I thought I slept. I did sleep, and I did dream. Didn’t I? Yes, I did. But there is sleep and there is rest. Clearly, I did not get the rest I needed. This, despite the lifestyle changes I have made. This, despite the sleeping medication. This, despite doing the right things.
Such a struggle to get through the morning. Figuratively speaking, my teachers had to drag me to the finish of each hour. I was too tired to put up much protest. I did ask them to halt when their conversation questions were too difficult and I did not want to go on. And I did refuse homework, explaining that I had the whole afternoon today at the girls’ shelter. Which was true. I did volunteer this afternoon at Nuestra Casa. But we did not have art projects today. The girls had to tidy up the shaggy garden plots, which was two hours’ work. This meant pulling up weeds, hacking at overgrowth, cleaning up debris, hoeing, raking, sweeping, and much more with simple yard tools. The girls worked very well. Me? I was just a lawn mower. I ran over and over the unkempt grass with a reel lawn mower; that means manual, non-electric, powered by humans. It wasn’t hard work, physically; but with my mind totally absent today, it prolonged the fatigue. I just wanted to go away and not be around anybody. I left early, when it was time for the girls to have their late afternoon break.
Fatigue probably has a lot to do with it, but also today, I felt for the first time the foreignness of Bolivia. Tania Avila Meneses gave the weekly cultural conference at Maryknoll. She talked about the celebration of Santa Vera Cruz, a syncretic celebration of the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the next cycle of life. On May 2 and 3 at Templo Santa Cruz Tatala, pilgrims bring offerings as they give thanks for the fertility of the earth they cultivate; the fertility of their animals, that is, their livestock; and the fertility of their families. At the feet of a figure of Christ crucified, women and couples who seek to bear children make their petitions, bringing dolls that they touch to the feet of Christ. They also buy figures of animals and place them, along with flowers and dried animal dung, around a ceremonial fire, or mesa, offering prayers, songs, and libations of chicha.
As we watched videos of indigenous women singing their high-pitched songs of the ch’alla, and as we made our own miniature mesas, shaping animals out of Play-Doh, I felt totally out of place. This was the first time I was profoundly and visibly uncomfortable with where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing. I don’t mean that I couldn’t bear the paganism mixed with Christian practice. I mean that I understood what we were about, but I could not relate to our activity at all. Why was I here? I just wanted to go away and rest. I do not say I wanted to go home—if you know me well, you know that home is neither here nor there—but just to rest. I needed a break from the foreignness.
I resented it that Señora Tania did not see my fatigue and discomfort. It seemed to me she saw only an American who was unwilling to enter into the experience of another culture. She did not know that I am not preparing for mission in a country other than my own. She did not know that I am not working with indigenous peoples. She did not know about my insomnia. She did not know my resistance had nothing to do with reluctance to engage other cultures and everything to do with not being there in spirit today.
Tomorrow is another day, goes the cliché. During my travels in Bolivia, I have experienced tomorrow breaking into today, and it has been fantastic. But today, tomorrow is a long time from now, and it feels far away. God, please grant me more rest. Hear what I am saying to you! Don’t let me go sleepless like this again. Let today, especially this today, yield to tomorrow.
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