Community I: John, Housemate and Co-Pioneer

In the next few entries, I hope to introduce a few of the most important people in my community experience here in Chile. Before diving into today’s reflection, I would like to recall the three pillars of the Holy Cross Overseas Lay Ministry program: Mission, Spirituality, and Community. I recall these pillars because there is one person who has been present and will continue to be present for about any important development in these areas during my time in Chile. His name is John Paul Power, and he hails from Fox Island, Washington, which is in the Puget Sound just outside of Tacoma.

(Pause: In Spanish, “John Paul Power from Fox Island” is “Juan Pablo Poder de Isla Zorro”. If you don’t speak Spanish, it’s hard to convey the rhythm and effect of that name, but it rolls off the tongue very easily and the words “poder” and “zorro” are both pretty charged. My teacher/mentor Claudia, after hearing that translation, came up with this image of John wearing a cape, on top of a mountain, outlined by the setting sun…and surrounded by students.)

John graduated from the University of Portland in April, having majored in History, French, and Political Science. He’s lived in the Pacific Northwest for all of his life besides two periods of time when he lived in France. He lived there for an entire year as a junior in high school, and for another semester as a junior in college. You’ve probably already figured out that he speaks some pretty good French. Our combined knowledge has come in handy on occasions when we need to speak without the observation of any Spanish or English speakers. Despite this very cool technique of exclusion, his French more often than not has been creeping into his Spanish conversation. This is John’s first time in a Spanish speaking country, and as a self proclaimed “on-site” learner, he came without much practice but expects to improve greatly after the first few months, and has already made noticeable progress since we arrived.

In many ways, John and I are about as opposite as two people can be and still live comfortably in the same house. He is, in a word, extroverted. Great at telling stories and conversing in general, he makes sure the house doesn’t stay unbearably quiet. Where I prefer having a plan written out, John easily works on the fly. He certainly has more flexibility when it comes to dealing with unexpected situations.

For the few workshops and academies that we teach together, we have found that our skill sets complement each other rather well. Even though the extent of my preparations is still limited due to the lack of knowledge about what exactly we are doing, I’ve been providing a basic structure around which to base the lesson, while John is great about coming up with exercises and keeping things moving throughout class. Another interesting contrast is the ways we each write on the white board. John tends to write haphazardly and without any real sense of order, and I’ll usually make tables, lists, and groups like words together.

At home, we have an efficient system of cooperation in place at the moment. John made it a point, on the day that we met at Notre Dame, to make it clear that we will let each other know if and when we have a frustration with the other. Perhaps thanks to this agreement to be upfront, we luckily have had no major run-ins to date. Not to worry though, we still have over a year together to achieve that.

Even outside of class, for example in handling things with our Chileans coordinators or running errands together, we have come to liken our cooperation to the powers of the Captain Planet team, or the yin and yang. All of this means I am looking forward to the time we will be spending together and growing together over the next year and a half. We’ll get on each others’ nerves from time to time, as may have already happened, but we’ll learn to deal with the small things and not let them get in the way of our little community.

In the mean time, I’ll continue to make sure that doors are closed, that food and other items return to their rightful places, and that we get out of bed in the morning, and John, for his part, will make sure I don’t get too caught up in the small, mundane details of daily life to miss the bigger picture of why we are here in Chile.

Brother André Week

Last week, the school commemorated the birthday of Blessed Brother Andre Bessette of the Congregation of Holy Cross. Brother Andre lived for 91 years from 1846 to 1937. Since his youth he was a chronically sickly person, so when he entered into formation for priesthood in the Congregation of Holy Cross, he was denied admittance because of his precarious health, which would likely mean a short life. He was admitted into the order of brothers. As a religious, he served at the College of Notre Dame (a high school) in Montreal, Canada as a doorman. Some local people suffering from various illnesses came to him asking for his help to cure them. After a few cases of improvements and cures, many people began coming to the entrance to the college to visit Brother Andre and ask for a miracle. As a result, the Congregation gave him his own chapel to attend to these sick people. Obviously, he exceeded his life expectancy by quite a few years. He is known to have denied any role in the miraculous cures, calling himself instead an instrument between the providence of God and the intercession of St. Joseph, to whom he had a particularly strong devotion. The way he would encourage people to ask for a cure was to pray to St. Joseph and rub the wounded area with holy oil. Thanks to his initiative, the largest sanctuary to St. Joseph in the world was built in the early to mid twentieth century just outside of Montreal.

Of course, as a good student at a Holy Cross university, I knew very little of this before coming to Chile. However, at the colegio, there is a very strong devotion to Brother Andre. Some of the kids even have the perception that he founded Holy Cross or was a priest because they talk him up so much. So, during this week to commemorate him, each class participated in a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”-like contest answering questions about the life of Brother Andre, the history and government of Chile, current events, and other trivia relating to interests of the students such as TV, movies, music, and popular card games. The contest even included sound effects straight from the TV show. The older grades (7th through 12th, I think) competed for the title of school champion, and the 9th graders won.
Thanks to Brother Andre, many classes were interrupted due to the trivia contest.

Then, on Friday, there were no classes at all. In the morning, the older grades hosted the younger grades for fellowship, food, and fun. John and I, since we usually begin our days with one of the 10th grade classes, stayed with them for the activities. Also, since Fr. Erwin, their homeroom teacher, was out for a surgery, we served as their homeroom teachers for the day. Really, they pretty much handled the day themselves, and were very good about decorating, focusing on their “younger siblings,” and cleaning up after themselves.

Friday before lunch there was a short play about Brother Andre’s life and work. Most of the kids in 10th grade found it boring since they’ve seen it every year for a while now. It being my first time, I found it moving. The actors were mostly students, and they did a very good job. In the afternoon, there was a social for the teachers in the library, complete with hors d’oeuvres and drinks (champagne and pisco sour). The men and women competed in a friendly but competitive game of trivia, much like the students’ version.

On the most basic level, this week helped me learn more than I ever thought I would about Brother Andre. In addition, I witnessed how important prayer to the saints is here among Chilean Catholics and within the colegio in specific. This is true for the students (many, though not all, of course) and for the teachers as well. Personally, it has been a good reminder of the importance of the saints for a Catholic. Praying to the saints that they intercede for us with our petitions is of course laudable and one of the reasons why the church distinguishes them. On the same token, though, we should make an effort to go beyond merely asking for their aid in through petitions. Educating ourselves and reflecting on their lives gives us the opportunity to cooperate in implementing positive change in our lives. The church says these holy people are worthy of being intercessors on our behalf because they were close to God in their lives here on earth and we believe they are among the closest in the kingdom of heaven. Thus, in knowing about the lives of the saints we learn from their tried example of how to do God’s will in difficult situations in this world. In the case of Brother Andre, his example was very simple, cheerfully fulfilling his duties in cleaning and maintenance at the school and dedicating many hours of the rest of his time to listening to the stories of people coming to him for help through their sickness. I can only hope that in my work at the school I can emulate this spirit of duty and selfless perception of time.

Miss Claudia

As I mentioned in my previous post, while at the colegio, John and I primarily accompany the two permanent English teachers, Claudio and Claudia. First of all, I should mention that their job security is contingent upon the other remaining on the staff, seeing as the departure of one would necessitate a new search for a male and female pair with matching names.

Ok, so maybe that’s not true. At first John and I were taking turns accompanying Claudio and Claudia different days of the week. However, after the first week, once the time came to decide between ourselves which days we would accompany which teacher, John and I decided that for the first semester I would work with the younger students and he with the older ones. Level of fluency in Spanish was essentially the determining factor, since the younger students have more questions and usually need responses in Spanish in order to get the most out of our time with them. Claudia works primarily with students of enseñanza básica, or grade school, while Claudio teaches students of enseñanza media, or high school. Seeing as how the high school students can better carry on conversations in English, and John cannot yet communicate as efficiently in Spanish as I can, we arrived at the decision that I would accompany Claudia and he Claudio. We may very well switch things up for the new school year in 2009, after John has spent a few months here and gotten more comfortable in Chilean Spanish.

As I have gone accompanying Claudia, she tries to have me spend time with small groups of students to practice conversation and reinforcement of grammar and vocabulary they are studying at the moment. On the occasions when the class must go to the computer lab for an assignment, I am there with Claudia to answer questions they may have.
Claudia sees most of her classes for four horas every week, each hora being forty-five minutes. This means two days per week for about an hour and a half each of these days. As a result, it is hard to get students into the habit of frequent conversation in English, and they spend most time working out of their books or in the English computer lab at the school, primarily on written content. For this reason, eliciting conversation has been basic with most groups, especially the lower grades. For example, with the fourth graders last week, in forty-five minutes we barely succeeded in having each of abouttwenty students respond in complete sentences to the questions “What is your name?” and “How old are you?”

This does not mean, however, that the students have no interest in conversing. Many do often feel ashamed to try and sound foolish. Patience and respect, though, seems to be the best way to encourage them to talk. John has also enlightened me with the wisdom of tricking students into teaching one another, often by introducing a competitive element. When there is some sort of goal to reach, or particularly if the group is divided into two who compete against each other to complete a task, they will help each other out by repeating phrases for one another and encouraging each other. They also pay closer attention in general when they are under pressure and could stand to benefit from listening to those speaking before them in order to prepare and by listening to those speaking after them in order to make helpful suggestions.

Let me return to Miss Claudia now. Like all other teachers at the school, she has a home room with whom she starts the day with reflection and prayer. With her homeroom she is particularly insistent upon silence during the prayer and cleanliness in her room. Her attention to cleanliness carries on to the other rooms she travels to throughout the day. Each class begins with her greeting the class and them responding, in English, either “Good morning, teacher” or “Good morning, Miss Claudia.” By the way, she is married, but she has her students call her miss. Chile has a different system for addressing teachers than the United States, not only because of the difference in language. Where in the U.S. students would most likely address me as Mister Smith, in Chile the students address their teachers by their title, profe, followed by their first name. For example, most students address me as Profe Brian (teacher Brian), and occasionally Mister Brian in English class. Some of the younger students call me Tío Brian, which literally means Uncle Brian. This doesn’t mean that they see me as part of their family, though. In Chile the words for uncle and aunt are used for any sort of caretaker or supervisor of children. Since Claudia works with students from first through eighth grade, learning to adjust to the levels of proficiency and the teaching methods appropriate to each grade level has been challenging. The students in general are very interested and cooperative with conversation activities. Claudia and I are still in the process of planning ahead how I can structure future lessons. For the time being, though, speaking with the students about their interests and likes while incorporating important phrases and grammatical points has been successful.

Here begins what will hopefully be an extensive series of entries about my experience as an associate layperson (laico asociado in Spanish) of Holy Cross in Santiago, Chile. My housemate, fellow teacher, and partner in crime John Power and I arrived Sunday, July 28^th.

Before leaving the States we spent one night and part of a day in New York City. Highlights of the stay in Manhattan included seeing Norah Jones live at a bar thanks to one of John’s friends, visiting St. Patrick’s Cathedral, meeting up with some friends from the Maryknoll orientation , and perusing few works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Then, we flew out of LaGuardia to Toronto, and from there direct to Santiago. The flight went by without any incident other than a rather fussy baby. Once we landed, though, we found that of the two pieces of luggage that we each had brought, only one of mine and one of John’s arrived. Thankfully, they did show up at our house late Monday night.

So, you may be wondering what the house is like. Well, after Fr. Mike DeLaney (Holy Cross’s district superior in Chile) and Michelle Fitzgerald (former Holy Cross Associate and current English teacher and international study program coordinator at Saint George’s College, another colegio in Santiago) met John and me at the airport, we went straight to the house. It is located approximately one block from the colegio where we work, in a small street called Pasaje General Armstrong (a very common Chilean name, of course). The neighborhood is, to cite a frequently spoken Chilean phrase, “más o menos,” meaning more or less. Our house, like the rest in the area, has bars over the windows that face the street and two dead bolt locks on the door. Most people advise us not to go out alone after sunset or at all late at night. Up till now, though, the neighbors we have met are friendly and besides loud music and a dog fight we haven´t run into any problems. Besides neighbors in our pasaje, we have also been introduced to some other families who live nearby that have connections to the school, the parish, or the former Holy Cross Associate program. Like most cities in Chile, there are a lot of stray dogs around here, since the people of Chile believe neutering and putting animals to sleep are unacceptable methods to deal with the flourishing canine population.

The inside of the house was very pleasantly furnished before we arrived, thanks mostly to supplies left over from the former Holy Cross Associates program and a few new items which the Congregation provided for us. There are two floors; the first is comprised of a living room and kitchen separated by a counter and cabinets. Then, beyond a door in the back, there is another small room , off of which is the laundry area and a modest bathroom (read: toilet). The small room will serve primarily as space to dry clothes. We do have a drier, but since they take so much energy we will try to use it sparingly. Upstairs are three bedrooms, one each with a regular bed, bunkbeds, and a bed with an additional roll out underneath. I have chosen to live in the room with the roll out, since it has a window that faces Cerro Renca, a hill to the north east which I saw often last year and has a cross on top of it. At the end of the hallway is a bathroom. With my next post I hope to have some pictures of the house, but have decided to wait until John and I are settled in.

John and I came to Chile with the understanding that the first week or two would be a time of orientation, meeting the Holy Cross priests, brothers, and other workers here in Chile, defining what we will be doing at the Colegio and in the other apostolates of the Congregation in Santiago. Well, most of that has happened. The only change from the original plans is that we began working at the Colegio on Monday. So, John and I jumped into the deep end in a sense. However, being it the first week, we worked primarily with introductions, to get to know the students and to get a feel for their level of English. The strangest part for me was that the teachers just left us with the groups without much in the way of instructions or consultation about what they expected. For the workshops, John and I are the only teachers listed for those classes. All considering, though, the classes have gone well. We try to speak only in English, with mixed success. With the younger students this tactic is nearly impossible, and we have resigned ourselves to the fact that we may have to implement games working with vocabulary and basic sentences. In the classes from middle school to early high school, some students grasp most of what we are saying, which so far has been limited to introductions and questions about their family and what they like to do. For the upper grades, especially 11^th and 12^th grade, the small groups have been able to at least make an effort to speak exclusively in English, and some students know quite a bit. For most all of them, though, this is their first opportunity to learn with a native speaker. This means that attention levels have been surprisingly high over all age groups.

What with meeting the teachers, students, priests, brothers, and neighbors, the past week has been a bombardment of names, many of which I have already forgotten. I can only hope that people will understand that while I appreciate their effort to distinguish between John and me, I may take a bit longer doing so for them, as they are a bit more numerous.

Well, seeing as I must stop sometime, I will wrap up by saying that I have not covered many important parts of the past week. I think that is something good to keep in mind for this first entry in Chile especially, as well as for future entries. Please, feel free to write me with any questions, or if you think there is something I neglected to write about but should include in future entries. I would also like to thank all of you for your support. If there is one thing I have learned over the past month with orientations and beginning to work it is that this next year and a half will be a challenge I will not be able to meet alone. I have received immeasurable support to bring me here, beginning long before I even heard about this program. My only hope is that some I will be able to be a good influence on someone’s life here as so many people have been for me before now and more will surely be over the next year and a half.

For now, I bid you farewell. I hope you’ll return, and please write with questions if you have them. Coming soon: more frequent entries.