How did this happen?

My fourteen-year-old English students laugh at me--they laugh when I try to speak Spanish, they laugh when I talk at them in English, and they laugh for various other reasons that I don`t understand. I don`t quite get them and vice versa. The difference isn`t cultural, it`s the thirteen years I have on them. They are at an age where if something is not a cause for tears, it is generally a reason to burst into giggles. Authority figures over the age of twenty-five (such as myself) are especially funny.

Admittedly, I do odd things. At work yesterday, I came upon Paulina riding on a toy tricycle. Instead of cycling on the pedals, she was using her legs to trudge herself along. I corrected her form and pushed her, but couldn`t get her to ride on her own. Wondering if the tricycle even worked properly, I tried it out myself and she then she attempted to push me along. That didn`t work, so I decided to demonstrate how one circles their legs. While lying on the ground moving my feet through the air, I thought of my peers spending their Wednesday afternoons in offices. I realized that within the span of one year (and without acquiring a husband or child), I have gone from being a hip, young urbanite to leading the life of a small-town PTA mom.

This is a typical weekend in Santa Fe: I go to the market to buy ingredients for a fresh raspberry pie that Jess and I will bake for an elderly neighbor. While shopping, I exchange pleasantries with co-workers and students that I encounter. Playing nearby is the parish dog wjp has followed me into the market. Minus my nagging chitchat with Lucius (the town drunk I`ve befriended), it feels very Normal Rockwell. On the weekend, I also make stops at the parish where I help lead youth group, chat with the church ladies and clear up after meals.

Ironically, one of the reasons that I didn`t do volunteer work abroad out of college is that I had the idea that I needed to settle down and start a family and this type of thing would hold me back. Realizing it is easier to obtain a family than to make this sort of commitment, I got over that fear and decided I wanted to try something exotic. Ironically, my life has turned
decidedly domestic.

When tell others that I am doing missionary work in Mexico, they conjure up images of me working in the jungle with native people or living in the midst of drug wars. Life is actually much simpler. At work I wipe noses, read children`s books and give hugs. At home, I cook meals with fresh food from the market place and entertain neighborhood teens who stop by. Despite putting aside my desire to start a family, I feel as if I have turned into a mother. I suppose my life is pretty funny.

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.

Back to School--Missionary Month

Two years after graduating from college, I found myself unemployed, living with my parents and trying to figure out the Next Step. Since I didn't have any friends left in my hometown, my mother suggested that I attend a session of Theology on Tap--a program where young Catholics meet up to discuss religious issues over beer.

This was out of character for my mother as she generally tries to dissuade me from visiting establishments where alcohol is served. And, while she attends church regularly, she generally doesn't go to Church discussions. Knowing her, I deduced that she had a Next Step for me in mind that involved me meeting a nice Catholic boy, getting married and giving her lots of grandchildren.

It wasn't out of concern for my love life that I agreed to go. I went because I was somewhat interested in exploring my faith and very interested in exploring a bar. My mother dropped me off at a local chain pub with twenty dollars, and there I sipped on vodka and cranberry juice while listening to a priest discuss his life as a missionary in Peru and the need for more volunteers.

The idea of missionary work was intriguing to me, but it seemed impractical. It was too far away, I didn't want to put off starting my real life, and most of all, surely you had to be supereligious and holier-than-though to do such a thing.


While speaking with Father about getting involved, he seemed to understand my concerns about whether I would fit in as a missionary.

Glancing at my short skirt and heavy eye-makeup, he gently said ''There are all kinds of people who serve as missionaries. Even people who look like you.''

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Of course, it wasn't until three years after this event that I became a missionary. I related that story to various students in last week as part of Missionary Month. Jessica and I visited the nuns' school in Mexico and shared our take on missionary life with various high-school and middle-school-students.

At first, I was hesitant to be a speaker for Mission Month. I've only been at this for two months and I have yet to feel like I am making a great impact. Most of the time, I feel like I am simply a human playground, as my body spends its days being jumped on, tugged, spit on, hugging and lifting children.

However, Jessica and I created a presentation on what it means to be a missionary for a presentation in which we tried to dispel myths about the lifestyle. This is some of what we covered:

--Missionaries don't have to be priests or nuns. Additionally, missionaries don't have to be Catholic or particularly religious, but those in Catholic missionary programs should adhere to values of the Catholic faith in terms of having a respect for human life and wanting social change.

--Missionaries don't go around preaching. One of the reasons I was hesitant about being a missionary was that I imagined I would have to stand on a street corner passing out pamphlets or knock on doors in order to take people to church. While sharing God's love and gifts is important to me, being a missionary is not about proselytizing, but rather being with people, trying to understand them, and attending to both their physical and spiritual needs.

--Anyone can be a missionary. It's not necessary to go to a foreign country in order to be one, since you can give of yourself to others no matter where you are. Simply by turning of the TV and listening to a family member, or visiting a lonely neighbor, you are doing missionary work.

--Missionaries are everywhere. For this, we showed some photos of fellow members of our mission orientation that we had heisted off the Internet. Mary and Clare from Ireland are now in Texas where they tutor homeless women and their families, but they have explored the culture of the state by meeting old cowboys and visiting the rodeo. Nicole is leading a more stereotypical missionary life as she works as housemother for a simple boarding school in Guatemala where there is no electricity or running water. Julie, Courtney and Jane are all in Peru. Julie and Courtney are working in a hospice while Jane is serving as a reporter and drawing light to social issues that are being neglected.

--Missionaries can be any age. I didn't become a missionary until years after thinking it was too late for me to consider it. Additionally there are middle-aged missionaries in our program, and in Texas, we met an 83 year-old nun just back from doing mission work.

As I spoke, I became a believer in what I saying. I may only be doing small things right now, but as missionaries are composed of people from various faiths, classes, ethnicities and centuries, I am part of something big.

It remains to be seen how much of an effect we had on the students. Their level of interested varied as some students seemed bored and talked during the presentation, while others eagerly shared their own missionary experiences, giggled at our pictures and questioned us about music, money and boyfriends. I am not excepting anyone to become a missionary right away based on our talk. I hope that ten or so years from now, one of the girls wearing a tight sweatshirt and fistful of bracelets over her old-fashioned Catholic schoolgirl dress, might be looking for fulfillment in her life and feel called to do mission work.

As for my mother, she may not have ended up with me and grandchildren nearby, but she was excited by my decision to go and said that she wished she could come along. Yesterday, a package from her arrived full of goodies along with books that she bought for the children I work with. By supporting me, and showing love for those children, she is serving as missisonary.

How I Spent My Feast of the Assumption Day

Over the last few years, I've often found myself in situations where I have looked around and wondered "How exactly did I end up here?"

Last summer, a former assistant to the Pakistani ambassador invited me to their embassy to watch a famous singer perform. I was one of the only white faces among a crowd of diplomats and personnel with ties to the Middle Eastern country and I seemed to be the only person unfamiliar with the sitar. Still, it all felt glamorous and cosmopolitan, and after the show, I crowded into a black SUV along with a group of Pakistanis and we drove to a sheesha cafe. During the ride over, the driver played Pakistani and Indian folk songs, and while the rest of the passangers sang, wailed and danced along, my Singaporean roommate and I kept to ourselves, feeling as if we were what was wrong with the picture.

Three years prior to that, I had just moved to California, where I initally had no friends other than my sister. I went on a few dates with a friend of my landlord's, a guy named Ahmad, who was in his mid-20's of Chinese-Iranian descent. On our third outing, he took me to a family party where we were the only adults under 40. His mother and her sisters drank lots of wine and danced, while I nibbled at Persian food that I hoped was vegetarian. Ahmad's relatives winked at me and said how nice it was to see Ahmad with a girl and I spent most of the evening trying not get pulled into the circle of dancing women.

During my study abroad trip to Australia, after spending a whole night awake at pubs and clubs, one of my friends (Peter) said that he was taking a three-hour drive to a beach town that morning, and could use some company if anyone wanted to come along. Most of the crew bowed out, but my best American friend (Tracie) and I decided we'd love to go for a swim. We chatted excitedly on the way up, and once we reached Bunbury we went to the beach while Peter attended to his business. Tracie and I fell asleep on the beach four hours later-- hungry, dehydrated and suffering from third-degree sunburns. More than wondering how we ended up there, we asked ourselves what we had been thinking (particularly during the next painful week.)

I had another "How did I end up here?" moment this afternoon when I had lunch at the retirement village with the sisters of the Incarnate Word. It actually seemed very natural to attend mass there (for the Feast of the Assumption), congratulate the nuns who were celebrating their anniversaries with the order and then to eat and mingle in the cafeteria with the retired nuns and lay people who live at the community.

Meghan (the assistant program director) complimented me afterwards on branching out beyond the missionary group and approaching strangers with my tray of food and joining them for a meal. (Fish, no surprise.) It was ironic because in high school, I was the girl who was alone at lunch because I didn't have friends to sit with, and I often hung out in the library or stayed late after class studying in order to avoid the embarrassment of being alone.

Reflecting on this made me realize that I have come a long way since childhood in terms of my ability to put myself out there in potentially uncomfortable or awkward situations. I had a "How did I end I up here?" moment when I realized that most of my friends in their late-20s are in offices on Friday afternoons and not socializing at a retirement center along with a few girls just out of college. (Except for Meghan of course, but it's her job.)

When having such moments, it's best not to analyze what brought you into the situation. Sing, dance or smile along, or find someone to chat with, and don't worry about what else you should be doing. This was the message that I got out of a video that Meghan played this morning that documented the experiences of modern-day Catholic missionaries.

"It's best not to think too much on your motivations for being here," said a missionary in Thailand. "Instead, focus on being here and doing God's work."

There are many reasons as to whyI joined this program, ranging from wanting to save the world, to wanting to travel and change my surroundings. I have learned that once I am in Mexico everything may be different than I anticipated--I may not feel utilized or necessary and I could get fed up with poverty, bugs and cold showers.

If that happens, my goal is to forget about how I ended up there and what I expected, and to become absorbed in making the most of the situation. All of my past awkward situations may just have been homework for the test to come.

However, I'm not too worried about being able to weather difficulties. After all ,Sister Magdalena--the little, 82-year old nun who loves Ice Cream Fridays and was sitting across from me today-recently returned from a two-year stint in Peru. If my new friends could handle mission work, then I should be able to too, and I know I'll be getting their prayers of support.