Hearts and stars

March came and went with my silence - disculpenme! The month kept me ever-moving, or homebound due to rains, and finally I emerge to celebrate drying puddles, Easter blessings, and children.

Yes, rainy season is slowly closing! After months of mud puddles, moldy clothes, and oppressive heat, April is blessing us with lower temperatures, sunless skies, and tapering rains. Halleluiah! It´s still painfully hot, but my skin has learned Ecuador enough to appreciate even this minor shift. Neighbors tell us the rains and heat will continue to subside and that June and July are downright cool in comparison. Amen, amen.

We enjoyed a different Easter celebration than we´d ever experienced, including a Good Friday caminata that left our crucified ¨Christ¨ on the cross. I stood stricken in the crowd, not caring that tears rolled down my cheeks. I´ve never seen anything like it. I´ve never watched someone crucified, particularly not my Savior. And I still haven´t, I suppose, but now I understand His sacrifice in a more personal and even visceral way. It hurts, but it added a new sweetness and joy to Sunday´s Resurrection. Here, Sunday is not the heartiest Easter celebration - the Saturday vigil takes the cake. Still, Sunday found me skipping down the street to mass, celebrating my risen Christ! What a gift.

On Friday of Easter week, our rag-tag team of volunteer managed to come together to create a surprisingly organized day of challenges for our kids. The Third Annual Rostro de Cristo After-school Program OLIMPIADAS brought together a team of kids from each of our three after-school programs (Semillas de Mostaza in Arbolito, Valdivia in AJS, and Manos Abiertas in 28 de agosto) to compete in academic and athletic events. Language, Math, and Geography started the day, followed by a high-energy obstacle course y por supuesto a soccer tournament. I´m proud to announce that my Semillas munchkins took the gold by scoring the most overall points, though the kids from Valdivia won the Character Award for sportsmanship and Manos Abiertas absolutely wins the Spirit Award. I´ve NEVER seen a band of six year-olds scream like that. Unbelievable. Since I hosted the event at Semillas, my mind was everywhere and I ended up watching and enjoying very little of the day. Still, hearing rave reviews from kids and parents in the subsequent days sweetened my memory of the craziness. Despite the headaches, exhaustion and extensive planning, I´m proud of our kids, volunteers, and Kevin for coming together to work and play.

Recently I´ve been considering more concretely my post-Ecuador future. I applied for a job doing community organizing in my hometown of Waukegan, IL and have spent a fair amount of time writing the application, communicating with the organization and interviewing. Ultimately my August 9 return date will almost certainly disqualify me from the position, but I hope to work with them in some capacity (likely volunteering) when I do return to Waukegan.

And that´s what gets me. Waukegan? Five years ago I was chomping at the bit to bail out, planning to shake the dust off my feet and never again call it home. It was small, boring, and, worst of all, familiar. Now, all of a sudden, after traveling thousands of miles all over Latin America, it´s my first stop and most compelling call. What gives? What changed? I did, I suppose. It seems we Peace Studies major and ¨global thinkers¨ of all walks of life easily fall into the trap of the international. It´s sexy. There´s nothing glamourous about Waukegan, but Ecuador, Sierra Leone, Cambodia - now that´s sexy. They´re exciting, different, foreign, exotic. They impresses people. But they´re not where I´ll be useful. The more I learn about who I really am (versus who I may naively wish I were), the more I realize that my gifts and skills call me back home. ¨Home¨ doesn´t necessarily mean Waukegan, though it will in the short term. But being in the States, working wherever I may be called in whatever capacity, is where I´m ready to go. It might be sexy, but I doubt it. But it´ll be mine and I´ll be good at it. And, man alive, am I excited.

So there´s the challenge. Since my arrival I´ve struggled with the reason for my presence here. Why do I stay where I´m useless when I could be working in a place where my knowledge, skills, and networks could help me accomplish great things? Now I look at my next step and realize that I´m not only going to be darn good at it, but am eager and excited to start. How do I stay where I am? I´m wrestling with my enthusiasm about the future, trying to subdue it to stay present. My body will be here until August. My challenge now is to keep my spirit just as local.

The trick, I think, will be to realize how blessed ¨here¨ is. It´s been easier lately. Yesterday at Semillas I sat back and listened to Scott´s charla (talk) about what it means to be a good friend. With Belén and Bola under each of my arms, I took in these kids, breathed their air, thought about them showing off their new toys. What a gift! Tops have entered Arbolito as the new craze. Yesterday I tried my hand for the first time. The kids gathered around to watch Kevin and Denise teach me to wrap and throw the top, and shouted with praise when I nailed in the first time. I saw how excited they were to share with me. Sometimes I forget that I´m special to them. I forget that they appreciate and maybe even need my love and attention. I need to stay here. I want to. My body´s here. My kids want to hug and squeeze and climb all over that body, and it´s not only my duty but my privilege to keep the spirit. They deserve the spirit. So do I.

Remembering the blessing of my time here has also been easier as I´ve watched a dear friend bid it farewell. This morning we dropped Dre off at the airport, sending her back to her family in Houston and her new job in Chicago with love and a flow of tears. How can I tell you about her without sounding trite? If I say that she invested more time, energy and love in the house community and the neighborhood than the rest of us, I sound cliche. Or if I tell you that she was an example of self-gift, service, and hospitality, I sound insincere. But that´s Dre. It´s not all she is. She has her weaknesses and limitations too. She can be frustratingly passive. She gets stressed easily. She always puts those damn Jell-o cups in our fridge and they spill everywhere. But today, to celebrate her, I give you the gifts she´s given me, and they are these lessons, self-gift, service, hospitality. In the last few weeks, I´ve begun to see her more genuinely. As she got ready to leave, she seemed to guard herself less. She laughed and played more, and also gave as much as she could. Some people would pull back as they prepare to leave, hoping to avoid the pain of separation by denying love. Dre did the opposite. She loved more.

Sometimes she drove me nuts with her constant ironing and her unwillingness to come right out and tell us what she really wanted. She surprised me. Even I didn´t know I care for her as much as I do. And as I´m saying goodbye to her, I realize I´m losing a bigger part of myself than I expected. When did I give her myself? When did she accept me? There was no flash moment, no give-and-receive. Piece by piece, I guess, in these last 8 months we handed over bits of ourselves to each other. I have some of her, which is why I can still feel strong and energetic right now. So this is the gift of living together so long. Community. Love. I love her.

Prayer intentions: for Andrea, that she travels safely and finds the love and companionship of people who care, and that she heals in all the ways she´s broken; for Lisa and Ian throughout their engagement; for all mothers-to-be, especially Karen, Cristina, and Katiuska; for Maria and Beatriz, who are both suffering from uterine cancer; and for whoever needs grace today.