Today, after a delicious breakfast of black beans, oatmeal and the most wonderful strawberry jam you have ever tasted, we headed off to work at the Reforestation Project. Saturday is the day of the week that the children come to work on various projects on the farm and it was so fun to come along side them and help them get things done. To be short and sweet, we were playing in the dirt all morning! From stuffing recycled paper bags with dirt to planting tree seeds to digging holes and sifting soil, we got to interact with the kids every step of the way. One nice thing about hanging out with children is they don't care how bad your Spanish is and as you stumble through conversations you end up learning a lot about each other. Being the only one in the group with absolutely no Spanish background, it was fun to bond with the kids over popular songs and our dirt covered hands.
This afternoon we had a very special experience. We all piled in the back of a pickup truck and headed up the mountain to a small town of about 1,500 people called Panamaquip for a Saturday evening mass. Father John, a priest at the San Lucas Mission, drove us up before leading the worship service. We parked the truck and hiked up the road to the small church that was made for less than 100 people and was quickly packed with eager church goers. We didn’t notice until after we were sitting that all the women were sitting on one side of the church while our entire group had mistakenly taken seats on the men’s side of the church, but Bruce assured us that it was ok. Father John gave a wonderful homily about our place in the kingdom of God, which I would not have understood at all if it hadn’t been for Carrie’s whispered translations in my ear. All the scripture readings were done by younger women of the community, who I assume were those with enough education to read Spanish eloquently. As communion started in this packed little church perched high on a mountain it began to rain and the cloud actually came into the building.
This afternoon we had a very special experience. We all piled in the back of a pickup truck and headed up the mountain to a small town of about 1,500 people called Panamaquip for a Saturday evening mass. Father John, a priest at the San Lucas Mission, drove us up before leading the worship service. We parked the truck and hiked up the road to the small church that was made for less than 100 people and was quickly packed with eager church goers. We didn’t notice until after we were sitting that all the women were sitting on one side of the church while our entire group had mistakenly taken seats on the men’s side of the church, but Bruce assured us that it was ok. Father John gave a wonderful homily about our place in the kingdom of God, which I would not have understood at all if it hadn’t been for Carrie’s whispered translations in my ear. All the scripture readings were done by younger women of the community, who I assume were those with enough education to read Spanish eloquently. As communion started in this packed little church perched high on a mountain it began to rain and the cloud actually came into the building.
-Maddy Parks
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