Además

I thought I slept for almost seven hours last night, and maybe I did. I went to sleep at 9:30 p.m., choosing not to watch the live-action version of The Lion King with the brothers. I woke at 3:30 a.m., which is usual. I think I fell asleep and had dreams and woke again at 4:30 a.m., staying half-awake until it was time to rise at 5:45 a.m. Whatever sleep I got, it did not really carry me through classes today. So tired! Did I really sleep that little? 

Or maybe it is something else. Maybe I did rest enough, and rather I was pushing myself to go further in classes. I do recall speaking more and not just listening to Joshua speak to the teachers until they decided it was my turn to add something to the conversation. Let’s be hopeful and say it was the latter: I was simply participating more, giving more of all that I had. But it was still tiring and not a pleasant feeling to be tapped out throughout the morning. The mid-morning coffee hour and a cup of tea with a heaping spoonful of turbinado sugar gave me a little more pep for the third hour of classes, but I had had it by noon. I was half asleep during Mass at the mission center chapel. Lunch helped to restore me, but by then I was resentful that my body had not cooperated with my soul this morning. 

If we were to compare these six months in Bolivia to marathon, I would be a third of the way through the course now. Sunday will mark 60 days since I entered the country. It has been fully two months since I began this journey. I would suggest that my body-soul-spirit-mind is simply telling me it is feeling the long-term fatigue of immersion. Hours of formal practice hearing-speaking-reading-writing Spanish and more hours of informal, real-life practice in the convent and around the city are accumulating. My organism feels the stretching, the tearing, the aching, and the desire now and then to drop everything and simply rest in the thought-forms of my maternal tongue. 

But at the same time—and this is peculiar to me—it begins to feel strange to speak English to others, especially when I know Spanish is their maternal tongue and I have it in me to say something back in Spanish. And, for the first time today, I found it easier to think of Spanish words instead of English words. This happened during Eucharist. I had just returned to my chair after receiving the bread and wine. We had just heard the words el cuerpo de Cristo. For some reason, I had to think a few moments before remembering that in English we hear the minister say “the body of Christ” at communion. Why did my mind need a few seconds before remembering those words I have heard regularly for the last 22 years? I just found this to be an interesting point of seeing. 

Don’t get me wrong: it is a hundred times easier to communicate in English. But being in over my head with Spanish all the time no longer feels like being in over my head. It’s still an immersion, of course, but maybe my eyes and nose are just above the water now. 

Some odds and ends before I go: 

After Eucharist and lunch, I visited the migration office today to prolong the use of my visa. In and out with no complications. Would that all persons had as easy a time of it with immigration officials as this Yankee did. 

Tomorrow, to Quillacollo with Fray Bladimir and a few other brothers for the youth ministry conference. As of this hour, I don’t know what awaits us, even though I have seen an itinerary for the day. It is not a long journey from Cochabamba to Quillacollo, but I ask you anyway to continue to keep me in your prayers for safe travels wherever I go throughout the country. 

On Sunday I return to Nuestra Casa to visit all the girls. We didn’t have the theater workshop with the guest presenters last Sunday because we all walked to Plaza de las Banderas to enjoy the attractions of El Día del Peatón, unmolested by motor vehicles. Who knows what we will do this Sunday for activities or entertainment. Perhaps we will go for a walk again. Maybe we will find another instant carnival in the city center. And why not? This is Bolivia. And today is El Día del Niño, a national holiday which is as big a deal if not bigger than Mother’s Day or Father’s Day in the United States. There’s even a Google Doodle for it today in this country. The Children’s Day celebration is precisely why Carla Bazoalto of the Maryknoll staff spoke about the social condition of children and teenagers at our cultural conference on Wednesday. On the way home today I saw all kinds of playground equipment in Plaza de las Banderas and many children enjoying the trampolines and playpens and all sorts of thingamajigs you could climb up and slide down. So chances are good today’s festivities in honor of the dignity of children may carry over through the weekend. Maybe the instant playground will still be there.