Doug continues, Day 3

Day 3, Wednesday, August 20th

The single explosion sounding like a gunshot awoke me. Was that the signal for the rosary? It is still night. It is still hot and humid. I tried to read my watch which has luminescent dots marking the hours. In the darkness I am quite not sure I am reading it right. It doesn’t look like 4:30. I fumble for the flashlight on the nightstand and find it. In the beam of light, my watch clearly shows 3:30 AM. Might my watch be set wrong? We passed through two time zones from Philadelphia, one in Cancun and another in Flores. Perhaps San Luis is in another time zone. Quietly, so as not to awaken Chris in the bunk across from me, I put on my robe and find my way to the bathroom. I floss my teeth, and taking a glass of purified water, I brush my teeth. I dress silently and quickly—blue jeans, a t-shirt, and sandals. I apply the mosquito repellant generously. I may already be late.

Using the flashlight to guide me through the darkness of the compound and up a sidewalk past the Sister’s residences, I reach the gate they said they would leave open. Some of them and some of their students in the boarding school, they said, will also go to the rosary. The gate is locked. There are no lights on in their houses. So, either I am late or it really is 3:50 AM. I consider whether I should return to the apartment, and decide to wait until 4:30 AM. I turn off my flashlight. I am surrounded by the beauty of the night. The stars, brilliant by comparison to what I see in West Philadelphia, shine through thin clouds. The insects sing from the tropical foliage. I give thanks to God for being alive, for being conscious, and being able sense the beauty of nature.

Saying the Rosary, first alone and then with the people

I sit down on a step not far from the gate, and I decide to start saying the rosary by myself as I wait. I am carrying a plastic, glow-in-the-dark rosary. Because it is Wednesday, I will say the glorious mysteries, and the fourth mystery is the mystery of the Assumption, the one that has always been most difficult for me to grasp. I typically recite that decade, praying for the Sisters of the Assumption, which seems more concrete. A high-pitched buzz in my ear tells me that the mosquitoes have found me. It took them a while to follow the carbon dioxide of my exhalation. I am glad I applied the repellant. None-the-less, I get up and start walking back and forth as I say the rosary, thinking this might elude them.

At 4:00 AM, I hear electronic chimes ringing in the Maya Assumption Center compound. I am later told that this is the signal to awaken the young women of the boarding school, at least those whose turn it is to prepare breakfast. Lights begin to turn on in the Sisters’ houses. A few minutes before 4:30, I hear the staccatos of fireworks, and Sister Meche opens the gate. Accompanied by some of the other sisters and a few students, we walk to the church, which is further up the hill and only two blocks away.

I wondered how many people would be at the rosary at this hour. Arriving at the church, I find it is quite full. Over a hundred people of all ages are ready to say the rosary. The Combonian brother named Jesus is there with his guitar and other musicians and the choir as well. Several of the priests, in fact, are also there, again spread out. They are dressed informally, and often surrounded by admiring children. Before the rosary starts, I see them chatting amiably with the children and adults. We recite the rosary. The first decade is done on our knees. The group leading the prayers at the front of the church, about 10-15 people, are kneeling the hard cement floor. They ask all to kneel for the decade. They continue to kneel through the entire rosary. I wonder at their sacrifice because my knees quickly been to ache on the uncushioned, wooden kneeler.

I have my brochure for saying the rosary in Spanish. I am determined to memorize the prayers in Spanish, but I can barely keep to the pace. By the time I finish the second part of the Hail Mary in Spanish, they are already saying the first part of the prayer. As I struggle to keep up, my mind wanders as I think with admiration about my wife, Pia from Chile in South America, and how she relearned all these prayers in English. And she has even memorized prayers in English that she does not know in Spanish.

After the rosary, once again, no one leaves the church, and we are invited to have food. We are given a roll of bread and a banana atole (a drink prepared in the traditional Indian manner). Again, people socialize with each other and with the priests and the Sisters. The religious seem like magnets for the people—there are smiles and jokes. I am thinking to myself how this really is the people of God. Even Chris later shared that he was moved by seeing the people of San Luis in prayer. To myself, I wondered how many people might be there because they are hungry. Later, Sister Gladys confirmed that this indeed is likely the case. I reflected that there is nothing wrong with sharing with those who are hungry. The Sisters are concerned about growing malnutrition in San Luis because the price of food has recently increased significantly, just as in the United States.. A woman another pew across the aisle greets me warmly. As we talk, she says she wished that they had more priests in San Luis. Only during these fiesta days, she says, is a mass every day in town. Normally, the priests are visiting hamlets to bring the sacraments to outlying areas. Now, during the fiesta, people from the hamlets are coming into town for the celebrations. The 4:30 AM rosary is part of a novena for the feast of the patron saint.

I decided to make the 4:30 AM rosary a part of my daily routine, a way of accompanying the Sisters and the people in prayer. I already pray the rosary almost every day, usually in the evenings. I dedicate the daily rosary to the atonement of my own sins as well as the sins of my country. To this I add the sins of the entire world plus other particular intentions. By saying the rosary in the morning and in a group here in San Luis, at least I will not fall asleep part way through, as sometimes happens to me.

Breakfast with the “Patojas”

“Patoja” is an affectionate Guatemalan expression referring to a young woman. Sister Gladys often uses it to refer to the 30 girls and women who are boarding at the Maya Assumption Center for their studies. At 6:00 AM, it is breakfast time, and we have been invited to have breakfast with the patojas. Now, my wife, children and Chris are awake and dressed. The girls greet us warmly, but most are shy with us because we are newcomers. Shyness is to be expected from young women who range from 13 to 23 years of age. And, for many of them, Spanish is a second language. We ask questions, finding that where their families live in different hamlets at different hours of travel from school. Two of the girls are not from San Luis. They are from Sayache, a larger town in the Peten where the Assumption Sisters also have a small mission. Sayache takes a whole day of travel by public buses. So, these two patojas do not see their parents that often.

The breakfast, which seems to be the same each day, consists of black beans cooked in their broth and corn tortillas, all prepared by the girls themselves. Many of the girls tear up the tortillas into smaller pieces and mix the pieces into bowl of black beans. I ask whether our breakfast is cooked with the beans and corn grown at their homes. They say that is possible. The tuition that their families pay for a year’s tuition, room and board consists of $100 dollars cash (which is of course paid in the local currency) plus some bags of corn and beans from the own gardens. This tuition, the Sisters tell me, is too high for many families. Along with the beans and tortillas, the breakfast also has a sweet corn drink, again, an atole, that the girls prepare.

We take some pictures of the patojas while they are eating breakfast. They show us the white board that, for each day and meal, lists which of the girls is responsible for preparing the meal and cleaning up afterwards. I resolve to arrive early enough on another day to take pictures of the meal preparation. As we leave the mess hall, we notice that the girls are brushing their teeth at an outdoor faucet. Between the buildings in the compound we see the girls arranging their long black hair and neatening their clothes for the day. Many are wearing their traditional Q’eqchi Indian garb. In Guatemala, each Indian group has its own distinctive dress for its women. Oftentimes, the Indian clothing is hand woven by the women. It’s an important feminine skill. Sewing and embroidery are among the crafts that the patojas practice during the early afternoon after they finish their core classes.

The Marimba is Played

Still before classes begin, we return to our volunteer apartment to wait to accompany the sisters to a women’s development meeting in another barrio of the town. While we are waiting, we hear the sound of the marimba being played. The marimba is a traditional Mayan instrument, played with sticks like a xylophone. The keys are of wood and below the keys are either gourds or wooden boxes of differing sizes that resonate and amplify the sound. The music of the marimba is haunting. I recall it well from my first anthropological field work in Guatemala in the early 1970s. In Aguacatan, a highland Mayan community where I lived for almost a year, I hired a marimba band to celebrate my daughter’s Sonya’s birthday (she was then only two years old). So, the marimba brings many found memories to me. The marimba instrument usually has two sections with several players standing behind each section to play it. I wondered whether the girls had a radio or if someone was actually playing the instrument.

Walking down to the auditorium, to my surprise I see that the girls are themselves playing the marimba. It is the first time that I have ever seen women playing the instrument! Other girls have gathered to listen. And sometimes they sing with the marimba. I realize that some of the songs are religious hymns in the Indian language. I dance to the music as I walk into the hall and they laugh. My daughter, Pia, joins me, each of us taking a plastic chair from the stack to sit with the girls in the audience. Pia makes me proud as she takes chairs off the stacks and sets up chairs for more girls as they arrive. I take advantage of the moment to take some pictures. Time for classes to start! Every one of the girls takes her chair and restacks it neatly against the wall. I wondered if women this age in the United States would be so responsible.

Later, Ana, the veterinarian volunteer from Spain, explained that girls that are interested learn to play the marimba. A music teacher comes monthly to give lessons, and some girls are also learning to play the guitar. Ana says that playing the marimba is a favorite pastime for the girls and may be heard whenever they have time between classes and chores. So, the Sisters are preserving the traditional Mayan musical culture and extending its practice from men to women. And, in the US, how many schools in the inner city have curtailed or sacrificed their programs in the arts? I begin to understand what the Sisters mean when they describe the Mayan Assumption Center as offering an “integral” or “wholistic” program of education.

A tour of the classrooms of the Maya Assumption Center

The classrooms are in cement buildings and are small and plain. There are no large lecture halls at the Maya Assumption Center, but aren’t smaller classes better? The classes look to have only 10-15 students, half the typical size of classes in the public or parochial schools of Philadelphia. What is most striking is not the classrooms, but the hand-drawn posters the outdoor walls. In large letters, the posters proclaim such words as these: “Today, keep moving forward, and let no one be left behind” or “Working without love turns you into a slave”. The teaching of values, too, seems a key part of the Sisters’ “wholistic” program of education.

Omnipresent, too, are posters picturing the young and attractive face St. Marie Eugenie, the French mother foundress of the Assumption Order. In large letters she is quoted saying, “The earth is a place for the glory of God!” And, what is the glory of God? I had wondered about that just before the trip, and I read about it. I now understand that it means any manifestation of presence of God that inspires awe. I reflect that the Assumptionist motto is a call to action for us to act to bring the glory of God to each and every place we find ourselves. Back in the states, as I hurry from one thing to the next, I often fail to pause long enough to see the “glory of God” around me and, as I hurry, I also fall short of acting to make glory of God present to others. Here in San Luis, the glory of God thunders around me.

The new vocational day school at the Maya Assumption Center

The boarding school for Indian women is not the only school that the Sisters have founded. Just last year, they opened a vocational high school with a three-year program to prepare young men and women in what we would call business administration. There are classes in mathematics, computer skills, and accounting as well as basic reading and writing. Unlike the boarding school, this program admits young men as well as young women, and the students live in their homes in town. The school also admits “castellanos” as the Hispanics living in San Luis are called. Also, the high school takes children of any faith. There are already 29 students in the program. The tuition is higher, and the school is actually self supporting. The day school classes are in the afternoons, from 2 PM to 6 PM, after the boarding school classes have ended for the day.

Sister Ethel explained the challenges they face. The first challenge is hiring good teachers. Education for teachers, she said, is typically substandard in Guatemala. Oftentimes, certified teachers do not actually know the subjects they teach. So, the sisters have devised their own exams in order to qualify the teachers, and they supervise the teachers closely, reviewing their lesson plans and their conduct with the students. Some of the teachers the Sisters hire are not Catholic, but they may not proselytize in their classes and must attend school religious functions. The sisters seem to have very good relations with the Protestants. They described the Canadian missionary couple that has lived for years across the street as “very good people and excellent neighbors.”

The Sisters also show great respect for Mayan beliefs practices. In fact, I was surprised to find out that, every year, they open the school with a traditional Mayan ceremony to bless and preserve the plants, animals and earth. Our planet needs every prayer it can get! Reflecting on this deference to the gods of the Maya, I recall the invitatory psalm that the church prays daily, the 95th psalm: “The Lord is God, the mighty God, the great king over all the gods.”

The martyred Monsignor Gerardi, who was also a beloved bishop of the country, fought for what he called an “autochthonous Catholic church”, by which he meant a church which respects and affirms universal human values already found within the Mayan culture, while preserving the languages, the artistic styles and music of the culture, but at the same time freeing the Maya from despair and violence (sin) through the good news of the gospel (hope, peace and salvation). Might not all cultures benefit from this? As stated in the Canticle of Zachariah: “in the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

A small crisis for us and a big crisis for the Center’s farm

The farm of the Mayan Assumption Center provides covers about half of the expenses of the Mayan Assumption Center. When I read that the Maya Assumption Center teaches agricultural techniques. I wondered to myself what they could possibly teach that these Indian farmers don’t already know. The Sisters said my wife and I should drive the rented SUV down the road to meet Anna for a tour of the farm. At the bottom of the hill I turn into a small driveway leading to a large gate for vehicles. However, the gate is locked and no one is there. So, thinking this might not be the entrance, I start to back out, but I chose the wrong angle, and the back wheel of the vehicle dips into a ditch and tips to the right. I try to move forward, and the rear wheels just spin. Time for a prayer and for engaging the four-wheel drive! We say a Hail Mary and engage the wheels. Again, no success!

Pia gets out and sees that the right rear wheel is in the air over a culvert. I get out, too, and the whole vehicle tips dangerously to the right side. I quickly get back into the driver’s seat to rebalance the SUV. Pia hurries back up to the Center for help. I am thinking about how disruptive this might be for the Sisters. In a few minutes, the “kids” (Chris, Emilia and Pia) arrive. I ask all three to stand on the side foot panel and maximize their leverage by sticking out their butts. They are enjoying the adventure. The vehicle rights itself. I again try the four-wheel drive and the SUV moved easily forward. The “kids” are ecstatic. I took a picture of them in their victory pose.

Anna shortly arrives in her truck. A workman opens the gate, we drive inside, and the workman sprays disinfectant on the car wheels, our shoes and clothing. With that, I realize that the Sisters are teaching the Indians modern, commercial agricultural procedures. The impression is confirmed as we go through the large and thoroughly modern hog operation, with sections for pregnant hogs, lactating hogs, and finally fattening of hogs to the right size for sale. In contrast to the hogs we see wandering down the streets of San Luis and in the countryside, these hogs are fed with concentrated hog feed for rapid fattening, are vaccinated, are monitored for health and weight gain.

In their operation, the hog manure is washed down canals where the solids are dried to serve as an excellent organic fertilizer. In addition, as Anna explained, hogs digest their food very inefficiently and their manure still has enough nutrients for use as cattle feed. The cattle were kept in a pasture on the nearby hillside, but all the cattle had just been sold as they were at the right weight. Similar to the hog lot and cattle, the farm has a modern egg and chicken operation, producing up to 600 eggs per day. These eggs generate income for the Maya Assumption Center and are sold from the small store. Under the Spanish volunteer’s supervision, the “patojas” of the school do all the work of the farm, learning the agricultural techniques that might generate significant income for their families and raise their status as women in the family and community. My daughter, Pia, later helped the “patojas” collect eggs that help support their school.

There is actually a double crisis at the farm. Just a month ago, the price of the feed concentrate for the hogs suddenly quadrupled. This is undoubtedly related to the rapidly rising price of petroleum, which affects the costs of corn, soybeans and of fuel. I wonder if ethanol fits into this equation. Whatever the cause, the cost of the raising the hogs, which the Sisters monitor closely with their students, has become uneconomic. It costs more to feed the hogs than what they can now be sold for. The Sisters’ solution, they hope, is to raise money to purchase a grain mixer to make their own concentrate, but they just found that that it will cost $5,000, and they do not have the money. With the mixer, they could buy the grain more cheaply from the local agricultural cooperative. But how will they get the money for the mixer?

The other hog lot crisis is that the liquids from the hog manure are now running into a small stream and neighbors have begun to complain. The solution, when implemented, would be to pump the liquids away into a septic tank. They already have determined the cost of this to be about $12,000. About $2,500 in contributions from the United Sates are being sent via the Assumption Convent in Philadelphia to help. We are still far short, and the situation is critical. As I reflect, I begin weigh these needs of the Maya Assumption convent against the costs of the renovation of our church in Philadelphia.