Brother Blue

From Here and Now by Henri J. M. Nouwen

One of the questions I asked the group near the end of our time in Chimbote was, “Is it fair to bring people down here?”
Most of them looked at me dumbfounded. Thinking, “Of course it is a good idea to bring folks down. I am glad I came down.”
I am wondering how they would respond if I asked them now after having to transition back.
I love the trip. I love the people. I love how the place stretches and challenges me.
But I know it is hard and I know it isn’t for everyone. It is a lot of work to get to Chimbote, the food is different form what you are use to, you share large dorm rooms with people might not know, and you will be emotionally and spiritually challenged.
At this point the tentative plan is to go back Easter time 2009. If you are interested, just fill out the form below. By doing this you will get occasional e-mails from me as the details come together.

WALKING THE LINE
It is very easy to talk about the neighborhood we visited in statistical terms.

• 50,000 people served by one church
• Average income one dollar a day
• 2500 fed in soup kitchens each day
• Weekly collection at mass $80
• average drop out age
• percent of kids who use drugs
• Number of people who don’t have medicine they need

When speaking in these terms it doesn’t do justice to the people we met.
There was joy. There was happiness. There was deep faith. There was active participation in mass. There were hugs and kisses on the cheek. There was a warm smile at every turn.
But just as easy as it is get caught up in negative stats, it is just as easy to get caught up in the joy we did experience. It is easy to fall into the trap of, “Oh they are the happy poor. They may be materially poor, but they are so spiritually rich. They are blessed to have this burden because it has made them so close to God.”
The picture is so much more complicated than either of those points of view. There is lots of suffering, but there is also lots of getting over suffering. Some do respond well the situation they are in, but it is an unjust situation that deserves to be changed.
The question then comes, how do we walk that line? How do we meet others where they are? How do we do this by providing help and love, with out coming in to fix? How can we approach others knowing they have something to teach and share with us?

SINGING
The church has a number of choirs. Mostly youth. One is former and current gang members. All good.
The choir that sings on Sunday night is by far the best. All teenage girls. All enjoy singing very much (or at least they look like they do).
One evening the Sunday night choir was practicing in the church. Jack wanted to hear them sing. So how all of us ended up in the church.
It was obvious the girls were a little embarrassed to have people watching (I know what it is like to have people watch you practice. It is a little weird.
So how Joia was coerced into singing. She stood up and started singing something acapella. The choir of girls collative jaws dropped. They were completely blown away.
We hung out for another hour, almost everyone taking a turn picking or singing a song. (No I didn’t sing. I didn’t want to create an international incident.)
It with limited language we are able to she community and connections.
It was beautiful.
MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE
Over the last two weeks I have had a number of conversations with many members of our group as they have returned to their daily lives.
The experience is very consistent. Somehow most everyone feels they are living in two worlds at once or living in neither world. What makes it harder is it is impossible to explain.
We all have experiences that are profound to us, that are only ours. Nothing you can do can adequately explain it. I have seen many friends become parents for the first time. You can see it in their eyes; they are different people. I can tell something is brewing, but never having any kids of my own, I have no chance of fully understanding.
This is the same. You see and feel things that are so new and so different there is no vocabulary to express what has happened. You try to explain and words just keep coming and coming. Whom ever you are talking to at a certain point just glazes over. When you see that you just stop talking.
I have gotten to the point when people ask how the trip was, I say, “It was challenging.”
The hardest part of the transition back is the completely incongruent experiences I have been having.
1) Our last night in Lima we ate a very modern mall. Like any nice mall you would find in the US. 10 of us spent as much on dinner as we did to rebuild three rooms in one house.
2) The day I got home I napped, walked to get some take out, and turned on the TV. Some how I was so tired form travel I was incapable of changing channels. The TV was on Bravo and I watch three hours of Project Runway and Make Me a Supermodel. Work with the poor to total superficiality.
3) I am writing about my experiences in a coffee shop on a computer that cost more than 2/5 of the world makes in a year and drinking a cup of coffee that cost more than what 1/5 of the world makes a day.
It is enough to make your head explode.

Sorry for the delay in posting these blogs. There is good and bad in writing these blogs well after the fact.
The bad: I am removed for the moment. I am not writing from the point of view of “as it happens”. Now my thoughts are different from before. I don’t remember some things, and with time I am interpreting what has happened.
The good: One of the struggles of a trip like this is the struggle of how to integrate all the experiences and learns into who I am. By coming back to these stories now to write them, it is giving me opportunity to take real pause and re-examine what I experienced and how I can integrate it into my world view.
ELVIS AND MY MOTHER
Sometimes change happens in our lives where we make real growth. Where we feel like completely different people, but because of the nature of the change is so small there is no way the rest of the world could understand.
I saw one of those moments in Peru, where someone over came something that to the outside world would look little or nothing, but was a huge thing.
Wednesday Thursday, and Friday nights mass is said at one of three barrio chapels. As we were walking to mass on of these nights, my mother and I were talking to Elvis. (Yes, that is his real name. No, it is not that Elvis.) Elvis works for the parish and is a great guy. He was so happy the first time we saw him that I had remembered his name.
I was explaining to my mother how hard Elvis was working on his English. My mother volunteers at an ESL program and she immediately said, “Great! Let’s practice right now.”
For the remainder of the walk to mass my mother made him speak English. “Tell me about your family…Tell me about the work you do…”
Once we got to the chapel we took our seats and Elvis off to help the lectors get ready. A few moments later Elvis came over to my mother and pointed out where his family was sitting (wife and three kids).
In a moment my mother jumped to her feet and said, “Introduce me. I want to sit with them for mass.”
And off my mother went.
It may not seem like a bid thing.
It was a BIG thing.
To see her confidence and comfort.
So far from home
With people she didn’t know.
In a language she doesn’t speak.
Sometimes small steps are signs of big change.
THE BURDEN OF THE TRANSLATORS
My Spanish isn’t very good.
Really it is bad.
I can survive as a tourist.
I can get a cab, order food, find a bathroom, and make a hotel reservation.
But not much more than that.
There were three people in our group who speak better Spanish than I do. And it was a good thing we had them with us. It made everything so much easier for us.
But being a translator carried a burden the rest of the group didn’t see.
One member of our group, Kim, speaks great Spanish. She studied in Spain in college and now works in a place where the whole staff speaks Spanish.
She was our life savor.
We spent three days in homes doing work. There were many times our translator was called upon to help us understand what was needed and to communicate what we going to do.
The locals quickly figured who understood and they would talk Kim all the time.
A conversation would go like this:
Gene: Ask them what we are supposed to do.
Kim: [in Spanish "what do we need to do]
Local: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Kim: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Local: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Kim: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Local: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Kim: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Local: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Kim: [Spanish Spanish Spanish], OK
Kim: We need to put a wall here, dig a hole…
What the rest of the group didn’t understand is the local wasn’t just telling Kim where to put the walls we were building. They were also pointing out the bed that need to be replaced, the sewer system that was having problems, and the kitchen that didn’t have a stove.
None of those needs were ever translated for the group. Kim only shared the pertinent information. We only got the information we need for work.
Because of these we were insolated from some of the needs.
Not Kim. She was asked over and over again for basic needs.
I can’t image how much harder it was for her to be asked again and again.
CEMETERY OF THE POOR
One of our stops in town was the cemetery of the poor. This was land that the city allowed anyone to be buried in for free. It was a sandy dune on the edge of town down wind from the iron factory (which is producing that lovely orange cloud).
The only cost is for the gravedigger who meets the family at the plot with the body. He doesn’t start digging until the body is there because the ground is all sand. If he starts digging too soon all the sand falls in on his whole.
The tombstones are to pieces of driftwood nailed together. Which over time break down in the sea breeze.

ART
Not all of Chimbote is like the neighborhood we were in. Not all of Peru is like Chimbote. It is not all poverty.
We encountered two very cool artiest (in tangential ways) while in Peru.
On the bus there was a short video about the Peruvian band Novalima. They play an afro-peruvian style. I love it. You can find then on iTunes.
In a very funky clothing store in Lima there was an exhibit of a local artist Javier Amos Cucho. I bought two of his painting and my mother bought one at criminally low prices.

CHRISTIAN/DIGNITY
Part of a places character is the characters that make up the place. Christian is one of those characters. The group finally had the chance to experience him Sunday night at mass.
He made his appearance sometime during the opening song of mass. All of a sudden there was a 16 year old standing in front of the choir.
He was waving his arms madly.
He was exhorting them to sing louder with more feeling.
He was telling them when to start and stop.
He look more like he was dancing than singing, as if the choir was taking there cue on how to sing simply from his emotional state and his dance.
After mass he is quick to ask how you liked the music. When you tell him you loved it he wells with pride.
There is just one thing. Christian is not associated with the choir in any way (other than these impromptu performances he does at mass). He just stands in front of them and does his thing.
If this were my choir it would drive me crazy! It is obvious does frustrate the actual choir director. It also gets under Fr. Jack’s skin.
But they let it happen.
The best I can tell is because they understand dignity. They meet Christian where he is. He is completely harmless (even when he is frustrating). He feels like he is part of the community. He feels like he belongs.
Which is good, because if we are doing this church/family thing right, he does belong.
We just forget sometimes.
LET’S DO COFFEE OR GO TO PERU
It made me smile every time it happened. We would be at the parish and we would meet someone new. They would ask where we are from and we would list the 8 locations we were from. They would ask how we know each other.
There would be this pause and then someone would just point at me.
The group was as random as can be. Simply people who I had colleted over the last nine months.
There were people in the group who I had know a lifetime (other who felt like a lifetime) while others I had known all of 45 minutes before asking them to join us.
One of the highlights of the whole experience was reconnecting with a college friend. The first Wednesday of December we had connected through facebook. By Thursday morning she had a plane ticket booked.
The best part about it was the 5 years we had not talked didn’t exist. It was just like we were sitting in the Spellman lounge giving each other a hard time.

As promised, a few more stories of Peru. There are about 20 more of these to come this week.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” ASKED THE CAB DRIVER
All but one member of our group came in Tuesday night around midnight. One came in early Tuesday because she was coming from Brazil. On our cab ride from the airport to the hotel the cab driver asked about our time in Peru. (Somehow he could tell we weren’t locals.)
The conversation went like this (in Spanish):
Driver: How long are you in Peru?
Me: Nine days
D: How long are you in Lima?
M: One day
D: Where else are you going?
M: Chimbote
D: You must be here to work.
Chimbote is a city of 400k people. It is a seaport that at one time produced over 50% of the world’s anchovies (most of them are shipped to the far east for fertilizer). It is the driest dustiest humid place on the earth. Nothing grows without irrigation. As you are drive out of town in any direction it looks a desert and not in the southwest US type desert, but in the wasteland type desert. It is not list in travel guides.
As I was picking up our bus tickets the sales rep looked perplexed because she could not believe anyone (much less foreigners) would be getting off in Chimbote and not going on to Trujillo. Trujillo is just to the north by less than one hundred miles. It is a beautiful beach town. Lots of tourist. Lots of leisure.
Not Chimbote.
HUGS AND KISSES
While in Chimbote, everywhere we went we were greeted with kisses on the cheek and hugs. Even if it was walking down the street. The little old ladies wouldn’t just say “Buenos Dias” but they would also want a kiss you on the cheek.
It was heart warming and welcoming to the point it was disorienting to walk around Lima at the end of trip and have people not even make eye contact with us.
THE ONLY JUGGLER I HAVE EVER SEEN
Brad and I had the chance to juggle. Fr. Jack set it up so we would do a short show after the Saturday night and Sunday morning masses in the parish courtyard.
Everyone in our group was encouraged to pack light, so we didn’t lots of props along. Brad brought a few stage balls and some beanbags. For club passing we went to the old stand by, plungers.
Katie (one of the full time volunteers at the parish) had arranged for us to get 6 plungers. The plungers we sitting on the floor, out of the way, in the dining room because Brad and I were going to practice after dinner one night. During the meal, one of the members of the kitchen staff, Connie who couldn’t be taller than 4′ 10″, ran in to the dining room grabbed one of the plungers and ran out.
I tried franticly to catch up with her before she could use it, but no avail. She vanished. A few minutes latter she returned with a damp plunger.
So after 10 minutes of trying to clean and disinfect the plungers we were ready to practice.
The nice thing about juggling is it requires no language. You can just do it.
After the second show we gave out APeX Family Buttons that have Brad and my faces on them. (On some level it was a bit horrifying to see people all over the neighborhood with our faces pinned to them.)
The buttons also have our web site on them. One of the middle school age kids walked up to me, as he pointed at the button, he said, “goo-ga-lay, goo-ga-lay”. It took me a moment or two to realize he was saying the Spanish pronunciation of google.
Brad reported that one of the guys who had been helping us out all week (age 17-19) said that we were the first jugglers he had ever seen in person.

I am home and already on the road again.
Much writing is coming from the trip. I have a file filled with stories and reflections to share. Just need a little cleaning up at this point. Also, there is so much I am going to unspool them a little at time.
Right now I am very disoriented. I have gotten e-mails and texts from much of the group and they are in the same place.
While walking through the Memphis airport tonight it felt like the day after a rock show in which I have forgotten my earplugs. I can hear want is going on but it is all muted. It is as if I am inside my own head, and am not fully tuned in to what is going on around me.
I can remember after living in my car for about a year, I was back in DC having dinner with a friend. I was just starting to process the transformation I was going through on the road. As we talked I had very little energy for what she was saying, but when I started talking about what was going on in my head, I came alive.
She was offended and called me on it. At the time I thought I was just a big selfish oaf (which I am sure was true on some level). In retrospect I realize that I simply had so much new information I was all that I could see (which the definition of selfish).
I did it again last night. A friend about 4pm needing a kind ear and support because of what had unfolded over the afternoon. I physically showed up, but did her a great disservice in my presents. I was fully stuck in my head (and the nap I hadn’t woken up from).
Again, selfish. Should have done better.
It is this amazing place to be. In ones head. When you don’t know which way is up.
It is not that I now have this new set of priorities, now that I have seen how some live I am now a completely new creation and it is time to act.
Instead, I don’t know what I am. As I return home, I know some of the things I through were really important, in this moment seem less important. But that doesn’t mean I know what is important. It doesn’t mean I know who I am.
It seem I simply know I am disoriented.
Like a river bed that has been stirred up. The water is murky. I can’t see much.
In time the water will settle.
I wonder who I will be and where I will be standing when that does.

For some reason it has been really hard to write on this trip. I am not sure why that is. I think it is because I am tired. I came on the trip tired and most afternoons when I should have been napping I have been hanging out and talking with member of our group and other groups. So at mass tonight I decided I am going to write much more when I get home.
These are the stories I am going to write.
Elvis and my mother
Catching up with college friends
Jack the rock star
Dust, dust, and more dust
Christian/dignity
Why it great to lead a group
Why it is hard to lead a group
Hugs and kisses
The juggler I have ever seen
The sing off
Dirt floors and the first world
You should be here/You shouldn’t be here
and many more…

I am sorry I have not blogged more. I have a feeling more is going to come later.
Lots of good conversation.
Lots of laughs.
More than a few tears.
We are walking this together.
We are being stretched.
How do you reconcile what you see here with what you know at home?
The group is great. People are open. They are willing to share the questions they know there are no easy answers for.
I guess a trip like this is about questions that poke and prod us. It is not about answers.
I would be writing more, but I am spending my free time talking with the group. Learning and growing.
Many great stories to come…
PS: Team Farmer has done a much better job of blogging than me. Check it out at Farmer Five