Dia de Juventud

Sunday, February 12th, was Venezuela's Dia de Juventud, Youth Day. From what I understand, it is a day commemorating the Battle of Victoria which took place in 1814. In that battle for independence from Spain (if I understood this correctly when it was being explained to me) many students from universities and seminaries joined in the fight. Because of that, February 12th is Youth Day. On Saturday the diocese had it's 10th annual youth walk. It started at 8am with a mass said by Bishop Mariano in a church called Buen Pastor. After that was the walk from that parish to a different one about 5 miles away.

I texted Father Carlos on Friday afternoon asking if there was still going to be class the next morning because of the walk. He replied saying yes, at 8am. The next morning when he hadn't shown up by 8:30 I said screw it and got in a taxi to go to the walk. I texted him saying that, but he didn't respond. Whatever.

I got extremely lucky in actually finding the church. I had never been to it before, and it's in a part of San Felix that I don't know at all. I knew which barrio it was, and asked the taxi driver if he knew where the church was. He said maybe. I figured I would probably get pretty close and be able to ask someone where it was. He dropped me off, and when I asked someone they said ohh it is far, go that way and keep going straight straight straight. The "straight" road that I was supposed to stay on forked more than once, I took guesses and who knows how, suddenly there was a church across the road with a bunch of youth in front of it. Nice. As I arrived at the mass, Monseñor was about to start his homily. The church was very full and people were still outside, but he invited everyone to come in and find a spot. He said there was room behind the altar. A seminarian I know and a group of random people and I walked up to go behind the altar. When he recognized me, the bishop announced to the whole church that there is an American here! Suddenly all 1000+ people were all eyes on me haha great. I found Jose Antonio after mass, but I knew a surprising amount of people there from various things. Five or six of my students that Father Carlos had said I was going to teach that morning were there, which just makes me more annoyed with him. The actual walk was fun. Tons of people, lots of singing and for me, talking to people who were curious about who I was. I forgot to bring two very important things. My camera, and sunscreen. So I'm burned and don't have pictures of the walk. Pretty standard. Actually I do have a few pictures. Someone tagged me in a few pictures on facebook so I can take those and put them on here. Oh, also, I got interviewed right before the walk started. I'm not sure who they were, or why they thought it would be a good idea to interview the gringo. The lady asked me how I thought this walk related to the journey of the students and seminarians almost 200 years ago, if/how I thought the youth are the future of the country (duh?) and what message I would give to youth who weren't able to come to this walk. Considering I found out two minutes before this what the day was even about, I was not a very good choice to ask about these things. But with a camera rolling and another guy sticking a voice recorder in my face, I b.s.'ed my way through. I have a feeling they won't be using that interview for anything haha most likely they found someone who is actually from Venezuela and speaks spanish a bit better than I do.

Despite getting sunburnt, having a quarrel with a priest, and actually that's all my hardships, it was a good day. And it was good to hang out with Jose Antonio a bit!

These pictures were taken by some random guy, Gregoria from the church somehow found them and saw me (I stick out a little bit)

Clearly not related, I just like this picture from skyping with Dani and Michael the other night