-than-Cuzco Inca stonework and a substantial set of ruins which we explored in the early morning before the tour buses arrived. From Ollantaytambo, we traveled to Pisac, where we navigated negotiations in the large tourist market and make the substantial climb to the hilltop Pisac ruins on a beautiful Sunday morning, getting the lungs accustomed to the altitude for our four-day Inca Trail trek a couple of days later. As before, the walk through the misty Andes on actual Inca paving, great food and beautiful campsites, all topped by arriving at Machu Picchu on the final morning made for a beautiful shared memory. Our area tour was capped by a visit to Chilean missionary friends Claudia and Teresa in Combapata, a very non-tourist mountain small town two hours south of Cuzco complete both tranquility and the hard reality of life for its inhabitants. Unique memories include high-pitched bus singers in Quechua, a nauseating ride for Michelle on the local bus returning from Combapata, some cool folks from our Inca Trail group, climbing Wayna Picchu with Cory and a couple other guys in just 32 minutes, popcorn at campsite happy hour, hit-and-miss hot showers in our hostal, and tasty vegetarian restaurant in Cuzco as a nice change from the ubiquitous French fries and rice. We spent the final evening navigating Miraflores and downtown Lima, completing a decent introduction to the wide variety of geography, cultures, and demographics that make up today´s Peru (and contribute to a general lack of national unity/identity). I was sad to see everyone fly away, but knowing that I will myself be home in a few months made the parting easier. I am grateful that my family, whom I love, were able to taste a bit of my life experience here.