Skipping Town

I forgot to mention this in the last post, but I will be leaving for Patagonia in less than 48 hours. I, along with my friend Stefan, take an overnight bus to Puerto Montt Tuesday night. From there, we will explore the island of Chiloe for about a day and a half. By explore, I literally mean we don't have any plans and we are just going to see where the road takes us.

Thursday afternoon we have a flight from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas. From Punta Arenas, we take a bus to Puerto Natales and then to our final destination, Torres del Paine. Torres del Paine is a national park that is supposed to have some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. If you have any tips/suggestions/encouragement, feel free to leave it as a comment or email me. Be generous, we need all the help we can get.

About time I wrote something

So I haven’t been doing a very good job on keeping everybody posted on my adventures. Every time I thought about how much I would have to cover it seemed too daunting a task, so I am just going to start fresh. I had a great Holy Week in Santiago, so, without further ado, here is my recap:

First of all, I should set the scene. I have been volunteering once a week at Colegio San Lorenzo, a school of about 900 students, going all the way from Pre-K through high school. San Lorenzo is in a poor area of the city, and, although it is a private, Catholic school, it is run as a charity and does not charge tuition. San Lorenzo, along with two other high schools, is run by members of the Manquehue Movement, a lay Benedictine movement that was started in Chile in 1977. I got in touch with the movement through Priory, and it has been a very rewarding experience. For Holy Week, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil were each held at one of the high schools.

Holy Thursday-

On Thursday, I met up with Rodrigo, my Manquehue contact, and went with a group to Colegio San Anselmo. The school is located in Chicureo, a suburb of Santiago. Rodrigo used to be director of the school, so he gave me a tour, during which I SAW A TARANTULA! Rodrigo explained to me that it actually wasn’t a tarantula, but a similar non-venomous version. Forgive me if I lump all giant, hairy spiders into the same category. I had another surprise when Rodrigo told me that the celebrant would be Fr. Timothy Wright, a British monk who has a brother at Priory. It turned out that he is the brother of Fr. Ralph, my former advisor and occasional bizarre conversation partner (If you don’t know what I am talking about, ask Fr. Ralph about Flunk the Flying Monk, or giraffes). When I informed Fr. Timothy that I had been in his brother’s advisory, his only response was “Oh, and you managed to survive?”

Good Friday-

Good Friday services were held at my home base, San Lorenzo. After the Passion and Veneration of the Cross, we had my favorite part of the entire week: the Via Crucis, or stations of the cross. What made this special was that instead of staying in the church, the stations were spread out throughout the neighborhood. About 150 people from the neighborhood gathered outside the school for the stations. They brought their own candles in home-made holders constructed from soda bottles and plastic cups. We set off singing:

Llévame donde los hombres
necesiten tus palabras
necesitan mis ganas de vivir,
donde falta la esperanza
donde falta la alegría
simplemente, por no saber de Ti.

There was something incredibly inspiring about the faith of the poor people of the neighborhood. Given their lot in life, it is probably more difficult for them to believe in a just and loving God, but they do, and it was a beautiful thing to see them express their faith.

The best picture I could get of the stations:
This cart was going to lead the procession until we accidentally popped one of the tires:

Easter Vigil-

The Easter Vigil was held at Colegio San Benito. This mass was special because I played a pivotal role as Candle Holder #14. The service was beautiful, but incredibly long, like almost 3 hours long. Because mass did not start until 10:30, this means we got out a little before 1:30 AM. However, instead of everybody returning to their respective homes, they got coolers of food from their cars and had a huge party at the school. I think it is a great idea to celebrate the most important holiday of the year in community. The vino flowed freely (including onto my white dress shirt—sorry mom, it wasn’t my fault) and I did not get home until 4:30 in the morning. Needless to say, I was exhausted, but I had an Easter experience that I will not forget any time soon.