I Love Wednesdays

Wednesday is the one day a week when I don't have to answer to anybody and needless to say it is the day I look forward to most. Because we are renting a house with the landlords' house connected we share the one laundry sink. Obviously they got first dibs on the weekend so we each have a day to wash laundry during the week. The other women that I live with get their laundry done either before work or after but since I have to leave the house at 8am and don't return until at least 5pm it would be mighty irritating to wake up early enough or come home from a long day and then spend a couple hours washing clothes. Additionally I work so far outside of the city that to take the morning off and go in just in the afternoon wouldn't be worth the commute. All of that is to say that I worked it out with the NGO to have Wednesdays completely off.
Wednesday is my day for washing my clothes and usually for catching up on paperwork for work so it isn't necessarily a completely free and relaxing day but the fact that I get to make my own schedule and change it at whim is very liberating. This morning after finishing the laundry I struck out with the intent purpose of getting my hair trimmed. After that I realized how close I was to the movie theater so decided to catch the matinee. Unfortunately, the only movie I thought might be worth seeing was dubbed in Spanish so I scratched that idea and went home to watch a movie instead.
Weekends are usually reserved for community type events. It is also not unusual for me to be out at work on the weekends as well. Not to say that I don't enjoy and need community and I am all to happy to sacrifice some weekend to be out in Mineros. I'm not sure if it is the nature of mission or the nature of being human but I really need at least one day a week of completely "me" time. I'm very thankful for my Wednesdays!

Holy Week

Holy Thursday
The Roman Catholic tradition, at least in the United States, for the thursday of holy week is that the priest washes the feet of a select few from the congregation and at the conclusion of the service the Eucharist is moved out of the church, usually to the hall. All the statues are covered with purple cloth and the church is empty. The same tradition is carried out in Bolivia as well but then continues. It is customary for people to make a "pilgrimage" to fourteen different churches within the city of Cochabamba. The number represents the fourteen different stations of the cross. Booklets are available with special prayers to be said at each church. It is a cool theory but plays out quite chaotically. Each church is participating in its own mass while people are coming in and saying their prayers and moving on to the next church. The streets are packed with people and bands are parading down the avenues. It is truly a sight to behold.
Good Friday
Again, the US Roman Catholic tradition for the friday of holy week has an emphasis on fasting and personal reflection. Abstinence from meat seems to be about the only similarity I can find between Bolivia and the US on this point. Good Friday in Cochabamba consists of a 12 course feast eaten as a late lunch or early dinner. The number represents the twelve apostles present at the last supper. I was invited to partake of this meal with my former host mother and her family this afternoon. I'm still stuffed. We didn't make it to all twelve but including the desserts we had seven different plates of food. I can't remember a Good Friday where I was full. Instead of personal reflection this is a day full of family time and getting together around the table to share and celebrate.
Holy Saturday and Easter
Really the highlight of Holy Week for the Bolivians is Good Friday. Few go to mass or celebrate Easter on Sunday. There is really not a whole lot else to say about that.
Have a great Easter everyone. Jesus ha resucitado!!

Loaves and Fishes

On Monday we celebrated International Women's Day with a cultural outing into the city. We visited various attractions and points of interest with the women. Some of the highlights were the botanical gardens, the various plazas, and an old slaughterhouse converted into a cultural center. Though many of them had visited these places before at each site there was at least one woman in the group that had never been there before. We wrapped up the day at the botanical gardens. I gave a little presentation on famous/influential women throughout history with an emphasis on the fact that these women accomplished great things but they were no different than any of us. That is what I tried to do anyway. After a day of running around the city there were a lot of blank stares. A new staff woman finished us off with a little workshop on self-esteem. All in all it was a pretty great day of relaxing and enjoying each other company while taking in what Cochabamba has to offer.
My favorite part of the day was lunchtime. Some scholars say that Jesus' miracle of feeding the multitudes was not that he was able to make five pieces of bread and two fish fill thousands of people. Rather, it was that everyone pooled what little they had brought for themselves and it was in the sharing that everyone was fed. While we had neither bread nor fish, when the time for lunch rolled around someone laid out a blanket on the concrete and opened their plate of food they had brought to eat. All the other women followed suit and there was quite a smorgasbord laid before us. There was more than enough for everyone even though some hadn't brought anything.
For those who are wondering the women that I presented, in chronological order, were:
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jane Addams, Marie Curie, Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks, Indira Ghandi, Eva Peron, Wangari Maathai, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Rigoberta Menchu

The Lose-Lose Situation

This past Sunday I was out in Mineros San Juan for a round of visits with my fellow Franciscans Kristen and Richard. A woman that worked in the bakery until a few months ago delivered her baby on Friday, the reason for her departure from the bakery. We went to her house to see if there was anything that she needed. Though the current Bolivian government has provided free medical care for pregnant women, this woman delivered her baby girl in her house after about 30 hours of labor. After checking in with the family we moved on about the neighborhood. Our next stop was a neighbor of the new mother. We pulled up wooden step stools and were visiting with her. She was telling us about her life including an alcoholic husband and having to go into the city to beg for leftovers from the low-end restaurants. During a lull in conversation she disappeared into her house with a bucket of water she dipped out of their barrel. She then reappeared with a bowl full of corn on the cob for us to eat. Resistance was futile. We sat there and ate this corn on the cob that she couldn't afford to share with us while she watched. Somehow one of the cobs from the bowl that Kristen was holding fell to the ground. It had been raining so it is more correct to say that it fell into the mud. Without skipping a beat the woman grabbed up the soiled corn and rinsing it with water from the barrel put it back in the bowl for eating. At that point the clouds that had been rolling in picked up force and there were loud claps of thunder. We kindly excused ourselves because of the impending storm.
This is the work out in the barrio. We are greeted and welcomed with open arms at whatever house we happen to stop by. At the least they will send their oldest child out to buy soda to share but occasionally will present their supper for us to eat. As I said before resistance is futile. It is rude not to accept what is presented to you so we take it. We end up eating dirty food that is bad for us from people that have no other food for themselves. I don't know that there is an answer.

Welcome Back...to me

Well I have returned to Bolivia after a two week visit in the States. It was a wonderful visit once I actually got there but I am glad to be back. During this visit I was encouraged (harassed?...no just encouraged) by my aunts to refocus my blogging efforts. You have Susan and Denise to thank. I thought it best to do a little recap for those that might be new to the blog or to clear up some confusions that I encountered while I was at home.

I am a lay missioner with the Franciscan Mission Service. I live in community with three (soon to be four) other women that are in my organization and we also have two married couples, one living in Cochabamba and the other living many hours away in a little town that is closer to La Paz than anything else. Though I am a sponsored by the Franciscans I spend my days with a German NGO (non-governmental organization) in a little settlement called Mineros San Juan about 6 miles outside of the city of Cochabamba. The NGO serves this impoverished neighborhood in a variety of ways. There is a daycare for children ages two to five, a medical post offering cheap and free basic medical and prenatal care, and a K-8 school that just opened for it's first class this February. The school also houses a night school for adults that also started this past February. There are plans to build a middle school, high school, and technical school. In addition to these programs there is also a women's group called Tantakuna (a quechua word meaning "united") I volunteer with this group.

Tankakuna consists of many different areas; a bakery, an artisan group, computer classes, and developmental workshops. I spend mornings, and sometimes afternoons depending on the schedule, in the bakery working closely with four women that rotate throughout the week. I help them with anything from washing dishes to rolling out dough and manning the oven to the accounting. Additionally, I teach an ever expanding computer class Monday and Tuesday afternoons. Due to the demand, I think I will also be adding Wednesday afternoon. Friday afternoons are the artisan group where my only real purpose is to write up the minutes of the meeting. We participate in craft fairs as an opportunity for the women to sell their wares and are also trying to establish international markets. For the new year we are working on revamping the developmental workshops to better serve and benefit the women. More to follow on that I suppose.

I am very excited and committed to my work in Mineros and specifically with the women of Tantakuna. I have about 21 months left on my contract and I feel in some ways like I am just scratching the surface. I love this country and most importantly the people that inhabit it and I look forward to reporting to you with more vigor and frequency about what I am doing and my reflections on that work. Feel free to ask me questions or else suffer my scattered ramblings. Thanks for reading and I leave you with a picture of the women from the bakery and myself. I invited them to my house for a special Christmas lunch.