Caminante No Hay Camino: December 2009

Just sending a little holiday greeting to all of you on my first Christmas morning in Tacna! I hope all of you are enjoying this time with family and friends and holiday cheer. It's been a busy time around here lately with the school year ending this week, outgoing volunteers going home, family and friends of 2nd year volunteers visiting for Christmas, and new volunteers (that's me!) moving into the JV house last Sunday. Lots of transitions, lots of excitement, but always surrounded by lots of great people so I'm still feeling very grateful to be here.
My housemates' families have been so wonderful about inviting me to all of their dinners and celebrations this past week. It's been great getting to know them, and it reminds me a lot of all the times parents came to visit Holy Cross and adopted me into their families because I was far away from home. The other night we all shared a really special meal with one of our neighbors, Mary, a longtime friend and 2nd mother to the JVs. She prepared probably the best empanadas I've ever tasted first of all, but throughout the entire meal was explaining to all the families how much she loves their children, how wonderful she thinks they are, and that they are always welcome in her house, like another member of the family. She said all of this in Spanish that we then translated for the parents, but she spoke so expressively and with so much emotion that it almost didn't seem necessary to translate. It was really beautiful to see them communicating through the language barrier, using just their hands and facial expressions. Mary also talked about the succession of volunteers that she's been close with over the years (especially the women) and how that chain will never be broken because new JVs come and overlap with old ones, right away being invited into all the friendships that already exist. That's a pretty special feeling for me to know that even though she and I just met, there's already a strong foundation of confianza (trust) and friendship between us just based on the relationships she's had with my compañeras who have come before me.
That was just one of many moments this past week that made me so excited to have my own family here a year from now, sharing with them this amazing community and the people that have welcomed me into it.

As far as my first Peruvian Christmas goes...yesterday was a pretty low-key day, but we did some holiday baking and then I got to visit this house that sets up 8 or 9 ridiculously elaborate nacimientos (Nativity scenes) that each represent a different region of Peru. They must have had thousands of little figurines set up, ranging from traditional Peruvian dancers to enormously oversized (and white) baby Jesuses to stuffed monkeys in the jungle nacimiento. They were cool to see though, and an interesting portrayal of Peru's diverse people and traditions.

Last night we all went to Christmas Eve mass at our chapel in Habitat. Cara and I were on choir duty again so we sang Ave Maria for probably the 5th or 6th time since I've been here, as well as a Spanish version of the Silent Night/Night of Silence arrangement that both of us sang in college. That was always one of my favorite songs we sang at Holy Cross, so it was really cool to teach it to our kids here and see such a beautiful result last night. Cara's dad was nice enough to record it for me so I'll try to put that video on here soon. After mass we participated in a really nice tradition of delivering Christmas food baskets to 4 of the poorest families in Habitat. Fr Fred led the way in his car, followed by Carlos and his guitar, all of us and our families, and any other neighbors/students who wanted to come. We sang villancicos (Christmas carols) at each door as we delivered the baskets (Feliz Navidad made several appearances) and all the families were very grateful for the gesture.

After that we all parted ways and spent the rest of Christmas Eve with our host families. The tradition in Peru is to gather with family late at night and countdown to midnight (New Years Eve style) at which time everyone toasts to baby Jesus with champagne, fireworks go off like crazy, and baby Jesus is finally placed in the nacimiento. We did all of this at my host mom's sister's house, followed by a quick amigo secreto (secret santa) gift exchange, then hurried back to their house so we could finally eat. By the time we got back, reheated the turkey, and set the table it was well after 1am...even my year in Spain did not prepare me for a full on turkey dinner that late at night! But it was fun and delicious all the same, and they kindly excused me from the table around 2:30 as I was falling asleep in my chair.
Now it's Christmas morning and I am the first one awake, just like when I was little. I'll probably have breakfast here with my host family and then head back to my new home in Habitat to relax for the rest of the day. Mom's Christmas package included a box of candy canes, Christmas cookie cutters, and our old Muppet Family Christmas video (I specifically requested the vhs that we taped from tv probably 15 years ago, complete with awesome early 90s commercials) so I think candy, baking, and muppets are all in my future for today and I am very happy about that.

I'm wishing all of you the very best today and for the new year, and know that I'll be thinking of you all day and sending lots of holiday cheer from Tacna to wherever you are. Feliz Navidad a todos...a very Merry Christmas to all!!

Here is some photo evidence of my life thus far in Tacna. This first one is of my community mates and me after our dance at Dia Familiar last Sunday (which came out very well by the way). I was the only JV who danced as a woman because we were lacking hombres (the 2 girls not in the picture also did the guy part), and yes those braids are fake. Many more to come of course, so stay tuned!

We just returned from a 3 day beach adventure which was lovely. Saturday was a field trip with the first year students from secondary so we spent all day playing games and swimming with them then camped on the beach. It was fun, but camping with 28 13 year olds equals not a lot of sleep. Then Sunday was paseo a la playa for all Miguel Pro teachers and families so the beach was full of our students and coworkers. After that the 5 of us JVs went to a beach house nearby to have our first retreat as a community. It was just one day but it was really nice to spend that time together just the 5 of us and start to talk about some of the issues we'll be facing together this year. We're all a little tired and sunburned now but it was definitely nice to see the ocean and do some reflecting on our time here so far and the year ahead.

Last week we had a really nice mass in the cathedral to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Jesuits in Tacna. All the local Jesuits came, plus the bishop of Tacna and the cardinal, who also happens to be a Jesuit. I've been helping out with the choir at Miguel Pro and our kids sang at the mass so I had a lot of fun working with them that night. AND my community mate Cara and I got to sing Ave Maria in front of a cathedral full of people, cardinal and all! The music director asked us if we knew it in Latin about a week before the mass because the kids were singing it in Spanish, and we kinda said yeah, I mean most Catholics can at least hum it. So I looked up all the words online, listened to Pavarotti sing it about 12 times on youtube, then we sang it, without having practiced even once! It came out really well and we got tons of compliments on the music that night, but I just couldn't help laughing at how last minute the whole thing was, especially for such a big mass like that. No rehearsal, no sheet music, no problem! Only in Peru...

Tomorrow I'm making my teaching debut as I take over Chelsea's 2nd grade class in primary and Cara's 2nd/3rd year advanced English class in secondary (the equivalent of our 8th/9th grades). We just have 2 weeks of school left before Christmas/summer vacation so this is our chance to get some test runs in before we have to do it for real and by ourselves in March. It looks like I'll be teaching both of those groups of kids next year, along with preschool (3, 4, and 5 year olds!!) and either a first year or 4th/5th year mixed class in secondary. I've observed almost every teacher in the school by now, interacted with lots of students, and helped out in both of these classes last week so I'm feeling ready to go and am really excited to see how I do in front of a classroom. And of course Chelsea and Cara will still be there if I need an assist. So wish me luck, and let me know if you can think of a way to make prepositions of movement any less boring than they sound. Enjoy the photos!

Profesora Maureen