Gruñón

I have been feeling grouchy since last evening and throughout the day. The work I am doing here brings no thrill or sense of significance today. It is merely hard work. I feel little motivation to do it at this hour. Now and again I remind myself I will not be living an immersion within Latino culture when I return to the United States. It will not always be this intensive. 

Understatement of the month: learning Spanish is hard work, tiring to the mind. Going at one-to-one conversation for four hours daily now is emptying me. I lay down this afternoon and slept for an hour. Still I want to lie in bed as I write this. 

So there is mental fatigue. There is also a feeling of resignation. The Franciscan friars at Convento San Francisco seldom interact with me. What can I do? In the earlier months I did not have the ability to listen to or speak at the pace of their speech. (I still lack the ability to follow their conversation.) Now their impression of me has probably set in firmly, and I would guess that impression is that I am aloof and withdrawn and do not want to interact with them. This is not true. Often I just want to (or have to) rest my mind and not talk to anyone in any language. But I do want to be let in on their conversations. I want to understand their jokes when they laugh. I want to participate, even if passively. But being excluded, or feeling excluded, by them makes me want to check out. 

There are other factors at work, too, cultural and social. For instance, I am from the United States, which may be triggering perceptions and prejudices that are operating underneath the surface of consciousness. I am a friar in perpetual vows, and for the student friars that creates barriers, because in Latin America, or at least Bolivia, there is a sense of hierarchy that separates brothers in perpetual vows from brothers in temporary vows. Maybe it is also personalities: I am introverted, and many of them seem to be introverted. Maybe they are preoccupied with their own discernment, with their own fears and doubts, and they have no time to coddle a friar from the United States struggling to speak their language. Fair enough, and more than fair enough. But still, I am feeling loss and absence today, as well as anger. 

If I could do over my Bolivia experience, I might opt for staying with a host family. Maryknoll pairs students who do not have their own accommodations with households throughout Cochabamba. The benefit of this arrangement, apart from quality room and board, is that the student receives constant emotional and spiritual attention from the household. You get to practice your listening and speaking skills with people who understand that you are working at an elementary or intermediate level of proficiency. They are other-centered. They are invested in your well-being. They provide tender loving care. There is a covenant between the students and their host families. Above all, this is what distinguishes those students’ living arrangement from mine at Convento San Francisco: ours is more contractual than covenantal. I guess I had taken it for granted that the fraternity there would be as attentive to me as a host family affiliated with Maryknoll would be to its charge. 

To my fellow Capuchins who will be studying Spanish with Maryknoll in Bolivia in the future, I would still recommend Convento San Francisco to them for the sake of preserving an inter-Franciscan and intercultural solidarity. The brothers are hard to get to know but they are plenty friendly, courteous, and polite. If it is a short-term stay, like six weeks or three months, I would especially recommend the convent. But if it is a long-term stay, like six months in my case, it might be more beneficial to opt for a host family, despite going outside a religious community with its common horarium of prayer and worship, meals, and social time. If you are introverted, I would definitely recommend the latter. Brothers, learn from my faults!