Viajes

Off-week plans are beginning to come together. I spoke to Brother Leo, then Padre Juan Carlos, about staying with the Franciscan friars in La Paz while visiting the city for a couple of days. Padre Juan Carlos made a call to the guardian at the convent in La Paz; the guardian had just stayed here at Convento San Francisco this weekend with the Franciscan bishops. We are now set to have me stay for two nights, next Monday and Tuesday, at the convent in La Paz. I will return to Cochabamba on Wednesday evening. The next day, Thursday, I will go to Oruro for the pilgrimage to La Virgen del Socavón with Joshua and our Maryknoll colleagues. On Friday I will meet Brother Scott at the airport with Brother Leo. In all, a full week is in store. I have sent a request for funds to my home province. 

This morning at Maryknoll: mastering the future tense with Profesor Ósvaldo, and conversation with Profesora Vicky about mission and attitudes appropriate for successful intercultural encounters. The weekly conference featured the geography and culture of southern Bolivia. Silvia Martinez, the communications and public relations manager for the mission center, and a native of the department of Tarija, the southernmost province of Bolivia, was the presenter. Most of her focus was on the department of Chuquisaca, or Sucre, and the department of Tarija. This presentation had a show-and-tell component, too. Silvana welcomed two friends who modeled the traditional clothing of the Chaco and Chapaca cultures of Tarija and danced the cueca for us. (They lured Joshua and Profesora Liliana into dancing in couples with them.) She also presented several instruments common to the region, including the bombo, guitar, and violin of the chacareras, and a six-foot cane horn or caña that Joshua gamely blew for us. If you are looking for fine wine, delicious fish, 15 varieties of potatoes, and a land of smiles and flowers (or so they boast), then go to Tarija. A very respectable and competent presentation, comprehensive even for a single class period, but I confess my mind was wandering.

This afternoon at Nuestra Casa: we began a new art project with five of the girls, two of whom are new residents at the shelter. I assembled a still life using ordinary objects from the kitchen: cups, glasses, bowls, a teapot, and so on. I chose items whose shapes were simple (cylinders, half-spheres, etc.) and were lacking ornamentation of any kind. The aim was simply to draw what you saw using a plain graphite pencil. I joined the girls in the exercise, too. I learned a couple of things from the experience. First, the still life was too busy. There were too many objects in the arrangement. It was hard to know what to emphasize, what objects to accent. Nothing stood out. My still life had no focal points. That leads to the second realization. The girls have trouble concentrating. They do not focus easily or narrow in on a perspective. Their drawings reflected this total lack of perspective. Objects were floating and never came to land. They did not exist in any discernible relationship, one with another. They were lacking in emphasis of light and dark or the texture of the objects. I think that if we repeat this drawing exercise on Sunday, we will arrange far fewer objects and remind the girls to look carefully, draw slowly, and fill in all the small details. 

Still getting accustomed to the new medication for sleeping. Woke late but felt alert until mid-morning, when drowsiness and distraction set in. I will pay attention to this. I will be watching my moods, too. Sadness came over me late in the morning and hung heavily during the afternoon. I pray to shake it off. I’m doing what has worked before, which is to write a song with irreverent lyrics. Presently, I’m leaning on the surrealist style of Bob Dylan. It has helped whenever God and my humanity give me the blues.