¡Con mi burrito sabanero…!

¡Feliz navidad y feliz año! If the months of August through November were busy, the month of December definitely gave us a new understanding of “busyness.”  These weeks of Advent have been full of planning and special activities on all fronts: in the parish, at my work site, and even within our volunteer community.  (By the way, did you know that the word “full” has made its way into the Ecuadorian vocabulary? Fun fact.)  Every year RdC has a nice little Christmas bash to celebrate together and to thank all of our Rostro employees (guards, accountant, ayudantes…) and their families.  Each of the 3 volunteer houses prepared something to present.  Sinaí performed the birth of Christ (I played the part of Niño Jesús) to the chorus of a Justin Bieber song (“Like baby, baby, baby Diooos! … Nació en Belénnn.”) and then played a rigged and slightly awkward game of charades with the audience (you can’t say we weren’t original).  Last week we went caroling to some of our neighbors’ houses, singing a few songs in Spanish and a few in English.  It was a beautiful way for us to celebrate and probably one of my favorite Christmas moments this year.  On Christmas day itself, the 13 of us volunteers got together again and went to one of Rostro’s oldest partner foundations in Guayaquil, Damien House – a hospital for patients with Hansen’s disease - and we visited and sang carols with the patients before having an Italian style Christmas dinner at the home of Sr. Annie who runs Damien House.  Within the parish, we participated in each of the 3 church’s Christmas novenas during the 9 days leading up to Christmas day.  A common way to pray the novena here is to do “Posadas”, which means “inns”.  Every night you walk together to a different house (singing carols along the way and led by a person holding a star and two more who are representing José and Maria), and when you reach the house, the group that has traveled there and the people inside of the house sing back and forth to each other (the outsiders asking for a place to stay and the insiders saying there is no room).  Eventually everyone goes inside the house to share in a reflection, some prayers, and more songs (and food of course!).  Each of the ladies in my community took turns playing Maria in the Corpus Christi youth group Posadas.  Mandi headed up the nativity play at Sta. Teresa while the rest of us played parts (the name I go by here is Belén – Bernadette’s a tough one to pronounce – and it happens to mean “Bethlehem”, so, clearly, my role was to be the city of Belén).  We had a few planned practices (one of them being auditions!) and a few last minute actor changes, but when it was showtime in the middle of the Christmas Eve mass, the whole thing turned out just beautifully.  After that mass at 6pm, we went to 2 more masses at 8 and 10pm (in San Felipe and Corpus Christi).  Both, as usual, were full of our musical involvement, and at the San Felipe mass we even had a small children’s choir sing a few songs at the end of mass (I had practiced with 12 kids and only 5 ended up coming to the mass, but they did great!).  Mass at Corpus Christi also had a nativity play that was organized by the youth group kids and involved special lighting settings (that I may have been struggling with three other people to figure out behind the altar), stage commands given by the narrator, a missing star of Bethlehem (that was Katy’s last minute role, and she was told the wrong time to enter; no worries, the three kings found their way on their own), and a real live sleeping infant that was switched out for the pillow womb once we figured out how to turn the lights off and back on again.  If not smooth, it certainly was a fun nativity.  Over six hours of masses may seem exhausting, and it was.  But being able to spend our Christmas Eve with many of the people that are such major parts of our lives here was a real gift for me.  At my work site, which is the pastoral ministry office of a large Jesuit foundation Hogar de Cristo, December was full of nativity construction at the 2 Hogar de Cristo headquarters, special Christmas-themed talks with our women’s groups (the theme of the talk that I gave was “Emanuel, Dios con nosotros”), a competition among the groups for the best nativity, a novena at HdC that each of the different departments participated in, and a Christmas mass.  The New Year is also well-celebrated here.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a house in Sinaí that wasn’t out in the street at midnight burning a “viejo” (can be anything from a homemade dummie of old clothes stuffed with papers or an oversized papier mache smirf) – the figure represents the old year that you’re leaving behind to start anew.  Per usual, there was food, cola, and dancing a-plenty.  Ecuadorians are a people that know how to celebrate!  It was definitely an Advent and Christmas unlike what I’m used to celebrating, but it certainly wasn’t short on Christmas cheer, and in some ways all of the newness of the culture and traditions made the experience of this season uniquely spiritual for me. 

December has also been a real blessing for me because at some point in the month I realized that I was, by the grace of God, finally feeling like I was “in my element” (in terms of language and its challenges, relationships with neighbors, my work site…).  I’ve always been able to adapt pretty quickly to wherever it is that I am, but I would be lying if I denied how much I have struggled in the last few months – even among all of the many, many joys.  I knew it would be hard (I came to Ecuador with only a few weeks of basic Spanish under my belt), but language troubles have been more pervasive in all aspects of my life here than I could have imagined (most especially in my job at my work site and in building relationships with neighbors).  Language is (arguably I suppose) the foundation to communication, and when I have been unable, time after time, to express what I want to express and say things the way that I want to say them and be part of conversations or in on the joke or whatever it is, I have become frustrated and discouraged in ways that I honestly haven’t known before.  Many times I have felt incapable and inadequate, being faced with the unfamiliar position of not being able to communicate or to share myself with others, in words or actions, the way that I am used to communicating and sharing myself.  Rostro’s mission is all about the “being” before “doing”, and I can say that these months have been a lesson to me in new ways of being present, being attentive, being patient, and being, maybe above all else, humble.  One of my turning points was on Thanksgiving when Rostro’s founder, Fr. Jim, was visiting with us.  I had a conversation with him, voicing some of what I had been struggling with.  His response to me was that I would never really be able to understand the reality of the poverty that my friends and neighbors here live daily if I did not first experience and understand my own poverty.  His words hit me like a ton of bricks.  My own poverty spent months trying to get my attention while I gave it names like discomfort, challenge, inadequacy.  It took me a while to learn (and I’m still learning), that the gift of service, the gift of human interaction and relationship that we can offer to one another is not a gift that is defined by some conception of perfection but by the authenticity of the self that we offer and the humility with which we present our gift of self.  From this vantage point, I look on my struggles, my poverty, with gratitude, acknowledging that they teach me patience and perseverence, unite me to my fellow brother and sister, and give me the freedom to be who I am, poor in my own ways like anybody else.

I can’t express enough how much I love being in Monte Sinaí.  Involvement in the parish, my job with the women’s groups, and the relationships that I’m forming here are all life-giving, and I am grateful.  Spanish is coming along, too! (Who would have thought?!)  Thanks for all who read this, who pray for me and my community, or who send mail.  I am grateful for you! 

Every day is blessing, every day is grace.  La paz y la gracia de Dios esté con ustedes.

La misa, en vogue

Hogar de Cristo (the Jesuit foundation where I work) has been celebrating its 40th anniversary in Ecuador, and as part of its festivities, the Pastoral office where I work has been in charge of two masses.  The first one was in the cathedral of Guayaquil, close to HdC’s current main headquarters.  The church was pretty well filled with HdC employees and volunteers and students from the HdC high school.  My office, Pastoral, and the community development office, Proyecto Misión, left early on buses to drive around Monte Sinai and the nearby sectors to pick up community members and leaders that work with our respective offices.  The mass was beautiful.  It was said by the bishop of Guayaquil, and a local high school choir provided the music with traditional instruments.  During the presentation of gifts, employees of HdC, students, and community members presented symbols of the work that HdC does and the population that it serves.  I think my favorite part of the mass was seeing my friend Rocio (an animadora/women’s group leader who’s got more personality than maybe even a cathedral can contain) walk up the huge marble steps to the alter and present a poster with pictures of different community members – a simple action that said so much.  The second mass that my office planned (after finding out about it 3 days before it was going to happen) was a mass that took place outside at Hogar de Cristo so that more community members would be able to participate (because HdC is so much closer to where they live than the cathedral is).  As we were planning the mass, I was put in charge of finding a local choir or group to do the music.  After I had arranged a local parish’s group to do the music, I was told by someone from outside of our office that the music should be led by the people in the congregation and that it should be a capella, so I canceled the group.  Then I was told that we should still have some music leaders in front.  Then I was told that I would be that music leader and that some of the animadoras that I know well from different women’s group could help and sing with me.  I was not feeling confident in this assignment because a lot of the music that had been chosen were songs that I’d never heard before, and for that, Dorys (works in Pastoral) spent an afternoon finding online versions of the songs and practicing them with me.  My biggest consolation was knowing that Dorys was going to bring a friend from her church to play guitar and that I wasn’t going to have to sing a capella afterall.  When I arrived at HdC for the mass, I found out that Dorys’s friend couldn’t come afterall but that she was able to get a 12 and a 13-year-old from her church who were just learning guitar and a traditional drum.  Three animadoras stood with me to sing, but I was the only one on a microphone.  As it turns out, I knew less of the music than I thought I did, the 13-year-old guitar player really, really was just learning (I couldn’t hear much of a difference in the chords from one song to the next), the drummer seemed to still be learning rhythms and tempos and often played with such enthusiasm that I could harldy hear anything else, and Dorys, who’s maybe a little more tone deaf than not, stood right behind me the whole time and sang into my ear to help me with the songs I didn’t know.  It was not the best I’ve ever sung, but I realized almost immediately in the opening song that sometimes that’s just how it is and that you just have to get over yourself, smile, and roll with it.  I smiled a lot in that mass: at times for the humor of my situation, but more for the faces in the crowd of 400 women that showed up for the mass, faces of women I know and call friends, faces of women that I recognized from standing in the microcredit lines on Tuesdays, and women that I’d never seen before but whose presence was that of strength.  It was a beautiful mass and perhaps the  most appropriate way to celebrate the work of Hogar de Cristo.

Speaking of masses, masses in Sinai are awesome.  We go to three every weekend – one at each church within our parish.  Santa Teresa had a big celebration for the feast of St. Teresa of Avila in October that involved a novena leading up to the feast and plenty of games and songs before the mass.  The church was decorated with balloons and signs and flowers, and the portrait of St. Teresa was moved to be front and center.  That mass is always a source of rejuvenation in the week for me.  It’s the one where I’m least involved in music, and so I usually sit with my community mates rather than in the choir.  After mass the 6 of us, along with the music guys and the Madres (the nuns from San Felipe) hop into Padre John’s truck to drive back to the other side of Sinai where we live, dropping people off along the way.  It’s hardly 12 hours before I see a lot of the same people again at the 8am San Felipe where I sing and where Matt and I are trying to start more of a children’s choir like Sta. Teresa has.  We usually don’t have the songs chosen until we’re about to sing them, and so there’s always an exciting scramble to find them.  From that mass we jump into Padre’s truck and head up to Corpus Cristi, where I also sing, for the third mass of the weekend.  It’s the largest church and has the most instruments and working microphones.  All of the masses, but especially this one, end with a slew of songs that we call dinamicas because they’re interactive and have a lot of hand motions and are just tons of fun.  One of them that we started doing a few weeks ago is especially goofy, and pretty much the whole point of it is to make you look ridiculous.  You start with your thumbs up and then dance around, and each verse after just adds on to all of the previous postures that you have to do at the same time: thumbs up, elbows back, squat, feet like a penguin, chest like a bird, tail like a duck, neck like a turtle, arms like a chicken, tongue out, and all the while what you’re singing is “Chookaka, chookaka, chookachookachookaka…”  These things might sound silly to talk about, but they bring such great energy to the church.  Everyone from the youngest kids to the grandparents sing and dance around.  Honestly, it’s awesome.

Masses here are a huge part of my week, and they really bring me a lot of life.  I had no idea that I would be as involved in them as I am, but I’ve always found that surprises make for the best gifts.

First month, in a coconut shell

¡Hola, todos!  I`ve been far from stateside for about a month now.  Rostro de Crsito has 3 houses of volunteers in the Guayaquil area.  The first and second houses of volunteers are in neighborhoods called AJS and Arbolito, both within a larger area called Duran just outside of Guayaquil.  The third house (which is only a year old) is in a new and growing invasion community on the northern periphery of Guayaquil called Monte Sinai, which is where I live alongside 5 other RdC volunteers (Katie, Mandi, Patrick, Matt, and Madison).   The 6 of us in my house eat together (taking turns cooking every night), pray together daily (taking turns on who leads), and have spirituality and community fun nights once a week.  Invasion communities refer to areas of land that are undeveloped but where people begin to move to because they can buy land cheaply and build their houses and be closer to the major city that can offer more employment and education opportunities.  Some houses here are cement, but the majority are small and made from cane, and new houses are going up every day. 

Monte Sinai is a beautiful place, full, full, full of beautiful families, children, individuals, life, and spirit.  My thoughts when we were driving into Sinai for the first time were what a blessing and gift this is, to be able to be here, to be welcomed into another`s life and reality, to see realities that others won`t see, realities that will change me.  How lucky I am to be graced with such hospitatlity.  I, a stranger in a foreign land, the outsider, alien, minority.  How beautiful a gift to have this opportunity.  How grateful I feel.  Our first night, after we left the airport, the 16 of us new volunteers made our way to the Arbolito house in Duran where we would spend our first night all together.  We drove in silence through the darkness into Duran, where I was surprised that not much seemed familiar (I had visited here for a week 5 years ago when my sister Marissa was volunteering in Arbolito).  Even being in Duran in the daylight now, it seems so different from the last time that I saw it.  Now only the volunteer house and the Arbolito church seem like old acquaintances while the rest has a newness for me.  I think as a 17 year old who had hardly even left Ohio, let alone the country, Ecuador was starkly new, different and surreal.  Now though, it just seems like the real world, the same world that I`ve been living in my whole life.  And yet the dusty, unpaved roads and cane houses are far away from the world that I`ve seen and know well.  Stepping into this Sinai community, I am mindful of the gift that it is, to be allowed, in some small way, to enter into the reality of the lives of others, these “others” who are allowing me to be their neighbor, though I come knowing nothing about them, their daily experiences, or their language.  Taking in the images of Sinai`s streets and the houses that are homes for families that I would soon be living with, I was struck with the thought of “Who am I to be here?”  I was humbled by how gracious a gift (indeed, it is a grace) I had just received.  To God, whose presence and movements enfold me, and to the people of Mt. Sinai, who have welcomed RdC and now me, I offered a prayer of gratitude, a prayer that I have cause to repeat every day.

Ecuadorians have been extremely patient  with my limited Spanish abilities, and many have enthusiastically offered to help me learn.  Probably more than anything, coming to Ecuador I was nervous that my Spanish level would inhibit my confidence to spend time in the neighborhood getting to know people.  This anxiety was appeased during our first visit at a neighbor`s house.  Monica assured me that she would help me learn, that I would learn quickly, and that her house was our house.  I am an alien in a foreign land, and such hospitality sets me at ease in my new home.  This hospitality will be one of my best teachers this year.

The parish life is Sinai is ablaze, having one umbrella parish (The Baptism of Jesus) and 3 chapels (San Felipe, Santa Teresa de Avila, and Corpus Cristi) that are spread throughout the larger area of Sinai.  All are pastored by one Spanish·learning Irish priest from the St. James Society, Fr. John.  The parish has youth groups, rosaries that alternate being in different homes each week, bible studies, daily masses, catechism classes, and newly forming children`s choirs.  Each mass is full of `joyful noises` and much hand·clapping.  It`s a vibrant spirit, and weekend masses quickly became one of our favorite parts of the week.  Matt and I will be helping with the music at all of the masses and hope to get a children`s choir off the ground at San Felipe.  The 6 of us are also getting well involved in rosaries, catechism, youth group, and the lot.

I split my time between being in an official job placement (usually in the mornings) and in spending time in the neighborhood, visiting and talking, playing with kids, odds and ends with and for the parish…  There is always something to do, or maybe I should say there`s always someone to see.  My job placement is at a large Jesuit foundation called Hogar de Cristo (Christ`s Home) that is about a 15 minute bus ride from my house.  There I work in their Pastoral office, which works with small, faith·based women`s groups (nearly 30 in various nearby invasion communities).  These groups are referred to as grassroots base communities in that they do community development from the ground up, by the people themselves, and through a lens of faith.  I am loving the time that I spend out in the communities and in women`s homes.  The greatest challenge at this point is the language.

Spanish, Spanish, Spanish…  I hope that one day soon we can be friends.  As for now, it`s a rocky road.  I do have little moments of achievement, but most days leave me feeling exhausted anbd defeated.  But these feelings lead me to prayer and to the support of my community.  There, without fail, I find much to be greatful for and much that encourages me to lift my head, ready to embrace another fine day in this beautiful place.

New stories are made every day, and let me say, there are some good ones.  I hope to get some of them up soon…

Until next time, peace to you, friends.