It´s still hot here, but summer has officially ended for students in primary and secondary schools, who went back to school this past Monday or will do so today, March 9. Apart from uniformed kids walking (or getting walked by their parents) to classes in the mornings as I go running or make the daily trip down the block to buy bread, other signs of the yearly ritual include busy tellers at most librerías (book stores) and workers giving a yearly coat of paint to the outer concrete walls of educational institutions. Students here are given a list of supplies that they need for the school year, as the schools themselves provide few resources – at some schools, at least, teachers even charge students for photocopies. Purchasing supplies such as notebooks, etc, follows the pattern of most stores here: the US norm of browsing through aisles to fill a cart or handbasket is rare except in a few supermarkets. Instead, one gives a list – written or oral – to a clerk or attendant (for larger stores downtown) or to the owner at smaller neighborhood shops, after which they look for and pull out items one by one. On the subject of schools, I hear from multiple sources that in Peru there exists a surplus of teachers and it is very difficult for a university graduate to find a job, especially on the coast. Apparently in the more remote Sierra, or mountainous region, teachers are still sought out, but such posts are not desireable for many due to the lack of services, infrastructure, and distance from family. Other oft-mentioned concerns over public education concern the quality of instruction methods (a lot of dictation, memorization) and systematic corruption and misuse of resources. A large number of private schools, both large and small, religious and not, also exist here and reputedly offer a higher level of education – at a price, of course. Monthly tuition at the small school down the street runs 70 soles ($20) per month, and other larger private schools, such as the Christian Brothers´ Mundo Mejor (Better World) must cost significantly more. It seems that the majority of primary school students attend school in the morning shift, 7:30-12:30, with high school students alternately drawing the morning (7:30-1:00) or afternoon (12:00 – 6:30). For this reason, all of our youth meetings at the parish begin at 7:00 or later to allow time for the afternoon students to arrive.
In other news…
At the house, Courtney´s sister Allison visited last week – they spent the first few days seeing Cuzco and Machu Picchu and then a couple nights here in Chimbote, where she met a ton of people in a short time, saw Courtney´s work sites (Hospice and two medical clinics), went to the beach, joined in on English conversation night, and of course tried ceviche. We four IWM´s met with Sr. Juanita on Saturday for a long overdue check-in on ministry, etc, and cleared up some miscommunciatons concerning our house budget – the way appears clear now for us to receive the money to buy a fridge soon. Another current project is the compilation of a two-CD mix of selected favorite songs, each one of us contributing nine songs that we have on CD here. Together with a booklet of the lyrics that I am putting together, I hope it will be a fun way for them to learn new vocabulary and practice their listening. In addition, it´s a fun way for us to share a little bit of our musical culture in a culture that is itself enamored of music. JUMIFRA commissions have started working on preparations for our Way of the Cross in the streets that will take place Good Friday – costumes, the crosses, fine-tuning the script, inviting parish youth, etc. I also met with a subcommittee on Sunday to develop a draft of statutes for the group – structure and expectations that we hope will help JUMIFRA be a successful, functioning group of youth and young adult leaders in the parish into the future. Articles treat areas such as the group mission, how new members join, member rights and responsibilities, roles of officers, etc. I think it is a positive step. Well, I´ll sign off for now – have a great couple weeks! Look for another entry after we return from our annual IWM retreat, this year five days in Tortugas, on the coast about 45 minutes south of Chimbote. God bless.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Enero/Febrero Update
In an attempt to bring this blog up to date so that I am not always writing about what happened a few weeks ago, I offer some notes on the last couple months here in Chimbote…
AT HOME
For the first two weeks of January, our house community dropped by half as Jane and Julie traveled to southern Peru – Cuzco, Puno, Machu Picchu – with friends and sister, respectively. January marks the start of the rainy season in the Andes, but the girls dodged most of it and had great trips. While they were gone, Courtney and I had an eventful time. First, we hosted a husband and wife from Israel, traveling cyclists who made a three-night stopover here after nearly a year after starting from the southwestern US and making their way through Central America. Gael and Raki were busy getting their bikes fixed, updating their blog, (http://ourbicycletrip.blogspot.com/)
, and washing clothes, tents, etc. Though busy ourselves at the time, we had some interesting conversations about their trip, Peru, etc. Their impressions of Peru had been relatively unfavorable as a whole, and they apologized later for doing some venting upon their arrival. While they were here, we experienced several days in a row with at least some rain – on night in particular we were dumped on more severely than any other time during our stay. The results in a town that in no way expects rain were predictable: flooded, muddy streets and lots of water in houses. Many people here have bamboo sheet/tarp roofs, which do little to hold out moisture. Our laminate roofing did better, but the dining room in particular experienced several leaks and water just came in through the walls in general. Folks here were excited/scared by the novelty of the storm, alternately playing in the downpour or hunkering down at home – mostly the latter. While Jane and Julie were away Courtney and I, both wanting to work harder on our Spanish, made the decision to speak only Spanish in the house – I really liked it. It helped me to think more in Spanish and pushed me to seek and learn a lot of new vocabulary. Jane and Julie weren´t as excited about the idea, and as a whole we have unfortunately gradually let the habit die.
Our home continues to serve well as a gathering place for friends and the occasional youth ministry event. Most recently we hosted friends from the parish for Valentine´s Day. The youth council, JUMIFRA (Franciscan Missionary Youth), held a party/meeting at the parish until 10:30 with games, songs, food, and reflection/sharing that actually went pretty well – and an hour when our high school aged youth could attend. After, some of the group came over to continue the party. Unfortunately, we hadn´t coordinated well the music situation and were without a stereo that played CD´s – but ours still has functioning radio, so we made due. We saw the return of running water inside the house in late December (our pump´s wiring had fried and the whole thing had to be replaced), but mid December also witnessed the demise of our recalcitrant refrigerator. We expect to receive money to buy a new one by the end of this month, but we have adapted to life without refrigeration – only buying meat/fish and vegetables on the morning it is to be cooked, keeping leftovers from the noon meal just into the evening, switching to powdered milk, going to the market every couple days to buy vegetables, etc. Maybe the hardest part is not having anything cold to eat or drink in the house during these hot summer months. One thing for sure – when we are served a cold beverage (sometimes in restaurants or homes people give in to the heat and risk the sickness-inducing cold drinks) we definitely appreciate it. It may or may not be a coincidence that in this new year the girls have suffered stomach discomfort/malfunctioning more often than before – maybe I have been here long enough develop resistant to some of the food-borne ailments.
Since my schedule this new year has become busier, I have cut back to just a couple times a week on sweeping, picking up trash, and watering the dust in front of the house – the neighbors haven´t complained yet, but I sometimes wonder if they mutter under their breath (helps, maybe, that our immediate neighbor family has never kept that neat of a front sidewalk). Summer is harvest time, and our back yard is yielding its share – tomatoes (amazingly sprouted from compost trash, we assume), guanábanas (white, slimy, sweet fruit that hangs high and is hard to pick before it ripens, falling with a splat to the pavement), and figs (the neighbor boys do a good job of harvesting the high-up figs from the top of the wall in between our houses). I´ll wrap up the house news on a negative note – I again had articles of clothing stolen from my room during the night while I was sleeping. We have had bars installed, so the thieves were not able to enter – but satisfied themselves with pulling a few nearby items to window (open due the above mentioned heat) with a stick, it guess. I was frustrated to have gotten lax enough to leave the window open and have things close to the window after being careful for so long.
¡QUE CALOR!
Did I mention that it is hot here? Not sure of the temperature, as no one has thermometers up and I have seen a weather program since being here (if they if fact exist), but some days the sun in the street 12-5 pm beats down mercilessly. I have become accustomed more or less to usually being hot and sweaty – I seek the shady side of the street when possible and just sweat if out when I´m indoors. Inside temperatures in the evenings (for example in the rooms were we hold English classes) usually stay higher than those outside, where generally a relatively cooler breeze of some form offers relief. As a household, we have adopted the Peruvian practice of trying to cook the food a little ahead of time in order to let it cool down before we eat. I never realized before that eating hot food on a hot day – lacking everywhere the luxury of air conditioning – produces quite a bit of perspiration. One positive aspect: the cold showers are now quite refreshing, leading me often to shower twice daily. Other ways to deal with the heat include going to the beach – once more, with JUMIFRA, since the new years trip – or to a local swimming pool. In early February I made my inaugural visit to the pool at the Vivero Forestal (local public park) with a group of the recently-confirmed youth from the parish. The pool is actually quite big – Olympic sized – but the vast crowd of people that shows up to seek relief from the heat has to squeeze into roped-off sections at either end, about 30% maybe the pool´s area. The middle section, as it were, is deep – about three meters – and since most people here have never learned to swim, this section is closed to all but a privileged few who pass some sort of swimming test (or, as for Julie, who is a swim team and water polo veteran, just be a gringa and ask the group of guy lifeguards who were more than happy to let her swim anywhere she wanted – and even invited her back after hours to teach them how to play water polo).
One coping mechanism that children and youth employ to beat the heat is called carnivales – related to the festive celebrations leading up to Ash Wednesday and Lent. Somehow, carnivales here has evolved into primarily a tradition of having water fights in the street with buckets, water balloons, squirt guns, whatever. And sometimes it’s a very one-sided fight, one participation not knowing at all that they were even playing – for example, the bucket of cold water dumped on my head from a rooftop by a couple kids as I walked down the street one hot late-afternoon. I was surprised, but actually didn´t mind the refreshing dousing. Supposedly the game is on only on Sundays, when even public transit vehicles such as the minivan-like combis and taxis are fair game – but often hot and over-zealous kids on summer vacation conveniently forget this limiting convention.
CURSO DE INGLÉS
After a three-week break we began a new three-month cycle of English classes in the parish on January 13 – increasing by one the number of groups to four: Beginner, Basic 1 & 2, and Intermediate. The three higher groups are continuing on from where we left off in December, and the new group is starting from scratch. Because of increased word of mouth and it being summer vacation here, we had a large group of students enroll this term – the highest yet at over 50 registrations. A significant number of people start the course and later find it too much time to continue, but we still have over 30 attending on a regular basis. Two groups meet each night Monday-Thursday, with all invited to a conversation practice at our house on Friday evenings. Jane, Julie and Courtney all have one designated group/night that they help out with classes during the week, and they rotate on the fourth night every three weeks. In addition, they also all make an effort to be there for the conversation time, which helps a lot because with the higher turnout we are dividing the group into two parts so that each person has more chance to talk. Below is a photo of the group that came to our house one Friday evening, 7-9 pm.
I am excited by the growth of the program and that we are able to help with this need that people feel, but I have felt the impact of the increased time commitment. Every night I plan and prepare for two classes, many nights needing to make a copy run as well. Combined with choir rehearsal on Friday and Saturday nights and mass/choir/JUMIFRA meetings on Sunday evenings, I effectively have obligations every evening. I have recently felt the fact that the English class commitment diminishes my flexibility in coordinating other parish youth activities with JUMIFRA, a truth I will have to reflect on how best to handle as I look to plans for our next (and my last) English-class cycle of May-August. For one, the Confirmation program starts up again in April, and I want to be a part of that group. I will somehow need to combined English groups and /or lessen the offerings, I believe. Also looking ahead to my departure, I have requested that our IWM directors seek new volunteers to continue on the work with both the English students and parish youth. They are taking the wise, I believe, approach of looking for separate people to coordinate the two aspects of my ministry that are each growing in scale and potential.
JUMIFRA (Juventud Misionera Frannciscana – Franciscan Missionary Youth)
I have already mentioned JUMIFRA (which celebrated its one-year anniversary in mid-February) a few times, but here I give a brief summary of our projects that we have undertaken during January and February. These months are summer vacation for students – primary and high school return to class on March 2 and most university students have freedom until early April. We first offered a four-week summer program for grade school children, three mornings a week with a mix of courses, each taught by a different professor – some from our own group members a few invitees: theater, modern dance, folkloric dance, English (I and two intermediate students taught), math, and chess. We hit a few small snags and could use a bit more organization, but still the results were positive for the 35 students ages 4-14 that participated.
Second, we just finished a week-long offering of ministry-training workshops for teenage youth (we invited several of the surrounding parishes as well as our own youth) to the 3:00-7:00 pm Monday to Friday courses, February 23-27. The project of organizing and offering youth workshops arose out of our trip with 14 youth/young adults (many of whom are now in JUMIFRA) to Lima for two weeks of youth ministry training. For various reasons, including my own decreased flexibility to miss English classes, we decided to try to share what we had learned last year in Lima right here in Chimbote – inter-parish cooperation and relationship building a definitely part of the objectives as well. Although turnout was less than we originally anticipated and we ended up keeping the 10 participants together for the week instead of dividing into the five distinct workshops of Youth in Christ, Motivation and Theater, Mission of Youth in Society, Leadership, and Singing to the Lord, those that attended and the JUMIFRA team/presenters took away a very positive experience of fellowship, reflection, learning and fun. The project team from JUMIFRA additionally had a positive experience in planning and orchestrating a large event that reached outside our parish walls – we learned some lessons for next time and, I believe, planted a seed that might grow into a periodic event that helps build leadership capacity in individual parishes and fellowship collaboration on an inter-parish basis. I must say, though, that the schedule of the week exhausted me – with English classes immediately following the workshops each day, I planned classes in the mornings and found zero down time. Still, the testimonies of participants during the closing ritual made the full schedule definitely worth it.
The third major project we chose for the summer – a concerted effort to visit homes of youth to survey and give invitations to parish programs – has not yet gotten off the ground. Though the project commission planned training for parish youth in hopes of gathering a team to go out en masse, the session never drew enough participants. I hope to continue in March a scaled back effort with JUMIFRA members, adding to a couple cycles of previous visits/surveys in February and September of 2008. I just believe that a personal invitation is far and away the most effective way to show that we care about the youth of our community, and after overcoming the initial fear I have had only positive experiences during our visits to youth in their homes to hear their concerns, gather contact information, and seek suggestions of what more we can offer in service of the our young people. As we have now entered the liturgical season of Lent and the start of the school year, the attention of JUMIFRA will turn now to preparing the Stations of the Cross street drama for Holy Week and recruiting/ planning for the start of the Confirmation program in early April.
PERSONAL AND MISCELANEOUS
A few personal notes to close out this long blog entry, after which I hope to most shorter, more frequent updates in order not to let small, day-to-day details fall through the cracks. After 15 years of mostly daily running, I have recently cut back to 4 days a week in response to sore knees. It requires discipline not to run on the off-days, though an hour-long morning walk downtown is a passable substitute. I am very much looking forward to the visit of more family in mid April, over a year since my mom and aunt Janie boarded the northbound plane and 20 months since I have visited in person with my brother Ryan, his wife Michele, and my sister Suzanne. I have not yet met Cory, Suzanne´s boyfriend since last year who is also joining the expedition. The five of us will spend Easter and a few days here in Chimbote before traveling south to visit Cuzco, Machu Picchu the Sacred Valley of the Incas.
I feel like I am gradually making progress in both guitar playing and singing – in the former learning to strum some local rhythms such as Cumbia, Saya and Huayno in edition to increased dexterity in picking. In singing, I definitely sing with more strength than when I began, though still find it much easier to follow another than to hit the right notes all on my own. I did, however, succeed in singing a solo verse during a wedding mass at which our choir was contracted to sing. I recorded several of the songs from that night which I will soon be posting on our music site for a sample of our choir´s sound. We have recently had our several female members take a break from the choir, so we are in a stage of recruiting new members and the group is excited for the new ponchos that we are having made using money from contracts (funeral and wedding masses) from 2008. When they´re done, I´ll post a photo. A second upcoming trip will be our yearly IWM retreat, this year at Tortugas Bay, about 45 minutes south of Chimbote, at a retreat house that the diocese owns. From March 15-20 Julie, Jane, Courtney and I will have time to step back from the busyness of life here to look back, forward, around, and inside – guided by Sister Leonila, a member of the IW sisters Mexican province who arrived just after new years to live and serve in Chimbote. We four are definitely looking forward to the opportunity.
OTHER PROJECT IDEAS
i am considering the feasability of a youth center here in the parish neighborhood as a gathering/educational center for meetings, workshops, skill training, and social gatherings. If anyone has recommendations for grants that I could look into that might fit such a project, or expertise/time to offer in helping to prepare such a grant, please let me know. The idea could be to buy/rent a house or property close to the parish, fix it up, etc. Though I (and Sister Juanita) have had this idea since my first weeks here, I had reservations about separating youth work from identification with the parish community. Recently, though, I have found that the sometimes limited access (hours, keys) to parish facilities, the increased potential for training in a space that we could modify for our purposes, and the simple shortage of rooms on busy nights could make a separate, close-by space a welcome addition. Secondly, something a lot smaller – a stereo. For both parties that JUMIFRA has hosted at our house and youth events at the parish, we have repeatedly scrambled to put together a sound system by borrowing. My idea is to seek donations for a moderate, portable stereo that would be officially property of the IW missionary house but be designated for parish youth events. I have not yet researched exact prices, but I believe that somewhere around $100-$150 would be sufficient. I have lent out my small ´CD-cube´ -- which I use in English classes -- a number of times, but the sound output is significantly lacking for a group or room of any size. Third, our choir has the tentative idea of recording a few songs with my digital recorder in order to put together a small CD that we could sell in order to raise money for new instruments. In the next few months we might have the CD´s available to be purchased for a small donation – just a head´s up.
Thanks for hanging with me through the whole blog (or maybe you skipped to the end). God bless!
AT HOME
For the first two weeks of January, our house community dropped by half as Jane and Julie traveled to southern Peru – Cuzco, Puno, Machu Picchu – with friends and sister, respectively. January marks the start of the rainy season in the Andes, but the girls dodged most of it and had great trips. While they were gone, Courtney and I had an eventful time. First, we hosted a husband and wife from Israel, traveling cyclists who made a three-night stopover here after nearly a year after starting from the southwestern US and making their way through Central America. Gael and Raki were busy getting their bikes fixed, updating their blog, (http://ourbicycletrip.blogspot.com/)
, and washing clothes, tents, etc. Though busy ourselves at the time, we had some interesting conversations about their trip, Peru, etc. Their impressions of Peru had been relatively unfavorable as a whole, and they apologized later for doing some venting upon their arrival. While they were here, we experienced several days in a row with at least some rain – on night in particular we were dumped on more severely than any other time during our stay. The results in a town that in no way expects rain were predictable: flooded, muddy streets and lots of water in houses. Many people here have bamboo sheet/tarp roofs, which do little to hold out moisture. Our laminate roofing did better, but the dining room in particular experienced several leaks and water just came in through the walls in general. Folks here were excited/scared by the novelty of the storm, alternately playing in the downpour or hunkering down at home – mostly the latter. While Jane and Julie were away Courtney and I, both wanting to work harder on our Spanish, made the decision to speak only Spanish in the house – I really liked it. It helped me to think more in Spanish and pushed me to seek and learn a lot of new vocabulary. Jane and Julie weren´t as excited about the idea, and as a whole we have unfortunately gradually let the habit die.
Our home continues to serve well as a gathering place for friends and the occasional youth ministry event. Most recently we hosted friends from the parish for Valentine´s Day. The youth council, JUMIFRA (Franciscan Missionary Youth), held a party/meeting at the parish until 10:30 with games, songs, food, and reflection/sharing that actually went pretty well – and an hour when our high school aged youth could attend. After, some of the group came over to continue the party. Unfortunately, we hadn´t coordinated well the music situation and were without a stereo that played CD´s – but ours still has functioning radio, so we made due. We saw the return of running water inside the house in late December (our pump´s wiring had fried and the whole thing had to be replaced), but mid December also witnessed the demise of our recalcitrant refrigerator. We expect to receive money to buy a new one by the end of this month, but we have adapted to life without refrigeration – only buying meat/fish and vegetables on the morning it is to be cooked, keeping leftovers from the noon meal just into the evening, switching to powdered milk, going to the market every couple days to buy vegetables, etc. Maybe the hardest part is not having anything cold to eat or drink in the house during these hot summer months. One thing for sure – when we are served a cold beverage (sometimes in restaurants or homes people give in to the heat and risk the sickness-inducing cold drinks) we definitely appreciate it. It may or may not be a coincidence that in this new year the girls have suffered stomach discomfort/malfunctioning more often than before – maybe I have been here long enough develop resistant to some of the food-borne ailments.
Since my schedule this new year has become busier, I have cut back to just a couple times a week on sweeping, picking up trash, and watering the dust in front of the house – the neighbors haven´t complained yet, but I sometimes wonder if they mutter under their breath (helps, maybe, that our immediate neighbor family has never kept that neat of a front sidewalk). Summer is harvest time, and our back yard is yielding its share – tomatoes (amazingly sprouted from compost trash, we assume), guanábanas (white, slimy, sweet fruit that hangs high and is hard to pick before it ripens, falling with a splat to the pavement), and figs (the neighbor boys do a good job of harvesting the high-up figs from the top of the wall in between our houses). I´ll wrap up the house news on a negative note – I again had articles of clothing stolen from my room during the night while I was sleeping. We have had bars installed, so the thieves were not able to enter – but satisfied themselves with pulling a few nearby items to window (open due the above mentioned heat) with a stick, it guess. I was frustrated to have gotten lax enough to leave the window open and have things close to the window after being careful for so long.
¡QUE CALOR!
Did I mention that it is hot here? Not sure of the temperature, as no one has thermometers up and I have seen a weather program since being here (if they if fact exist), but some days the sun in the street 12-5 pm beats down mercilessly. I have become accustomed more or less to usually being hot and sweaty – I seek the shady side of the street when possible and just sweat if out when I´m indoors. Inside temperatures in the evenings (for example in the rooms were we hold English classes) usually stay higher than those outside, where generally a relatively cooler breeze of some form offers relief. As a household, we have adopted the Peruvian practice of trying to cook the food a little ahead of time in order to let it cool down before we eat. I never realized before that eating hot food on a hot day – lacking everywhere the luxury of air conditioning – produces quite a bit of perspiration. One positive aspect: the cold showers are now quite refreshing, leading me often to shower twice daily. Other ways to deal with the heat include going to the beach – once more, with JUMIFRA, since the new years trip – or to a local swimming pool. In early February I made my inaugural visit to the pool at the Vivero Forestal (local public park) with a group of the recently-confirmed youth from the parish. The pool is actually quite big – Olympic sized – but the vast crowd of people that shows up to seek relief from the heat has to squeeze into roped-off sections at either end, about 30% maybe the pool´s area. The middle section, as it were, is deep – about three meters – and since most people here have never learned to swim, this section is closed to all but a privileged few who pass some sort of swimming test (or, as for Julie, who is a swim team and water polo veteran, just be a gringa and ask the group of guy lifeguards who were more than happy to let her swim anywhere she wanted – and even invited her back after hours to teach them how to play water polo).
One coping mechanism that children and youth employ to beat the heat is called carnivales – related to the festive celebrations leading up to Ash Wednesday and Lent. Somehow, carnivales here has evolved into primarily a tradition of having water fights in the street with buckets, water balloons, squirt guns, whatever. And sometimes it’s a very one-sided fight, one participation not knowing at all that they were even playing – for example, the bucket of cold water dumped on my head from a rooftop by a couple kids as I walked down the street one hot late-afternoon. I was surprised, but actually didn´t mind the refreshing dousing. Supposedly the game is on only on Sundays, when even public transit vehicles such as the minivan-like combis and taxis are fair game – but often hot and over-zealous kids on summer vacation conveniently forget this limiting convention.
CURSO DE INGLÉS
After a three-week break we began a new three-month cycle of English classes in the parish on January 13 – increasing by one the number of groups to four: Beginner, Basic 1 & 2, and Intermediate. The three higher groups are continuing on from where we left off in December, and the new group is starting from scratch. Because of increased word of mouth and it being summer vacation here, we had a large group of students enroll this term – the highest yet at over 50 registrations. A significant number of people start the course and later find it too much time to continue, but we still have over 30 attending on a regular basis. Two groups meet each night Monday-Thursday, with all invited to a conversation practice at our house on Friday evenings. Jane, Julie and Courtney all have one designated group/night that they help out with classes during the week, and they rotate on the fourth night every three weeks. In addition, they also all make an effort to be there for the conversation time, which helps a lot because with the higher turnout we are dividing the group into two parts so that each person has more chance to talk. Below is a photo of the group that came to our house one Friday evening, 7-9 pm.
I am excited by the growth of the program and that we are able to help with this need that people feel, but I have felt the impact of the increased time commitment. Every night I plan and prepare for two classes, many nights needing to make a copy run as well. Combined with choir rehearsal on Friday and Saturday nights and mass/choir/JUMIFRA meetings on Sunday evenings, I effectively have obligations every evening. I have recently felt the fact that the English class commitment diminishes my flexibility in coordinating other parish youth activities with JUMIFRA, a truth I will have to reflect on how best to handle as I look to plans for our next (and my last) English-class cycle of May-August. For one, the Confirmation program starts up again in April, and I want to be a part of that group. I will somehow need to combined English groups and /or lessen the offerings, I believe. Also looking ahead to my departure, I have requested that our IWM directors seek new volunteers to continue on the work with both the English students and parish youth. They are taking the wise, I believe, approach of looking for separate people to coordinate the two aspects of my ministry that are each growing in scale and potential.
JUMIFRA (Juventud Misionera Frannciscana – Franciscan Missionary Youth)
I have already mentioned JUMIFRA (which celebrated its one-year anniversary in mid-February) a few times, but here I give a brief summary of our projects that we have undertaken during January and February. These months are summer vacation for students – primary and high school return to class on March 2 and most university students have freedom until early April. We first offered a four-week summer program for grade school children, three mornings a week with a mix of courses, each taught by a different professor – some from our own group members a few invitees: theater, modern dance, folkloric dance, English (I and two intermediate students taught), math, and chess. We hit a few small snags and could use a bit more organization, but still the results were positive for the 35 students ages 4-14 that participated.
Second, we just finished a week-long offering of ministry-training workshops for teenage youth (we invited several of the surrounding parishes as well as our own youth) to the 3:00-7:00 pm Monday to Friday courses, February 23-27. The project of organizing and offering youth workshops arose out of our trip with 14 youth/young adults (many of whom are now in JUMIFRA) to Lima for two weeks of youth ministry training. For various reasons, including my own decreased flexibility to miss English classes, we decided to try to share what we had learned last year in Lima right here in Chimbote – inter-parish cooperation and relationship building a definitely part of the objectives as well. Although turnout was less than we originally anticipated and we ended up keeping the 10 participants together for the week instead of dividing into the five distinct workshops of Youth in Christ, Motivation and Theater, Mission of Youth in Society, Leadership, and Singing to the Lord, those that attended and the JUMIFRA team/presenters took away a very positive experience of fellowship, reflection, learning and fun. The project team from JUMIFRA additionally had a positive experience in planning and orchestrating a large event that reached outside our parish walls – we learned some lessons for next time and, I believe, planted a seed that might grow into a periodic event that helps build leadership capacity in individual parishes and fellowship collaboration on an inter-parish basis. I must say, though, that the schedule of the week exhausted me – with English classes immediately following the workshops each day, I planned classes in the mornings and found zero down time. Still, the testimonies of participants during the closing ritual made the full schedule definitely worth it.
The third major project we chose for the summer – a concerted effort to visit homes of youth to survey and give invitations to parish programs – has not yet gotten off the ground. Though the project commission planned training for parish youth in hopes of gathering a team to go out en masse, the session never drew enough participants. I hope to continue in March a scaled back effort with JUMIFRA members, adding to a couple cycles of previous visits/surveys in February and September of 2008. I just believe that a personal invitation is far and away the most effective way to show that we care about the youth of our community, and after overcoming the initial fear I have had only positive experiences during our visits to youth in their homes to hear their concerns, gather contact information, and seek suggestions of what more we can offer in service of the our young people. As we have now entered the liturgical season of Lent and the start of the school year, the attention of JUMIFRA will turn now to preparing the Stations of the Cross street drama for Holy Week and recruiting/ planning for the start of the Confirmation program in early April.
PERSONAL AND MISCELANEOUS
A few personal notes to close out this long blog entry, after which I hope to most shorter, more frequent updates in order not to let small, day-to-day details fall through the cracks. After 15 years of mostly daily running, I have recently cut back to 4 days a week in response to sore knees. It requires discipline not to run on the off-days, though an hour-long morning walk downtown is a passable substitute. I am very much looking forward to the visit of more family in mid April, over a year since my mom and aunt Janie boarded the northbound plane and 20 months since I have visited in person with my brother Ryan, his wife Michele, and my sister Suzanne. I have not yet met Cory, Suzanne´s boyfriend since last year who is also joining the expedition. The five of us will spend Easter and a few days here in Chimbote before traveling south to visit Cuzco, Machu Picchu the Sacred Valley of the Incas.
I feel like I am gradually making progress in both guitar playing and singing – in the former learning to strum some local rhythms such as Cumbia, Saya and Huayno in edition to increased dexterity in picking. In singing, I definitely sing with more strength than when I began, though still find it much easier to follow another than to hit the right notes all on my own. I did, however, succeed in singing a solo verse during a wedding mass at which our choir was contracted to sing. I recorded several of the songs from that night which I will soon be posting on our music site for a sample of our choir´s sound. We have recently had our several female members take a break from the choir, so we are in a stage of recruiting new members and the group is excited for the new ponchos that we are having made using money from contracts (funeral and wedding masses) from 2008. When they´re done, I´ll post a photo. A second upcoming trip will be our yearly IWM retreat, this year at Tortugas Bay, about 45 minutes south of Chimbote, at a retreat house that the diocese owns. From March 15-20 Julie, Jane, Courtney and I will have time to step back from the busyness of life here to look back, forward, around, and inside – guided by Sister Leonila, a member of the IW sisters Mexican province who arrived just after new years to live and serve in Chimbote. We four are definitely looking forward to the opportunity.
OTHER PROJECT IDEAS
i am considering the feasability of a youth center here in the parish neighborhood as a gathering/educational center for meetings, workshops, skill training, and social gatherings. If anyone has recommendations for grants that I could look into that might fit such a project, or expertise/time to offer in helping to prepare such a grant, please let me know. The idea could be to buy/rent a house or property close to the parish, fix it up, etc. Though I (and Sister Juanita) have had this idea since my first weeks here, I had reservations about separating youth work from identification with the parish community. Recently, though, I have found that the sometimes limited access (hours, keys) to parish facilities, the increased potential for training in a space that we could modify for our purposes, and the simple shortage of rooms on busy nights could make a separate, close-by space a welcome addition. Secondly, something a lot smaller – a stereo. For both parties that JUMIFRA has hosted at our house and youth events at the parish, we have repeatedly scrambled to put together a sound system by borrowing. My idea is to seek donations for a moderate, portable stereo that would be officially property of the IW missionary house but be designated for parish youth events. I have not yet researched exact prices, but I believe that somewhere around $100-$150 would be sufficient. I have lent out my small ´CD-cube´ -- which I use in English classes -- a number of times, but the sound output is significantly lacking for a group or room of any size. Third, our choir has the tentative idea of recording a few songs with my digital recorder in order to put together a small CD that we could sell in order to raise money for new instruments. In the next few months we might have the CD´s available to be purchased for a small donation – just a head´s up.
Thanks for hanging with me through the whole blog (or maybe you skipped to the end). God bless!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Año Nuevo 2009
On Christmas and in the days following, I enjoyed a little rest and a few phone conversations with my family, all gathered together at my folks´ place in Redding, CA. Other activities in for the final days of December included finalizing and posting the music that I mentioned in my last entry (see also music link at right), a year end get-together and evaluation with JUMIFRA (Franciscan Missionary Youth, our parish youth council), a soccer game at the local stadium, preliminary planning for summer youth activities and our next cycle of English classes, a lot of singing with the choir, and preparations for the arrival of houseguests (Julie´s sister Clare and Jane´s friends Jenn and Robert). Just before New Years the girls traveled to Lima to do immigration paperwork and meet their visitors, returning on the 30th in time to prepare for a New Years Eve party that JUMIFRA had asked to hold in our back patio.
Our celebration of the New Year 2009 was unique and memorable – something I know I´ll remember fondly wherever I happen to be welcoming 2010. On the 31st, a team of friends and youth council members came by in the morning to begin cleaning and decorating for the evening – sweeping, washing, blowing up and hanging balloons and ´crepe paper´ (TP), making a sign, etc (parties aren´t as hard when others help you clean the house ). Due to heat and the need to buy a few more supplies, we agreed to gather again at 5:00 pm to finish the job. In the early afternoon after my mostly unsuccessful attempt build up strength by taking a nap, our friend Alex showed up with a load of food, which Julie and he had bought earlier at the market, in order to cook a fancy dinner for us that we would share later – he and his family run a small restaurant out of their home. [The New Years celebration here takes a distinct from that in the US, where parties begin at 8:00 or so and the climax is more or less at 12:00 midnight. In Peru, families eat wait until near midnight to hold their dinner – at the strike of twelve, people flow into the street to burn life size dolls, set off firecrackers and give new years´ hugs. Only after this, at 1:00 am or so, do people head out to the jam-packed (so I hear) discotecas or other parties, staying out until daylight oftentimes]. So Juan, Lenin and I took charge of hanging the rest of the balloons and spraying down the patio, while Alex and the girls worked away in the kitchen, breaking only temporarily to buy a replacement gas canister from our friend and English student Anthony, who runs a small store from his house down the street.
I left the preparations part way through, a busy night of singing ahead of me. First, our choir had a contract to sing at a 7:00 pm wedding (two parties with one expense). Next, I joined members of the three parish choirs to rehearse for the 9:00 pm New Years´ Mass. The fact that the church would be nearly full on New Years´ Eve at 9:00 pm still surprises me, but I guess if your night will last until sunrise the next day then 9:00 pm is like the morning . At any rate, I really enjoyed singing in the new year in such a fashion, returning quickly after Mass to help at home. Alex, Yuri, Juan Carlos, Lenin and Nelly joined us four and our three guests for the New Years´ dinner – they gave up spending the moment with their families to help us have a festive holiday away from home (and to have a great meal). Though very hungry, we held off on the food until midnight, at which time we went out into the street, gave the new years´ abrazo all round, and were one by one doused with sticky glitter by Lenin and Nelly – we all shone the rest of the night. Up and down our street, Avenida Perú, life-sized dolls made of old clothes and sawdust – and doused with kerosene – burned brightly, giving a strange TV-news war-zone shot feel to the whole thing. The hiss and bang of fireworks provided background for numerous photos and a genuinely beautiful, heartening, (though slightly bizarre) moment of friendship and joy. Soon enough, hunger drew us inside to the waiting dinner of roast stuffed chicken, mashed potatoes, Russian (potato-beet) salad, champaigne, and (of course) panetón.
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The arrival of the finishing touches to the sound system for the night (speakers from Yuri, CD player from Ginno, amplifier borrowed for the occasion by Anthony) and the first guests at 1:00-1:30 left us no time for doing dishes (a mess the next day). After some early-arrivers helped us out by going home to bring back music CDs, the party was off and running – or dancing, I should say. By 2:30 most guests had arrived, I estimate 60-70 or so in all, youth from various groups within the parish – and they all stayed until at least 5:00, dancing most of the time (with the exception of everyone going out into the street to watch a short fire-breathing/spinning exhibition by a friend of Courtney and Julie). With the help of some extra caffeine I made it until 6:00 am, when it was already starting to get light, and the last stragglers didn´t say good-bye until 7:30. A photo as folks just started to arrive:
Though a recuperating sleep would have been nice, instead a band of us shook off the fatigue and headed to the beach (another common New Years custom) at about 9:30 am, alternatingly swimming at taking short naps on the sand. Arriving back at the house at 5:00 pm, I had just one more commitment – singing at the New Years Day 7:00 pm mass with a combined choir before coming home and falling into profound sleep. Happy New Year everyone!
Our celebration of the New Year 2009 was unique and memorable – something I know I´ll remember fondly wherever I happen to be welcoming 2010. On the 31st, a team of friends and youth council members came by in the morning to begin cleaning and decorating for the evening – sweeping, washing, blowing up and hanging balloons and ´crepe paper´ (TP), making a sign, etc (parties aren´t as hard when others help you clean the house ). Due to heat and the need to buy a few more supplies, we agreed to gather again at 5:00 pm to finish the job. In the early afternoon after my mostly unsuccessful attempt build up strength by taking a nap, our friend Alex showed up with a load of food, which Julie and he had bought earlier at the market, in order to cook a fancy dinner for us that we would share later – he and his family run a small restaurant out of their home. [The New Years celebration here takes a distinct from that in the US, where parties begin at 8:00 or so and the climax is more or less at 12:00 midnight. In Peru, families eat wait until near midnight to hold their dinner – at the strike of twelve, people flow into the street to burn life size dolls, set off firecrackers and give new years´ hugs. Only after this, at 1:00 am or so, do people head out to the jam-packed (so I hear) discotecas or other parties, staying out until daylight oftentimes]. So Juan, Lenin and I took charge of hanging the rest of the balloons and spraying down the patio, while Alex and the girls worked away in the kitchen, breaking only temporarily to buy a replacement gas canister from our friend and English student Anthony, who runs a small store from his house down the street.
I left the preparations part way through, a busy night of singing ahead of me. First, our choir had a contract to sing at a 7:00 pm wedding (two parties with one expense). Next, I joined members of the three parish choirs to rehearse for the 9:00 pm New Years´ Mass. The fact that the church would be nearly full on New Years´ Eve at 9:00 pm still surprises me, but I guess if your night will last until sunrise the next day then 9:00 pm is like the morning . At any rate, I really enjoyed singing in the new year in such a fashion, returning quickly after Mass to help at home. Alex, Yuri, Juan Carlos, Lenin and Nelly joined us four and our three guests for the New Years´ dinner – they gave up spending the moment with their families to help us have a festive holiday away from home (and to have a great meal). Though very hungry, we held off on the food until midnight, at which time we went out into the street, gave the new years´ abrazo all round, and were one by one doused with sticky glitter by Lenin and Nelly – we all shone the rest of the night. Up and down our street, Avenida Perú, life-sized dolls made of old clothes and sawdust – and doused with kerosene – burned brightly, giving a strange TV-news war-zone shot feel to the whole thing. The hiss and bang of fireworks provided background for numerous photos and a genuinely beautiful, heartening, (though slightly bizarre) moment of friendship and joy. Soon enough, hunger drew us inside to the waiting dinner of roast stuffed chicken, mashed potatoes, Russian (potato-beet) salad, champaigne, and (of course) panetón.
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The arrival of the finishing touches to the sound system for the night (speakers from Yuri, CD player from Ginno, amplifier borrowed for the occasion by Anthony) and the first guests at 1:00-1:30 left us no time for doing dishes (a mess the next day). After some early-arrivers helped us out by going home to bring back music CDs, the party was off and running – or dancing, I should say. By 2:30 most guests had arrived, I estimate 60-70 or so in all, youth from various groups within the parish – and they all stayed until at least 5:00, dancing most of the time (with the exception of everyone going out into the street to watch a short fire-breathing/spinning exhibition by a friend of Courtney and Julie). With the help of some extra caffeine I made it until 6:00 am, when it was already starting to get light, and the last stragglers didn´t say good-bye until 7:30. A photo as folks just started to arrive:
Though a recuperating sleep would have been nice, instead a band of us shook off the fatigue and headed to the beach (another common New Years custom) at about 9:30 am, alternatingly swimming at taking short naps on the sand. Arriving back at the house at 5:00 pm, I had just one more commitment – singing at the New Years Day 7:00 pm mass with a combined choir before coming home and falling into profound sleep. Happy New Year everyone!
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Navidad Chimbotana...la segunda
I´m back – the IW sisters have recently handed down to us an older computer of theirs that serves well in our house for writing blogs, etc, that can be saved and transferred later to my blog. So, I write these next blog entries from the relative comfort of our own house, where we do our best in the afternoon to lay low and stay inside, away from the strong afternoon heat of full summer.
My celebration of Christmas this year was very distinct from that of 2007, in many ways I was able to enter more fully, I felt, into the rites, festivities, and traditions. In general, I have noticed a big change in my perspective as I experience life here the second time around – for example this January I noticed clearly that the funk of homesickness and feeling out of place that I struggled with last year was not to be found. Below, you will see that even with all the new traditions we encounter, we still found time to bake and decorate Christmas cookies.
At Christmas, instead of just surviving, I participated much more – as an example, I learned a number of Peruvian Christmas carols, both through my singing in the choir and on the guitar from friends Roger and others. I took part, through our much-more-involved youth council, in the actual planning and orchestration of events – a children´s Christmas party, first-ever Christmas Carol festival in the parish, and a Christmas play at Christmas Eve mass – that left great memories for myself and others in the parish. Children´s Christmas parties here are called chocolatadas, because – copying their cold weather counterparts in North America – they serve hot chocolate, even though the heat has already made its first inroads. In addition to hot chocolate, a chocolatada necessarily includes panetón (see previous blog entry), songs and choreographed dances (our parish youth dance group took this on), games and contests, and giving presents. Coordinators of our eight parish neighborhoods invited specific families whom they felt were of the most need, and the youth council decorated the parish hall with lights, balloons, paper-cutout snowflakes and a large Nativity Scene of styrofoam cutouts (picture below).
Taking advantage of the decorations, we had planned a first-ever Christmas music festival for the evening, following the afternoon chocolatata. Various groups within the parish prepared acts, including a first-communion children´s choir, the two youth/young adult choirs, a couple solo singer/guitarists, our English class (classics in English!), and a composite ´all-star´ group from the two choirs. All in all, December 23 was a beautiful night of music and fellowship, the black styrofoam silhouettes of Mary/Gabriel, the shepherds, and Mary/Joseph/donkey that the youth council had created at our house adorning the candlelit walls. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted photos of these decorations before saving them – but I did record several of the songs from that night on a new digital recorder, a Christmas/birthday gift from my brother Ryan. As a sidenote, several of these songs, plus some English Christmas carols that my housemate Courtney and I recorded, can be accessed for your listening pleasure at www.reverbnation.com/raymundoycorina. I performed in two groups that night, singing with my choir Trovadores del Evangelio (Troubadors of the Gospel) and accompanying Julie, Jane, Courtney and our English students on guitar (see photo of us on stage below).
Not taking much of a break following the chocolatada and music festival, at 9:00 mass on the 24th a group of 20 of the Confirmation youth put on a Christmas play in the church – a combo of the classic Nativity story and a telling of how St. Francis initiated the tradition of Nativity Scenes by orchestrating the first ´live´ nativity scene in the 13th century. We lacked a couple actors to fill all roles, so I stepped in as Friar León, companion of St. Francis. Unknown to all of us, the priests envisioned the entire cast remaining up front, as a living nativity scene, during the entire mass. Sitting on the floor in bare feet and my Franciscan robe, surrounded by teenage Mary and Joseph, angels, squirrelly young shepherds, etc – a Christmas Eve memory that I will not soon forget.
Though utterly exhausted due to the event, rehearsal, and preparation schedule of the previous days, mass here marks just the beginning of the Christmas celebration, which for all takes place on the 24th and not on the 25th. Tania, a friend of ours from the parish, invited the four of us foreigners to her home for Christmas Eve, la Noche Buena. Tradition is to, at midnight, place the baby Jesus in the Nativity Scene, give hugs all around, and open presents (they had one or two for each person, including one for each of us). Also at midnight, some folks set off fireworks in the street. Finally, a Christmas dinner is served: chicken (or turkey), potatoes, and of course panetón and hot chocolate. Following dinner, the prerequisite for any party – music and dancing. I have only foggy memories of the next couple hours, fighting doggedly to avoid falling into a deep slumber on the couch. Mercifully, we left ´early´ and I was in bed by 3:30 am or so. Christmas itself was low-key – we had a lunch invitation at the home of a community of Dominican sisters here, the same place I shared Thanksgiving with the year before with Emily and Nicole. Several other displaced norteamericanos were also present, as were our own IW sisters for a pleasant outside lunch of chicken, ham, yams, mashed potatoes, salad, and ´pumpkin´ pie. Finally, we four held our gift exchange at home around our two-foot artificial tree and under our hanging snowflake decorations and then laid down for a well-deserved rest.
My celebration of Christmas this year was very distinct from that of 2007, in many ways I was able to enter more fully, I felt, into the rites, festivities, and traditions. In general, I have noticed a big change in my perspective as I experience life here the second time around – for example this January I noticed clearly that the funk of homesickness and feeling out of place that I struggled with last year was not to be found. Below, you will see that even with all the new traditions we encounter, we still found time to bake and decorate Christmas cookies.
At Christmas, instead of just surviving, I participated much more – as an example, I learned a number of Peruvian Christmas carols, both through my singing in the choir and on the guitar from friends Roger and others. I took part, through our much-more-involved youth council, in the actual planning and orchestration of events – a children´s Christmas party, first-ever Christmas Carol festival in the parish, and a Christmas play at Christmas Eve mass – that left great memories for myself and others in the parish. Children´s Christmas parties here are called chocolatadas, because – copying their cold weather counterparts in North America – they serve hot chocolate, even though the heat has already made its first inroads. In addition to hot chocolate, a chocolatada necessarily includes panetón (see previous blog entry), songs and choreographed dances (our parish youth dance group took this on), games and contests, and giving presents. Coordinators of our eight parish neighborhoods invited specific families whom they felt were of the most need, and the youth council decorated the parish hall with lights, balloons, paper-cutout snowflakes and a large Nativity Scene of styrofoam cutouts (picture below).
Taking advantage of the decorations, we had planned a first-ever Christmas music festival for the evening, following the afternoon chocolatata. Various groups within the parish prepared acts, including a first-communion children´s choir, the two youth/young adult choirs, a couple solo singer/guitarists, our English class (classics in English!), and a composite ´all-star´ group from the two choirs. All in all, December 23 was a beautiful night of music and fellowship, the black styrofoam silhouettes of Mary/Gabriel, the shepherds, and Mary/Joseph/donkey that the youth council had created at our house adorning the candlelit walls. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted photos of these decorations before saving them – but I did record several of the songs from that night on a new digital recorder, a Christmas/birthday gift from my brother Ryan. As a sidenote, several of these songs, plus some English Christmas carols that my housemate Courtney and I recorded, can be accessed for your listening pleasure at www.reverbnation.com/raymundoycorina. I performed in two groups that night, singing with my choir Trovadores del Evangelio (Troubadors of the Gospel) and accompanying Julie, Jane, Courtney and our English students on guitar (see photo of us on stage below).
Not taking much of a break following the chocolatada and music festival, at 9:00 mass on the 24th a group of 20 of the Confirmation youth put on a Christmas play in the church – a combo of the classic Nativity story and a telling of how St. Francis initiated the tradition of Nativity Scenes by orchestrating the first ´live´ nativity scene in the 13th century. We lacked a couple actors to fill all roles, so I stepped in as Friar León, companion of St. Francis. Unknown to all of us, the priests envisioned the entire cast remaining up front, as a living nativity scene, during the entire mass. Sitting on the floor in bare feet and my Franciscan robe, surrounded by teenage Mary and Joseph, angels, squirrelly young shepherds, etc – a Christmas Eve memory that I will not soon forget.
Though utterly exhausted due to the event, rehearsal, and preparation schedule of the previous days, mass here marks just the beginning of the Christmas celebration, which for all takes place on the 24th and not on the 25th. Tania, a friend of ours from the parish, invited the four of us foreigners to her home for Christmas Eve, la Noche Buena. Tradition is to, at midnight, place the baby Jesus in the Nativity Scene, give hugs all around, and open presents (they had one or two for each person, including one for each of us). Also at midnight, some folks set off fireworks in the street. Finally, a Christmas dinner is served: chicken (or turkey), potatoes, and of course panetón and hot chocolate. Following dinner, the prerequisite for any party – music and dancing. I have only foggy memories of the next couple hours, fighting doggedly to avoid falling into a deep slumber on the couch. Mercifully, we left ´early´ and I was in bed by 3:30 am or so. Christmas itself was low-key – we had a lunch invitation at the home of a community of Dominican sisters here, the same place I shared Thanksgiving with the year before with Emily and Nicole. Several other displaced norteamericanos were also present, as were our own IW sisters for a pleasant outside lunch of chicken, ham, yams, mashed potatoes, salad, and ´pumpkin´ pie. Finally, we four held our gift exchange at home around our two-foot artificial tree and under our hanging snowflake decorations and then laid down for a well-deserved rest.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Panetones
If you`ve read the entry on November, one thing missing is a description of our our youth council`s panetòn project. Friends Lenin and Nelly, students at the local state university, got the idea while giving me a tour of the campus of renting the agro-industrial center`s kitchen in order to make and sell panetones for Christmas as a fundraiser and service project. First of all, to describe a panetòn: it is a 1 kg cylindrical sweet bread loaf, with a hint of orange flavor and filled with raisins and candied fruit. Sold and eaten by the truckload from late November through New Years, the panetòn is immensely more popular than it`s northern cousin, the similar but heavier fruitcake. With origins in Italy, I have no idea how it became a Peruvian holiday staple, and neither do most people here -- they are just really surprised that we don`t eat panetòn in the US (I assure them that we more than make up for the calories with fudge and Christmas cookies). Anyway, Lenin and Nelly attended a three-day training course on making panetones (I accompanied them the first day) and did a ton of research on prices, products, etc and presented a plan for making 300 panetones in one day, using a popular pre-mix that would greatly simplify the shopping and measuring/adding of ingredients.
Originally nixed by the parish council for fear of not getting their loan of 2000 soles returned, Michi saved the day with a loan to finance the project. To summarize, I spent Thanksgiving Day with about 12 of our youth/young adult leaders, making 312 panetones that we easily sold for 10 soles each (3 soles = $1) -- and we could have sold double for 12 each (next year they plan to make more). Out of the 312 we saved 34 for a Christmas party for parish kids and our Christmas carol festival, more later on those events, with several hundred soles profit and a great group project. To top it off, the panetones turned out very well (maybe its an adaption process, but panetones tasted better to me in general this year than last, and ours was the best I`d tried).
What goes into 300 panetones? A lot: 750 egg yolks, 38 kg raisins, 38 kg candied fruit, 175 kg panetòn mix (flour, sugar, butter, flavorings, etc), water, yeast, elbow grease. I spent three days with a smaller group buying the ingredients, separating egg yolks, and -- most tediously -- sorting through the raisins to remove the overly-dry ones and the occasional stem. How nice that in the US raisins come cleaned already! Overall, a very positive experience for our group, gave us good PR (label read `Panetòn Francisco`), and some funds for future group efforts.
Originally nixed by the parish council for fear of not getting their loan of 2000 soles returned, Michi saved the day with a loan to finance the project. To summarize, I spent Thanksgiving Day with about 12 of our youth/young adult leaders, making 312 panetones that we easily sold for 10 soles each (3 soles = $1) -- and we could have sold double for 12 each (next year they plan to make more). Out of the 312 we saved 34 for a Christmas party for parish kids and our Christmas carol festival, more later on those events, with several hundred soles profit and a great group project. To top it off, the panetones turned out very well (maybe its an adaption process, but panetones tasted better to me in general this year than last, and ours was the best I`d tried).
What goes into 300 panetones? A lot: 750 egg yolks, 38 kg raisins, 38 kg candied fruit, 175 kg panetòn mix (flour, sugar, butter, flavorings, etc), water, yeast, elbow grease. I spent three days with a smaller group buying the ingredients, separating egg yolks, and -- most tediously -- sorting through the raisins to remove the overly-dry ones and the occasional stem. How nice that in the US raisins come cleaned already! Overall, a very positive experience for our group, gave us good PR (label read `Panetòn Francisco`), and some funds for future group efforts.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Some Catching up...November
Hello again! Except for a very brief entry in mid December, I have not managed to post much about my life here, which is not to say that things have been dull. On the contrary (as you may have noticed), as I get more involved in life here, I find it more difficult to sit down and write about it. This is a first 2-3 entries attempting to download some details about the last couple months.
Beginning with November...
CONFIRMATION RETREAT AND MASS
With the group of 35 high-school age youth (whose comments you may have read in previous entries) we held an overnight retreat Nov 8-9 and celebrated a confirmation mass on Sunday, November 23. I was more involved this year in organizing the retreat (transportation, materials, etc), though a team of two guys (Soto, Tino) from the parish who lead youth retreats for a living led the actual talks, dramas, music, etc. Memorable moments, after waiting two hours for the team to show up :), included a campfire songfest with Soto, Tino and my friend Roger. After a number of songs with actions, of prayer, etc that are common in youth settings, the girls and boys had an informal singing competition. With a few seconds to think, the group(girls, then guys) had to sing the chorus of a song in unison. Whichever gender did it better or louder, won that round. First, the theme was 'guys/girls are the cause of pain` type songs, followed by numerous rounds of love songs back and forth. This must have gone on for 30-45 minutes -- definitely a musical culture!
Second, the leaders had invited parents to come on Sunday morning as a surprise to youth, preparing the young people for a reunion with reflections on family life, how they treat their parents, and finally with letters that parents had written beforehand. The moment of reunion was moving for most involved, with tears on old and young faces alike. Many of the parents had been very reluctant to let their children (especially the girls) participate, they having never slept outside the house before, and Yuri (coordinator) and I had to make a few house visits to ease parental concerns in the days before the event. Another notable aspect of the whole experience was the relatively short time in which the retreat was organized, parents informed, etc. With less opportunities and activities to be involved in, youth did not have the conflicts that arise in US parishes -- some of the parents only found out a few days ahead of time when we visited their homes. The experience of accompanying this group of young people for a few months as they learned and grew closer to each other was an enriching aspect to my year here, in this aspect resembling the Confirmation process in the US. Though I will not be here for the next retreat or Mass, I plan to help with the new group when it begins in April until I leave in September.
(For more photos from the retreat, follow this linkhttp://toddsiwmphotos.shutterfly.com/2427)
The Confirmation Mass was, as in the US, a joyful occasion for all on the late Sunday afternoon of November 23. Girls wore nice pearl colored dresses and guys shirts and ties, several kids showed up after the Mass had begun, there was a party and dance in the hall afterward, and we leaders were in charge of keeping the eager family photographers from overwhelming the bishop at the altar during administration of the sacrament. Having also served in a similar crowd-control capacity during the morning First Communion mass, it wasn`t too stressful.
For more pictures of the Mass, follow this link http://toddsiwmphotos.shutterfly.com/2456.
TRIP TO ECUADOR
Soon after the busy schedule of wrapping up the several month Confirmation process, we four missionaries embarked for an all-night bus ride to Machala, Ecuador -- the motive being to get the girls` religious/residency visas to replace their temporary tourist visas. You might remember that Nicole, Emily and I made a similar trip in November of 2007, and I technically did not have to go again. But, we decided that my previous experience would be helpful and that the trip would be good community bonding. This year, however, we made a couple strategic errors: arriving on a Friday and not calling in advance. These errors were key because the Consul, who needed to sign our visas, was out of town until Tuesday morning and we were left with no option but to stay three extra nights in Machala, the self-proclaimed banana capital of the world. In this pleasant but not overly-interesting (in a tourist sense) city in far south Ecuador, we spent our time reading and watching cable TV movies and CNN when we weren`t on our outing to the mall (wonder of wonders), the beach, or cruising around the small downtown with its very attractive main plaza. The beach was a treat, involving a short bus ride and then a boat ride through mangrove swamp from the harbor to the beach.
The trip ended successfully with the girls getting their visas, though through a misunderstanding with the hotel staff we had agreed to a price more than double what we thought. Photos from our adventure in Ecuador (where it is hotter but they use ice in their blended drinks) can be found by following the photo link at right.
More later, as my internet time is about to expire...
God bless!
Beginning with November...
CONFIRMATION RETREAT AND MASS
With the group of 35 high-school age youth (whose comments you may have read in previous entries) we held an overnight retreat Nov 8-9 and celebrated a confirmation mass on Sunday, November 23. I was more involved this year in organizing the retreat (transportation, materials, etc), though a team of two guys (Soto, Tino) from the parish who lead youth retreats for a living led the actual talks, dramas, music, etc. Memorable moments, after waiting two hours for the team to show up :), included a campfire songfest with Soto, Tino and my friend Roger. After a number of songs with actions, of prayer, etc that are common in youth settings, the girls and boys had an informal singing competition. With a few seconds to think, the group(girls, then guys) had to sing the chorus of a song in unison. Whichever gender did it better or louder, won that round. First, the theme was 'guys/girls are the cause of pain` type songs, followed by numerous rounds of love songs back and forth. This must have gone on for 30-45 minutes -- definitely a musical culture!
Second, the leaders had invited parents to come on Sunday morning as a surprise to youth, preparing the young people for a reunion with reflections on family life, how they treat their parents, and finally with letters that parents had written beforehand. The moment of reunion was moving for most involved, with tears on old and young faces alike. Many of the parents had been very reluctant to let their children (especially the girls) participate, they having never slept outside the house before, and Yuri (coordinator) and I had to make a few house visits to ease parental concerns in the days before the event. Another notable aspect of the whole experience was the relatively short time in which the retreat was organized, parents informed, etc. With less opportunities and activities to be involved in, youth did not have the conflicts that arise in US parishes -- some of the parents only found out a few days ahead of time when we visited their homes. The experience of accompanying this group of young people for a few months as they learned and grew closer to each other was an enriching aspect to my year here, in this aspect resembling the Confirmation process in the US. Though I will not be here for the next retreat or Mass, I plan to help with the new group when it begins in April until I leave in September.
(For more photos from the retreat, follow this linkhttp://toddsiwmphotos.shutterfly.com/2427)The Confirmation Mass was, as in the US, a joyful occasion for all on the late Sunday afternoon of November 23. Girls wore nice pearl colored dresses and guys shirts and ties, several kids showed up after the Mass had begun, there was a party and dance in the hall afterward, and we leaders were in charge of keeping the eager family photographers from overwhelming the bishop at the altar during administration of the sacrament. Having also served in a similar crowd-control capacity during the morning First Communion mass, it wasn`t too stressful.
For more pictures of the Mass, follow this link http://toddsiwmphotos.shutterfly.com/2456.
TRIP TO ECUADOR
Soon after the busy schedule of wrapping up the several month Confirmation process, we four missionaries embarked for an all-night bus ride to Machala, Ecuador -- the motive being to get the girls` religious/residency visas to replace their temporary tourist visas. You might remember that Nicole, Emily and I made a similar trip in November of 2007, and I technically did not have to go again. But, we decided that my previous experience would be helpful and that the trip would be good community bonding. This year, however, we made a couple strategic errors: arriving on a Friday and not calling in advance. These errors were key because the Consul, who needed to sign our visas, was out of town until Tuesday morning and we were left with no option but to stay three extra nights in Machala, the self-proclaimed banana capital of the world. In this pleasant but not overly-interesting (in a tourist sense) city in far south Ecuador, we spent our time reading and watching cable TV movies and CNN when we weren`t on our outing to the mall (wonder of wonders), the beach, or cruising around the small downtown with its very attractive main plaza. The beach was a treat, involving a short bus ride and then a boat ride through mangrove swamp from the harbor to the beach.
The trip ended successfully with the girls getting their visas, though through a misunderstanding with the hotel staff we had agreed to a price more than double what we thought. Photos from our adventure in Ecuador (where it is hotter but they use ice in their blended drinks) can be found by following the photo link at right.
More later, as my internet time is about to expire...
God bless!
Monday, December 15, 2008
New Photos
Hello everyone! After a decent absence, a short entry for now to let you know that I`ve posted some photos from the past couple months on my photo site, link at right.
Life has been full here, as I prepare for my second Peruvian Christmas. Also since my last entry, we had our Confirmation and first communion masses, a trip to Ecuador with Jane/Julie/Courtney to get their residency visas, our youth council shopped for, made, and sold 300 panetones (1 kg sweet bread, super popular here for Christmas time), we`re preparing a Christmas music concert and Christmas play with our young people (including our English students singing some English carols). My internet time a this moment is running out, but soon I will write some more details and reflections. God bless.
Life has been full here, as I prepare for my second Peruvian Christmas. Also since my last entry, we had our Confirmation and first communion masses, a trip to Ecuador with Jane/Julie/Courtney to get their residency visas, our youth council shopped for, made, and sold 300 panetones (1 kg sweet bread, super popular here for Christmas time), we`re preparing a Christmas music concert and Christmas play with our young people (including our English students singing some English carols). My internet time a this moment is running out, but soon I will write some more details and reflections. God bless.
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