Dear Annie

A letter I recently wrote to a lovely young woman in Honduras:

Hey Annie,

Thank for your update. I like hearing your news, and especially your openness. Sometimes I struggle to defer to decisions made by Rostro administration, and then remember that I took a vow of obedience and I listen. There´s a place for challenging injustice and ignorance, but at 24, my bigger challenge is being quiet and humble.

I hate that women here look like they do. You said it - ripped and stretched by childbirth and probably abusive husbands/boyfriend/fathers. They look old and broken at 30. Their iron frames look pathetically thin and weak, and somehow are carrying more weight - physical and emotional - than I know how to bear. Recently I read something by Max Lucado, something about not trying to tackle tomorrow´s problems yet because we don´t yet have tomorrow´s strength. Wait for it, the problems and the strength, and stop worrying. Good advice for us. For them? Are they getting the strength they need? Sure. God provides it. But why are they given days that rip their bodies to shreds without taking into account the needs of their minds, hearts, and spirits? I watch this and feel silly in how simple and insufficient my response is. It´s wrong, it´s unjust, it´s not right. It´s also not my job to fix it. So I sit here and feel blessed and grateful and responsible.

Did you ever go to Spirit of Sophia? A few years ago Sarah Miller shared some simple and painful insights about our learning. We all talk about our process of learning about life. From there we talk about our growing sense of responsibility, how we´ve been given so much education and love, how we´re so blessed, how we feel guilty about how God stacked the deck in our favor, how we´re obligated and excited to pay it forward. Luke 12:48 stuff. Sarah challenged us to stop promising a future of work and start now. We´re mortgaging our lives, she said, by waiting until we finish this paper, this class, our college experience, to start serving the way we´re called. I´m studying now so I can be better prepared for later. I´m taking it easy now so I can go hard and fast when I need to. Stop it. Stop making excuses and buying time. Step up, wherever and however.

So I got my degree from ND and moved into the world, and now I´m in Ecuador, where I came to serve and to practice some of that precious, lightning-hot love. I´m here and living. But I´m still looking forward. In college I said, ¨Just wait until I get to Ecuador. THEN I´ll be able to serve the poor the way God really wants me to.¨ Now I´m here in Ecuador, feeling helpless and somewhat purposeless, not knowing how or even whether to get involved in the ugliness of corrupt systems and neglecting families and abusive relationships. Now I´m saying, ¨Just wait until I get back to the US. THEN I´ll be able to use my gifts they way God intended. THEN I´ll be able to serve.¨

A few things are working on me here. The first is that I´m struggling to break out of the I´m-in-college, this-isn´t-the-real-world, just-wait mentality and trying to find the best ways to use the immense God-given, jointly-honed gifts. The other is that I absolutely underestimate myself and what I do in a day. I absolutely undervalue the power of loving someone quietly and with dedication and with God. I think too little of prayers, and casual greetings, and making my mind and feet still enough to look people in the eye. I forget that their mothers, kids, teachers may ignore them, and that getting someone´s attention is a rarity and a luxury for kids and parents alike. I´m not mortgaging anymore. I didn´t mean to stop - it just happened. But I have to give God credit for the muted, patient work He´s doing through me if I´m ever to believe that.

Sending you peace
and strength
and patience,
Cristina

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.

Día de amor y amistad

Happy Valentine´s Day! Here it is the ¨day of love and friendship¨, which I dig because of it´s inclusivity.

I celebrated Valentine´s Day with great people and vicious parasites. But, internal friends aside, my Rostro community and I commemorated the day with a Battle of the Sexes trivia game. Organized by our own Nate Radomski, each person recevied a questionnaire with three personalized inquiries. Complete with a Jeopardy-style game board, Nate set up the categories: Family; Ancient History; Pet Peeves; Recent Tid-Bits; and Things No One Should Know. As it turns out, Dre brought 11 pairs of shoes to Ecuador (and the boys somehow knew this) and Frank´s worst GI emergency took place in Bosnia (which we did not). A first-round tie brought us to the lightning round, in which the girls prevailed to take the game. Well fed, slightly wined, and victorious (the girls, at least), we headed to bed.

To celebrate the day in true RdC style (ie. no exclusive relationships), we picked names out of a hat to choose our valentines. I got our host, Nate, who I graced (cursed?) with a poem and a few coupons for simple, but valuable things. He, in turn, left me a dozen tomatoes in the form of a heart on my bed, as well as a fly swatter for easier mosquito killing. What a gentleman. My actual valentine also managed to surprise me via his Ecuadorian connection, who happens to be our director. It´s a bit strange to receive flowers from your boss, but I appreciated both counts of thoughtfulness.

My work here confuses me. I´ve written already about my lack of direction at work. Semillas continues to grow and change weekly, though always with big questions of structural change and best practices in the back of my mind. My morning work with Hogar bores and tires me, mostly because it isn´t work. Now I´m halfway through the year and trying to find my footing all over again. Even in the first half, Santi and I served as test dummies for a new work site, and our first experiment failed. I don´t want to throw in the towel. I don´t want to give up on them. Still, I see no place where a 4-hour-a-day volunteer fits into this organization, and Hogar supervisors refuse to give better instruction because they want their volunteers to choose their work so they´ll be happy. It´s an admirable mentality, and something I would appreciate if geography didn´t rule out most of the Hogar work options (their main office is an hour and a half from my house, so I´m confined to the tiny Durán office). They don´t need me. And maybe that´s good - they´re on their feet and don´t need my help. But then, why am I there? Why do I sit for four hours in an office, asking what needs to be done and how I can help, but always being told there´s nothing to do? It gave me plenty of time to compose last week´s pair of epic updates, but I didn´t come here to write in my journal. I could be in the neighborhood, or visiting families, or teaching a morning class at the local tech school, or offering a tutoring study hall when school starts again in April, or helping to cook at the soup kitchen - the list goes on. To be fair, these are fresh thoughts. I need to bring them to Kevin to get his thoughts because nothing can change until I open my mouth. He listens and he acts. We´ll talk.

I´m currently reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which takes me to the Congo in 1959, just as the Congolese were acheiving independence from Belguim. The story follows a family of six from Georgia who travel to Africa to serve a year as missionaries. The absolute absence of openness to cultural and religious difference on the part of Southern Baptist, headstrong, and charismatic father Nathan Price gives me plenty to think about. I look at him and see the extreme of ethnocentrisim and bigotry, and it´s easy to criticize and even pity him. But narrowness of belief doesn´t come in black and white. ¨There are more words than yes or no¨, one of the characters, Anatole, reminds his young friend. There are shades of narrowness and prejudice, even shades of bigotry. I´m no Nathan Price, but there´s certainly a hair of him in me and in all of us. When do I close myself? When do I assume difference means the other is ignorant? How can I listen better? Good questions. I recommend the book.

Today´s prayer intentions: For Brian, Joanie, Matt, and Kat, and the whole Farrell clan, as they struggle with illness; and for Belén´s mom, that she finds the support she needs.

Catch Up, vol. II

On December 23, it rained for the second time since I arrived in July. I was elated. Smelling the damp ground and hearing drops pelt the roof felt like magic. In the weeks since, my wonder has converted into vexation, creativity, and general acceptance of something I can´t control. We still receive the occasional sunny day, but most are cloudy (a welcome respite from the scorching sun) and wet (NOT fun when living on dirt roads). In the house we´ve developed entering and exiting rituals to keep our house clean (relatively speaking) and our skin as clear and not-punctured-by-vicious-bugs as possible. Never before have I worn this much bug spray, and can´t help but wonder what unfriendly chemicals invade my bloodstream. Are they actually better than the dengue I´m trying to avoid?

The bugs. First, grillos. Grillos, to quote one insightful ex-vol, are ¨dive-bombing crickets.¨ For two weeks we found them everywhere. In our rooms. In our beds. In our refrigerator. And this is to say nothing of the swarms that encircled the streetlamps. For a few frightful days, we were killing 50 a day. Each. All in the house. Not exactly fun, but an interesting adventure. It reminds me of my folks´ stories about killing cockroaches in Florida. I guess I´ve been spoiled up North, though you folks back home probably read my words enviously from beneath a foot of snow.

Mosquitoes. They´re everywhere, and we have the bumpy, splotchy, astonishingly itchy skin to prove it. Roberto, my favorite guard at the local clinic, gave me his view on their recent invasion: ¨These mosquitos set up a pact with the blood bank. They´re making a fortune.¨ Sleeping under my mosquito net made me feel exotic and special at first, but has become a nuisance, especially when I trap one of my flying foes in with me and I wake up scratching a dozen new bites. Foot bites are the worst, especially the soles. Lately, though, I´ve been less bothered by the mosquitos. Sure, I hate the itchiness, but it´s hard to get that upset about a being as stupid as a mosquito. I used to loathe them. As I´ve paid more attention to them (ie. savagely hunted them nightly before bed), I´ve come to realize that they fly around mindlessly and only bite when they happen to run headfirst into something with skin. They don´t choose to be a pain. They´re just hungry. And dumb. So they bother me, but I no longer actively hate them because it just doesn´t seem fair.

Another big piece of news (right on par with mosquito intelligence) is the recent departure of another volunteer. In late January Santi left Ecuador to return to the States. Santi and I worked together at both our morning and afternoon jobs, so my life has changed dramatically. On a personal level, I´m sad and I miss him. He drove me crazy, but he was a good friend and an endearingly and infectiously goofy force in my life. On a professional level, I´m frustrated because my life has been uprooted, though also grateful because his departure has given me the chance to start some things fresh - a rare opportunity. On both levels, I´m also happy he left because he wasn´t fulfilled here, and that energy also infected me. I have high hopes for his own fresh start, and for the mix CDs he´s going to send me :)

I feel similarly about our community, which is down to 5 from our original 7. The house feels enormous, and will feel even bigger when Andrea leaves in April to start her job. With Santi´s departure, we stopped holding our breath and are now looking and living forward. Dre will leave, but at least we know well in advance. I´m proud of all of us for our recent honesty, communication, and simple goodness since Santi left. Yes, I have high hopes.

Recently all ten of the remaining volunteers went on our second quarterly retreat to a beach town called Ballenita (¨little whale¨). Many thanks to Kevin for his Ecua-side organizing, Rostro USA for sending us a retreat leader, and John Ropar for coming down to guide us. I drew a lot of personal questions and growth from the weekend, but I´m left thinking more about conversations concerning Rostro´s mission here in Ecuador. From the beginning, I´ve been restless about Rostro´s mission statement, which clearly states that it functions to serve North Americans as they experience Ecuador rather than serving Ecuadorians. A year ago, this nearly kept me out of the program, though one tiny clause about helping Ecuas find long-term solutions gave me hope. Now that I´m knee-deep in Rostro, I feel kind of lost. We´re here to be with people, so spending time in the community is the most important things. But we also benefit from knowing how Ecuadorian organizations confront problems, so our morning jobs are the most important. But our after-school programs are consistent from year to year and we started them ourselves, they are the most important. But retreat groups are part of our mission and expose people to Durán, so they are the most important. In summary, I´m doing so many, varied things that I´m not doing any of them well. I have my own thoughts on what´s most important and effective, but I´m not an island - here or anywhere. Got any advice?

Despite my confusion amidst Santi´s departure and my lack of direction (or overabundance of direction) from Rostro, I´m enjoying life here. Friendships keep growing, as long as I give them the time and space to develop. I´m mostly healthy (minus the parasites) and I´ve found a lot of support recently from my Ecua friends, my house community, the AJS folks, old vols who´ve come to visit, my family back home, and of course the Big Guy upstairs. Special thanks to Clare and Darcy!

Today´s prayer intentions: for Santi and Patrick, that they forge ahead and make the lives they need; for Patricia and family´s health; and for all of us walking through Lent, that we do it disposed to change. AMEN!

Catch Up, vol. I

Manchada. Así estoy. I´m stained purple and red after a paint war in the neighborhood to celebrate Carnaval. Not all Ecuadorians commemorate the three days before Ash Wednesday in the same style, but on the coast, the custom is to throw water, paint, flour, mud, and even animal fat and motor oil on passing friends and neighbors. The ¨festivities¨ make leaving the house an adventure and in these three days, I never successfully left without returning a disaster. Most people throw harmless tempera, though some, as I discovered as I tried to scrub it off, opt for house paint. My hair is currently two shades of red, with random purple highlight every now and then. Throwing people in puddles is another Arbolito favorite, which proves especially easy now that we´re in the rainy season and entire streets are flooded. Thanks to a few friends (who are much stronger than their deceptively skinny frames suggest), I ended up face-down and submerged in a flooded street. Oh well - I was due for my quarterly parasite check-up anyways, and that mouthful of water I drank will ensure an interesting diagnosis. I´m a mess, my clothes are destroyed, and my stomach regularly gurgles about that delicious shot of puddle-water, but man, oh man, was it worth it!

I should back up and give you a long overdue update. Let´s go back to Christmas...

We celebrated Christmas Eve with a mass, though I listened to the first half blind as I waited ¨backstage¨ for the gospel reading´s nacimiento viviente (Christmas pageant), which I graced as a maestro de la ley (a scribe). I stuck out like a sore thumb, as the saying goes, or like a tall, red-headed woman in Ecuador, which may be even more awkward. But I did my best in our posadas and delivered my single line (¨In Bethlehem of Judea because that is what the prophets wrote¨) with gusto.

Posadas. Te lo explico. Let me explain. Posadas is a Latin American Christmas tradition which reenacts Mary and Joseph´s door-to-door search for shelter, which finally brings them to a stable. Here we did it in conjunction with our parish, though I know several families who do it within their neighborhood communities back in the States. Want to know more? Try Wikipedia.

After mass we came home for a cozy family meal of enchiladas (not a traditional Ecua food - one of my communitymates is Mexican), beans and salad, then opened a few gifts before dragging ourselves to bed.

Santa found us in Ecuador! We opened presents in the morning (thanks Mom and Dad, Kat, the Winkelmanns and Mrs. Mary Miano), then spent the afternoon at a neighborhood party. I still haven´t gotten used to the dance competitions that pit 7 year olds against each other to the impressively sexual lyrics of reggaeton songs. But it´s neither my culture nor my child , so I stand back and watch. Dinner brought us to Guayaquil to the home of Sr. Annie, a nun from Brooklyn who runs a home for patients with Hansen´s Disease (you know it as leprosy) where some of our vols work. Annie is a vibrant Italian woman and a gifted chef, so we feasted on lasagna and meat sauce before diving into an hour of Christmas carols (Bezaires, you would have been proud). Exhausted, full, and delighted, we piled into our van and headed home.

Fast forward to New Year´s. The evening began with another mass and a Nueva Generación dinner. I ran home to rest briefly before before midnight festivities, then we crossed the street to count down with our guard Abráhan. Another Ecua tradition: the burning of the año viejo. The premise: at midnight, everyone burns a paper mache figure to represent burning the last year to make way for the new one. The victims: Spongebob, Puss in Boots, Rafael Correa (current president of Ecuador), and...me.

Like many, Abráhan made rather than bought his muñeco, and spent the entire week secretly creating a lifesize effigy of yours truly. Midnight arrived and Abráhan doused ¨me¨ with diesel and set me on fire, giving life to the whopping 140 firecrackers he´d stuffed inside. If I weren´t friends with Abráhan, I´d be appalled. As it stands, I´m flattered.

We stayed for a midnight meal, then Scott and I rook off to stroll through the lively streets of Arbolito, visiting various friends along the way. After rounding up Eduardo and Anita, we made our way to Andres´ house to dance our little hearts out until 4:00a. The parties continued, but my ánimo ran out, so I came home to sleep for three hours before heading to another (and very sparsely populated) mass. I was half the choir and after such little sleep, I sounded like a rooster, but I gave it my all.

New Year´s Day brought me to Rosa´s in the evening to celebrate her 23rd birthday. Dancing, singing, and penitencias (punishments), which is a tradition in which you stuff a little piece of paper into a ballon before blowing it up and select various people to pop the balloons. They then have to do whatever the paper instructs. Mine was easy: ¨Tell a joke¨. The party was great, and similar to another birthday celebration I´d attended on Dec. 29 for a great guy who reminds me so much of Jeff Michael, it´s astounding. It goes without saying that I like him a lot and think he´s much cooler than I was when I was 18. I´ve been blessed with friendships here and am grateful for the chance to meet, know, and celebrate life with these people!

Today´s prayer intentions: for all of us, that we listen and sloooooooowwwwww down.

My gift

Soon I will write more about Christmas in Ecuador, which blessed me fully and festively. For now, I simply wish you all a merry and holy Christmas. Celebrate!

Also, I want to note that I am blessed with an incredible family - a crew of parents, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a grandma that would make anyone grateful to be alive. Thanks to all of you for your unflinching love, support, and ridiculous stories. You light my days!

Finding it anyways

A response from my dear friend and a particularly bright light, Erin Ramsey:

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to the complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it"

- The Talmud