the past 2 weeks:
We divided into our concentration areas. I am in Advanced Language and Literature with 13 peers. We had charlas in the mornings with guest speakers that shared their lives with us…marginalization and homosexuality, violence and war, poetry, transcultural service, and Gestación (a recent and respected Costa Rican film that portrays teenage pregnancy and its consequences in an authentic light while criticizing the socio-economic gap between rich and the poor, religion, discrimination, the absence of a father figure in the home…and on!!)
I especially enjoyed Gestación because I was able to understand it from a Latin American perspective, and since it was filmed here in San José, I could identify with the places where the film took place!! The director presented the film to us at LASP because it is not out in stores (yet?) because once a film goes public in Latin America, you’ll be able to find it on the streets … pirated. I hope they do sell it publicly. I was impressed, and I rarely get excited about movies, if you know me!
Elmer Rodriguez, a Salvadorian, visited us yet again, this time to share his poetry and his inspiration for doing it. Elmer was one of our first speakers at the beginning of the semester and told us his life story of growing up with his family squatting land near the dump and scrounging for food each day to survive. He lived through the wretched civil war time in El Salvador also. He is an example of a person who keep hold of hope and has persevered to live a dignified life, although still lower class, with his 6 children. This man is a guard who works 24 hour shifts to support his family and still MAKES time to express himself through poetry and art. It is his way of rebellion, to have a VOICE where he otherwise would never be heard. He writes to feed his soul, to express the pain and despair that a privileged person like me cannot fathom. Since the first charla when Elmer shared his story, he has challenged me to think about how I can live in solidarity with the poor or oppressed instead of just knowing poverty or marginalization as a theme.
The lang and lit students also had language classes for 2 hours every afternoon with the best tica Spanish teacher Xinia. She was one of our profs at ICADS and came especially for these two weeks to push us along even further in our language acquisition! We trudged through the fearful subjunctive verb tense which doesn’t exist the same way in English. I feel like high school Spanish teachers make it out to be a big deal to reach the subjunctive verb tense and freak out their students! But this tica profs always tell us that it is not that glorious. Relieving to hear and know! In these Spanish classes, we dialogue about everyday stuff, but Xinia challenge us to talk about themes of life using newspaper articles…talking beyond ourselves and what we know to higher academic themes! We also learned typical latino sayings, false cognates, nominalization, other uses of common verbs, and more! So much to know and then to apply to daily speech! Wow. I have a ways to go! But Xinia was very encouraging and gave us useful advice to continue our second language learning. She pushed us by pointing out our mistakes and correcting us and reviewing them with us each day. This could seem intimidating and humiliating, but for us, it made us want to improve. I wish all the LASP students could have had more Spanish classes these 2 weeks. We were blessed.
the next three weeks:
Monday, November 8 through Tuesday, November 30, I will be living with Gloria y her two nephews who are 16 and 17. They are the main family who manages the Iguana Project. So I will be helping them with whatever dirty work that consists of…cleaning cages, change water dishes, feeding them, watching the iguanas lay eggs…who knows! In reality, this “concentration” is an excuse to live and relate to the people. It may mean that I really do not do anything at all, that I will feel useless, that I won’t accomplish anything, that I will sit in a hammock each day and relax. I have the opportunity to BE instead of to DO…to listen and observe and learn from this indigenous people group who is content with simplicity of life. Each LASP student has the opportunity to be and to participate in the latino culture in a different way outside of the americanized capital city for three weeks!
I am ready to face this challenge. And for me, I may even get to learn the Bribri tongue and their traditional stories and heritage….a different view of the world and God’s creation. I know that I have asked this before, but I have come to its value even more…to have an open heart and to be completely humbled in my thoughts, words, and actions. Pray for patience as I learn (continuously) to be present and not wish the time away. Today is what we have!
“El diálogo demanda amor, humildad, fe en los seres humanos, esperanza, confianza y un amor verdadero.” - Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
May you dwell in the presence of God today, Joanne
