Fin de Semana

Wow. I have a lot to write about tonight.

First up: My trip to the seminary. On Friday morning I hopped on a bus headed to Ciudad Bolivar. I made it there no problem, but I'll leave out the embarrassing details of how I wandered the city for an hour thinking that I knew the way to the seminary on foot because I wanted to save money on a taxi, only to end up walking in circles and ultimately pay for a taxi anyway. I guess those are pretty much the details. And that I got sunburned in the process.

I made it to the seminary in time for lunch, and had a good time seeing the seminarians who I became good friends with during my week there in November, and have seen every so often in San Felix. During lunch the rector made an announcement that we would be cleaning for the afternoon, and clean we did. They brought in a big truck into which we threw all kinds of junk, including broken fans, old bricks, tree branches, gatorade bottles, etc. It felt good to do some physical labor, as I don't do much (or any) in my usual routine. It reminded me of working for John Fox a couple summers ago. And also reminded me of why I don't want to do that for the rest of my life. After loading up the truck completely full, Jose Antonio and I, along with two other seminarians, rode in the back out to the garbage dump.

The garbage dump was something I don't think I will ever forget. There were people living in it. Not living next to it, or nearby, but in it. Their houses were built out of the junk in which they were living. Almost entirely open, we could see right into the tiny space they called home. The one I could see most clearly consisted of a mattress, a refrigerator that wasn't plugged into anything, and an old broken dresser. Something that probably used to be a bedsheet but now is at best a dirty rag served as a partial wall on one side. The worst part was the amount of bugs everywhere. You know a bug swarm like when there is a dead animal on the side of the road? Very thick, loud, and definitely not something you want to approach. That kind of bug swarm was all over their shelters. A woman was lying down on the mattress, and the bugs were flying every, swarming all over her and the whole area. It was absolutely horrible. Three of the men jumped into the back of the truck with us and then did all of the work dumping it all out. They kept things that they thought would prove useful. A couple suitcases with big holes in them, the broken fans, a wire screen. The men were the dirtiest I have ever seen a human being. One man was wearing jeans that used to be white, something I only know because of a few spots near the waist that the white shone through. The rest was completely black with dirt and grime; I can only imagine how long he's been wearing that same pair of jeans. Jose told me that the garbage dump outside of Puerto Ordaz is even worse. If I can get a ride there I may go to see it before I leave.

The rest of my time at the seminary was a bit less saddening! We played a few games of volleyball on Friday which was great. I got to hang out with Jose and some other friends for the evening, and also had a good time talking with a priest from Spain who is quite the jokester and interesting to talk to. On Saturday morning I went to downtown Ciudad Bolivar with Jose, who got his hair cut, and then got to the bus station. I ended up taking not a bus, but a small car back to San Felix which was interesting. It wasn't quite unofficial, not a random guy taking us, but it wasn't super official either. We paid the tax to use the bus terminal (2 bolivares) and the four of us hopped in his car (3 random women). It was much quicker than taking the bus. However, I had a little issue going through a military checkpoint. I didn't have my passport with me which was just dumb on my part since we had had a similar problem going through the same checkpoint with the University of St. Thomas group. I had a copy of my passport with me as always, so with that and about 15 minutes of convincing the 5 soldiers that I wasn't, well actually I don't know what I was convincing them of but I basically told them over and over that I'm a volunteer, teaching English to people in San Felix and after searching my bag and asking me a million questions, they let me go.

Father Wille from The Congo, who I wrote about in my post from my first trip to the seminary. 

Saturday evening I was invited to go to a show in Puerto Ordaz with a couple friends who live there. It was drastically different than my experiences here in San Felix, but they are really good people and I had a fun night. The show was a magic/comedy show which was impressive and absolutely hilarious. One joke involved a little jab at Hugo Chavez, the president. Long story but during that joke each card of a deck of cards had a name written on the back, "Ana" on the 2, "Carlos" on the 6, and "Hugo" on the Joker. Half of the audience laughed really hard, the other half did not. After the show we went to the apartment of a friend of my friend Maria, which was, again, quite different than what I'm used to here in San Felix. We went out to a discoteca and had a great time. I met a guy from Switzerland which was quite random. He approached me and asked in English, "Where you from bro?" which threw me for a loop as I was very much in Spanish mode. Apparently he's living in Caracas for two months on vacation and was here to check out Puerto Ordaz. His Spanish was good but English just mediocre, so we talked in kind of a mix of the two.

Today I had my last English class. I decided not to have class next week since I'll be busy getting my room packed up and seeing friends. We had a final exam which they did really well on. It made me feel good knowing that the kids have, in fact, learned something and had a good time doing so. After the test I had some pop and cookies and candies for them all, we hung out and laughed and had a good time. I brought a English and Spanish beginners bible from Minnesota in January, and I put the kids names in a cup and gave it to a lucky winner. She was pretty excited about it, as lame as a beginners bible may sound. We took a group picture just before they left. It was kinda sad thinking that I won't see most of them again, but I really enjoyed my time with them, as crazy as they were sometimes.

Tomorrow I'm going to the campo to hang out at the river all day, I'll try to get some good pictures and post about it on Wednesday!

Falta Poco

Time is flying by, and I'm realizing how little time I have left here. I'm leaving on May 11th which is just 2 and a half weeks away! I am excited to get home and be with friends and family, but it is going to be weird leaving here. Today Gregoria asked me when I'm going to come back, and I told her I hope to be able to come next summer. That seems so far away! I've made great friends here and saying goodbye to them until maybe 13 or 14 months from now already feels strange and I'm still a few weeks out from the final goodbye. I'm taking advantage of each day and really appreciating all the little things that have made this experience what it has been.

I thought I'd just post some pictures I have from the last few weeks. Also, here is a link to a video Fr. Tim made of the parish festival on Easter Sunday. I wrote a little about that in my last post. It's the church's "birthday", since it's called Jesucristo Resucitado (Resurrected Christ if cognates aren't your forte), so the first half of the video happy birthday is being sung. A lot of the people who appear in the video are good friends of mine. The dancers in white are coming to Minnesota in September. It's a cool video, check it out! Oh and at about 1:20 starts the usual birthday song here, much more interesting and meaningful than what we sing in the U.S.!

Escuelita in the Casa Hogar

Classic

With some friends on Easter Sunday

Party in the campo! One of the Brito uncles had a huge birthday party out where he lives in the middle of nowhere. 150+ people and a live band, it was great.

La Familia y Semana Santa

It's been a while since I've posted on here. Time to get back on the blog post game I suppose. I've had a busy few weeks. On the 27th I went to Aruba. Long story short, the travel day was not a good one. I was supposed to be in Aruba by 1pm and have a nice relaxing day at the beach, but instead landed at 845pm. It was a long and frustrating day at the airport, topped off by taxiing out to the runway and turning back around to wait another hour and a half in the plane. Great times. Once I finally got to Aruba, however, life was good. It's a very touristy island just a 45 minute flight from Caracas in which all of the natives speak 4 languages fluently, which is so impressive. Papamiento is the native language, but by the time they graduate from high school they are required to speak English, Spanish, and Dutch as well. My family arrived on Wednesday afternoon and we went straight to the beach! The 3 days we spent in Aruba were a lot of fun, we got to go scuba diving two days, the first time we've been able to go the whole family together which was pretty cool. We left on Saturday afternoon to get to Venezuela. With two hour delays on both of our flights, we got here after midnight which made getting up for Palm Sunday mass a treat.

I can't help but be distracted by the nipple piercings when I look at this picture

The Palm Sunday service started at the redoma at the bottom of the hill probably a mile or so from the church, everyone gathered with their palms (actual palms) and processed up to the church. On Sunday we also went to el Parque Cachamay and saw some waterfalls and fed the monkeys. That afternoon we went to a big soccer game. Los Mineros are the team from here in Guayana and are quite good, currently in second place in the league I believe. The game ended in a tie 2-2. Lots of people, chants, fireworks, flamethrowers, etc.

Throughout the week the fam was able to meet a lot of my friends which was great. We went to La Llovizna with Andreina, Yusmaris, Greiicy, and Frans, one of my students. We were able to go to la Plaza de Navidad, to see the Sisters of Charity, to a sweet museum in the dam. We got to hang out with Jose Antonio a couple different nights which was a lot of fun, I'm really glad they were able to meet since he's such a good friend of mine. One night Gregoria invited us over to have dinner and hang out which was great, another night we went to Ruth's family's house for a while and delivered the bag that Ruth sent down with my family. Everyone really liked meeting my family and talking with them. Sometimes it was a little tiring and busy for me doing a ton of translating but it worked out pretty well. At Ruth's house Jose Antonio was there too so he was able to help which was great.

Mom with Davíd from the Casa Hogar

Dad showin the youngins that he's still got it. Also, Luis guessed his age at 36. 

Dani impressed the group a ton with being able to learn the dances really quickly

I, however, did not

And I'll let you guess how Michael did

On Wednesday there was a two hour stations of the cross through the barrio here in Guaiparo, but Friday was the big one. It went through all 11 barrios of the parish and took about 4.5 hours. I've never done anything like it. Overall Holy Week was much more interesting and felt more real here, but Friday's stations of the cross were what cemented it for me. Just after the 12th station, in which Jesus dies on the cross, it started to rain. This is the dry season and it hardly rains at all, that morning in particular was very hot so the rain was unusual. Definitely a powerful stations of the cross.

My friend Orianna loved Michael

I forgot to mention that we got a tour of the hospital here in Guaiparo. It's a 1000 bed hospital. Pretty big eye opener being inside it. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time in hospitals, seeing this one was a little scary. If I had been here when I ruptured my spleen I think I probably would have died. There were tons of people there, lines up and down the hallways waiting to be seen, 6 inpatients in a room, some with infection, the others soon to get infected. The patients spend a ton of time in the hospital, something that would take 3 days in the U.S. takes over a month to get done and recover from here. Quite the place.

My family left early Saturday morning, and made it home to Minnesota all in one day, with four flights in total that all left more or less on time which is very unusual. Lucky them!

Saturday night at the Easter Vigil mass there were baptisms and confirmations which was pretty cool. My friend Andreina asked me to be her confirmation sponsor so I got to be right up front for the actual confirmation. The mass started with the lighting of the big candle from a wood fire outside, followed by everyone lighting their own small candles off of it. The first half of the mass there were no lights on, just the candles. It was a very cool mass I liked it a lot.

Mi ahijada de confirmacion!

Part of the Brito family

Easter Sunday was not like any Easter Sunday I've had before. I arrived with the Britos about a half hour before the 8am mass was to start, but I ended up not going to mass which was weird. First Easter Sunday ever that I didn't go to mass. I helped get everything set up for the church festival after the mass. Angelo, Jhonny, Gustavo and I set up some tents and the sound system and that kind of thing. Easter Sunday is a big day everywhere, of course, but at this parish in particular because it's called Jesucristo Resucitado. Kind of the patron day of the church or however you call that. There was a party with lots of food and lots of people, dance presentations, etc, after mass. After that party, I went with the Brito's down to their house where at around 3pm they started another party. There were a lot of people there, some of the guys were grilling so lots of food, it was a great time. As it got later there was lots of dancing which was fun, overall just a great Easter and one unlike any I've ever had.

Yusmaris and Maria, Ruth's mom

Gladys with her bag full of money before the parish festival

The young Brito cousins!

Bishop Mariano greeting a few friends of mine, he's quite the jokester I like him a lot.

The group that is coming to MN in September performed

It was awesome having my family here. I'm really grateful that they made the trip, it wasn't an easy one to make. My siblings both missed some school, Michael 7 days I believe which is a lot. Both of my parents missed work, my dad in particular had to take a lot of days off. It's a tough trip to make and a very different place, kind of a difficult place, to be. Not speaking Spanish made things tough at times I know, sometimes I just couldn't translate everything. However, it meant a lot that even with all that they came down wanting to learn about where I've been living so that they can understand it a bit better. Thanks guys.