After some uncertainty among the staff, it is now clear that my classes will move from the afternoon to the morning next week, March 4, not the week after. Six of the sixteen students among us are now finished with their course of study; yes, this happens even in the middle of a six-week term. Five of the students are missionaries with the Mennonite Central Committee; they will now begin their two-year assignments in La Paz and Santa Cruz. At least I think they have a two-year commitment. Too bad to see them go; I was just beginning to befriend a couple of them. The other departing student is a nun from Korea. There are enough teachers available in the morning for the five of us students who were in the afternoon shift to switch.
What is still unclear is whether I will rotate to new profesores with the time shift next week, or keep my tutors one more week. The rotation of tutors usually occurs at mid-term, after three weeks. We are only two weeks in.
Another heads-up: Monday and Tuesday are national holidays—Carnaval is on! Thus the Maryknoll Mission Center is closed, and there are no classes. I have yet to have a five-day week of classes. An easy yoke and light burden, indeed. This circumstance could make me complacent, then lethargic. Will my night owl’s body be willing to rise early enough to shower before morning prayer, gobble breakfast quickly, and make the commute via bus to Maryknoll, and be alert for four hours, until noon? We shall see.
The ten students who remain include the two Maryknoll seminarians from Kenya; two Maryknoll Lay Missioners from the United States; a priest from India; the other Korean sister; three lay persons (Ireland and United States); and me. A small but mighty group.
This morning and afternoon: homework and housework. I wrote several sentences about the attractions of Bolivia, cultural and natural, that make it superlative among the nations of South America and the world. I returned to the Metropolitan Cathedral and Templo Santo Domingo to gaze longer at the churches, inside and out, taking illegible notes in Spanglish to be rendered now into intelligible basic Spanish. As for Templo San Francisco, I can open the church at any time to look more deeply at the interior and prepare my description for Wednesday’s class. On my way through the neighborhood to the churches I passed at least five beggars, men and women, all of them native and not at all Hispanic in their appearance. I had toted a bag full of bread just for this trip, knowing I would encounter many poor. I gave away all the rolls I had. They understood pan and Dios te bendiga. But not all of them could see me. Dear God, how shiny and cloudy their sunken eyes! I’ve never seen blindness look as sickly as this. It’s scary. My own eyes were astonished, and my heart was moved with pity.
Back now at the convent with laundry hanging to dry and sharing with you all the things I see and hear. I promise to write about the churches in an extra post—I’ve got a four-day weekend—but I will write about them for my profesores first.
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