My time in San Félix: El Seminario

I spent the past week at the seminary, in another city called Ciudad Bolivar. It is the capital of the state of Bolivar, in which San Felix is located. It is about an hour or so away from here. I went to visit Jose Antonio, and to pretty much just hang out at the seminary. I wasn't really sure what to expect but it turned out to be a good time. I got there on Sunday, arriving in a mid-sized SUV with 13 people and suitcases/backpacks jammed in. It was more than a little rediculous. The seminarians go to various cities and work at parishes on the weekends, so I was coming back with some of them. I had met a few of them when they came to Ciudad Guayana, but not many. So I was a little uncomfortable at first. The first evening, Jose asked if I wanted to go to mass since I hadn't gone that morning, so I said yeah sounds good. Our plan was to go to a local church just a few blocks away, but as we were leaving the bishop stopped us and asked where we were going. When we explained he invited us to just come with him to the cathedral, as he was about to leave to go say mass there. So, we hopped in the bishops private car and went to the cathedral. The cathedral is very pretty, from the outside it reminds me of what my mental picture of Spain is. It was built in 1760 or so but has been restored since then. It's located across a plaza from the capital building, it's a really pretty area I liked it a lot. Flags, statues, benches with nice old ladies enjoying the day, etc. I was able to return another day with my camera so these pictures are from that day. After mass, we got back in the car to go back to the seminary. However, the bishop has only been the bishop there for a week, and his driver, another priest, has also only been there for a week. So we got lost. We spent the better part of an hour wandering Ciudad Bolivar. A priest, a bishop, two seminarians, and a random American. It was a good time, and we eventually found our way back.

The rest of the week was pretty relaxing. I went to my first college class! I thought that was kind of funny. I went to Jose's psychology class with him. I was actually able to understand most of it and participated in an interesting activity that involved blindfolds and wandering around the room. The seminarians were very welcoming and, for lack of a better word, nice to me. Multiple times I was asked if I wanted to come along to go to the store or on an errand. It wasn't just Jose's friends that invited me out with them either, he said that a few of the guys who I talked to don't particularly like him for whatever reason. So it was nice that in a new place where I didn't have a clear purpose, the seminarians invited me to hang out and talk and do things with them. We played volleyball a few times which was awesome. A lot of the guys are really athletic and the games were pretty intense. I'm a little embarrassed to say that Jose blocked one of my spikes. He's not tall. It was going to be a good one too but he got a hand in the way and let's just say he's not going to let me forget it.

One of the priests at the seminary is a Father Willie, Willem, something along the lines of Will. (Names are hard, I'm sorry, and everyone just calls priests Padre). He is from The Congo, so his first language is French. He also speaks Italian and Spanish. He learned Spanish in Spain, so he speaks with a pretty heavy Spanish accent which is interesting. The first time we met, he asked what kind of theology I'm studying, assuming that I am a seminarian. When I told him that I am not, he asked, "why not?". Since then he's become determined that I'm going to be a priest. Meh. Not for me. We talked for over an hour one day, it was really interesting. Our lives are clearly extremely different, but the small similarities in that we are both in a country that is not our own, speaking a language that is not our own, was kind of cool.

Yesterday morning, Thursday, Manuel, who is one of the seminarians, asked me if I wanted to go to the "centro" with him. I assumed that meant he needed to go shopping or something and he was asking me if I wanted to come along for something to do. So I said yeah, definitely. Turns out he didn't need to go shopping, he invited me purely to show me some of the city. So we took a bus down to downtown Ciudad Bolivar, located on the river. The same river, by the way, that goes past Ciudad Guayana. (There are two here in Ciudad Guayana, the Caroní and Orinoco, this was the Orinoco). We took a boat, for 3 BsF each way (equal to just about nothing in dollars) across the river. When we got off he informed me that we were now in a different state. So that's cool, I went to a different state. There is a town across the river of about 20,000 people that largely commutes across the river every day for school and work. A little further up the river there is a large bridge. It reminded me of the Golden Gate Bridge, it was big and pretty impressive. Manuel kept asking to use my camera and took a bunch of pictures of me with various things in the background hah way more than necessary. He's a really nice guy, I was pleasantly surprised that he spent his morning showing me around when he probably had studying to do.

Overall my time at the seminary was enjoyable. Lots of nice guys, interesting talks with priests, volleyball, finding books in English in the library, hanging out with Jose Antonio. I took a bus back here yesterday. It was raining so hard when I got to San Felix, one of the hardest rains I've ever been in. I was able to jump off the big bus and quickly hop on a local bus. It felt good to be able to know where I was going, which bus to get on, when to get off. I got off right in front of the Casa de Hogar and ran in there to wait out the rain rather than get soaked walking the two blocks home. They were all excited to see me which was fun, I missed them. There's a new boy who's name I think is Stefian, who the boys excitedly informed me speaks English. He is from Guyana, where the official language is English. The country was British colony until the 1960's. The people there generally speak both English and Spanish. He was pretty quiet and shy for the short amount of time I was there yesterday, but it will be interesting to be able to speak English a bit with him.

Time to go get a haircut, plan tomorrow's English class, and then meet up with Andreina to buy our tickets for Sunday's baseball game!