Sunny Days

While locked in on parish grounds today, I decided that one of the cool things about being a missionary is that it is perfectly valid to be very late for work for reasons such as you are literally stuck at church.

Though being trapped caused me to be tardy in getting back to the Sisters` house after a mid-afternoon break, I considered the situation was all part of doing missionary work. I had gone to the office in the parish in order to use the computer to prepare English lessons, as Jessica and I have taken on a large number of new language students. This week I am teaching them solo as Jessica went with Padre to a conference in Veracruz.

As I worked, one of the church´s handymen, Arturo, came in to talk with me. He has somewhat limited social skills and generally sits grumpily in a corner smoking and mumbling to himself while everyone else eats and chats. He has taken an interest in Jessica and I though and is always very concerned with where we have been, what we are doing, where we will go, what we will do afterward and what are plans are for the following day. The two of us have longer conversations whereby he asks me questions like ``Who wrote the formula E=MC(2)?, What do you think of communism? Why don`t you have a boyfriend? Is it better to be fat or thin?`` I don`t understand most of what he says, but he is persistent despite the fact that our talks tend to frustrate both of us.

I did my best to fill Arturo in on the events of my day. Once I finished using the computer, he said he would let me out of the church, as the gates are locked between two and four in the afternoon. We went outside and he knocked on Guillito`s door for the keys and Guillito yelled at him to wait. Arturo muttered a curse (there are some parts of the Spanish language I am adept in) and told me to sit and wait. I showed him the English lesson I had made up and tried to answer his questions on how to clarify if someone has light or dark blue eyes.

He mentioned that he had keys to a side gate used as an entrance for cars. I agreed to go out that way, but for whatever reason we continued to sit, and so I thought I had misunderstood him. Alejandro, the church`s flower man, came outside and headed toward the parish entrance. We watched to see if he was trying to leave the parish and if he had keys. Thinking he could open the door, I ran toward him, but I realized he was stuck as well. Then Arturo decided to let both of us out of the side gate.

You might be wondering why Arturo just didn`t let me out of the other gate in the first place. I tried not to concern myself with that as I am taking things as they come. However, in the States, being late for work would have been a source for stress for me. Here, the nuns take little notice of my comings and goings , but if they did question me on my arrival time, I am sure that being held up at church would have been a situation that they could relate to.

However, I don`t have any scheduled tasks with the nuns and they only find need for me when I happen to be around while they are engaged in some task. This is why I have been randomly called over to climb up a pile of rocks and clean a shrine to the Virgin Mary, take down and hang up eight sets of curtains, and put out clothes to dry on the roof while watching the children of workers.

Though the people being cared for at the house are happy to see me come and seem sad when I leave, what time I get there doesn`t mean much to them. So had I been worried about the situation, I would have been the only one.

There are so many things that bother me here that I can`t control, such as the handicaps of the people I work with, how long it takes for things to get done and how schedules mean little to people. Today I realized that when something you can`t change allows you to relax and enjoy the sunshine, it`s best to just soak it in.