A return to routine: classes at Maryknoll in the morning, homework and self-directed study in the afternoon, prayer and Eucharist and conviviality with the Franciscan friars in the evening. And blogging, always blogging.
With regard to studies: in the first two class periods Profesor Osvaldo has been taking his time, carefully and patiently explaining the nuances of past, present, and future in Spanish grammar in the indicative, subjunctive, and conditional sense. He is an expert time-traveler, grammatically speaking! As for me, I’m getting a little time-warped. But it is all right: I understand the majority of what I am receiving and practicing about half of it correctly. The rest will come, eventually: all in good time.
In the latter two periods I work out my conversational skills with Profesora Sara. I have been giving her lessons in the sacraments, church history, and the Franciscan movement. I have also been describing my ministry and the parish where I work, Church of the Good Shepherd. Today the two of us paused for a field trip to Casona Mayorazgo, an historic Spanish colonial-style house whose salons had furniture from the 18th and 19th centuries. Other salons in this heritage site had exhibits of masks from Carnaval de Oruro; battle maps from the time of the Bolivian revolution; early modern photography of Cochabamba; and, finally, modern art to protest feminicide in Bolivia.
Yesterday we all paused for the weekly cultural conference; this one focused on the Bolivian elections coming up in October. The presenter, Jose Luis Lopez, coordinator of the Mission Formation Program here, framed the elections as a referendum on the constitutionality of Evo Morales’ bid for a third term and a referendum on the socialist program of economic development Morales has executed since 2005. My take on all this is that the socialist reforms have done the country good and should be continued. However, Morales is not acting like a good democrat by defying the will of the majority, who declared in a February 2017 referendum that the Bolivian constitution, which limits the occupant of the presidency to two terms, should be honored. Bolivia may have socialism, but it has a longer road to go to get to a more perfect democratic socialism.
Tomorrow is Friday, the last day of this six-week course at Maryknoll. It is the end of the third quarter, academically speaking. On Monday I will begin my fourth and final six-week course at the mission center. I have expressed to Señora Kitty an interest in skipping ahead in the intermediate textbook to the units on Guatemala and El Salvador. (Each unit of the textbook focuses on a different country in Latin America.) Rewarding as it has been to learn about Argentina and Chile, it is way more relevant to my current and future ministry prospects to engage with the culture and people of Central America, whose mothers, children, and fathers are dying to escape the lethal poverty and gang violence and narco-trafficking of their homelands. (Surely you have seen the shocking photo of a drowned Salvadorean father and child recovered from Rio Bravo in Mexico.) Against all odds, many Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States have made it to New York and New England. Thus my sights turn to north of the equator. With respect to the curriculum, I do not want to skip any of the grammar lessons in between, but I do want to bypass Chile and Peru and make haste for Guatemala and El Salvador. We will see what happens. Anything is possible: new classmate (or none, if I go solo), new class schedule (afternoon is still an option). Who knows!
Now, to say evening prayer early. Brother Scott and I are spending time this evening with Brett, a Jesuit who is concluding his six weeks of study at Maryknoll tomorrow. We are going to La Cantonata, an Italian restaurant nearby Convento San Francisco, one block south of Plaza Colon. We can’t wait to try the best Italian food, Bolivian style, in Cochabamba!
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