Hello friends and family. I hope you are all having a wonderful start to the Christmas season. I am happy and in good health and continuing to serve in Paraguay. In the month since I last posted, I’ve continued my work in the after school program and with the community dinners, but I’ll let you all know about some of the other activities I’ve been up to.
In the community of Franciscans where I live, every Saturday, we run a soup kitchen that serves lunch next to our house. Typically, 150 very hungry kids from the neighborhood on the other side of the fence show up to share lunch with us. Since we prepare all the food over a live fire, it’s one of the only times in my life that cooking duty has entailed splitting wood. Not surprisingly, all the kids seem to be better behaved during the twenty minutes of lunchtime than any other part of the week. It is a very beautiful and unique experience being able to share in a meal with such a large group of our neighbors.
Over the past couple months, I have also been volunteering in a public school, San Blas, about a twenty minute walk into the neighborhood next to our house. The school has about 300 students from kindergarten to sixth grade. 150 students come for morning session (7-11), and the other half come in the afternoon (1-5). I’ve been helping out with third grade teaching math during the morning turn. I generally work with only about five students at a time because I don’t think I am cut out to handle twenty Paraguayan eight-year-olds. The kids at the school are not always completely willing and excited to learn math, they are always extremely full of energy and wanting to become friends with me, the American volunteer.
Last week, I took part in the largest pilgrimage in the country. Each year over one million Paraguayans make the journey to the city of Caacupé as a devotion to the Virgin Mary. The pilgrimage originates from a Paraguayan legend. Around year 1600 in Paraguay, there was an indigenous Guaraní man running from members of another tribe who were trying to kill him because he had recently converted to Christianity. Looking for a place to hide, he saw a vision of Mary, and she told him to hide behind a tree. This Guaraní man hid behind the tree, and the tribe seeking to kill him passed by without noticing him. The man then carved that image of Mary with the wood from that tree. Today, the statue is in the basilica in Caacupé, built on the ground where the man sought shelter. As part of the pilgrimage, I walked ten miles beginning at midnight and finishing at five in the morning in time for the mass at six. During the entirety of the walk, the whole road was filled with pilgrims as far as the eye could see. Because of how dark it was, none of the pictures of the walk turned out well, but here are a couple of pictures of the mass to give you an idea of the quantity of people that were there.
After school program where I’ve been volunteering made a video summing up what we do every day with the kids. The whole video is in Spanish, so if you’re feeling ambitious you should check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TdXGJnU_HU&feature=youtu.be
With the Summer Solstice approaching in a couple days, it is well into the nineties each day. Despite the warm weather, it is still beginning to feel like Christmas as the Paraguayans are really making me feel like family. Have a great Christmas and New Year and really enjoy the opportunity of spending time with friends and family.
Lastly, here’s a photo from our latest community dinner:
Peace, goodness, and Merry Christmas from Paraguay,
Jack
