En Viaje

I've found that blogging is a lot like flossing. If you don't do it with pretty strict regularity, you end up not doing it at all. And then you feel all guilty about it.


Anyway, the past two months have been pretty full. My parents and sister came down to visit 2 weeks ago, which was a really good time. We hung out in Lima for a few days and then went down to Cusco and Machu Picchu. Both were incredible places to visit and well worth swallowing my "I live in Peru, I'm not a tourist" pride to take a bunch of pictures (which you can view at http://garyandpatpictures.shutterfly.com/; as you may have guessed, the photos of my sister shooting a handgun were not taken in Peru but in Kentucky). The pictures probably tell the story of the trip better than I could, so I'll just say that we saw a lot of incredible ruins, we ate a lot of great food (which only led to serious stomach sickness toward the end), and got to spend some quality family time together.


I actually ended up heading back to the US on the same day my parents did, spending Holy Week in one of the few places even more Catholic than Peru: the University of Notre Dame. Why Notre Dame? Because I decided to apply to Divinity School for next year to obtain to Masters of Theological Studies degree, and Notre Dame accepted me into their program.

When I mention my Divinity School plans, I generally get the following questions (1) Are you going to be a priest? (2) What do they even teach in Divinity School? and (3) When are you going to become a productive member of society? In case you had the same questions, the answers are (1) No. (2) They teach theology and ministry skills (I'll be focusing in moral theology and social ethics) (3) It depends on your definition, but probably a while.

Anyway, my trip to Notre Dame was good, especially because I got to spend time with my ex-JVC roommate Kate and my friends from El Salvador while in Chicago. Although I was really impressed with Notre Dame's program and was offered the opportunity to live in a nearby Catholic Worker community while studying there, in the end I decided Boston College is probably the best place for me for the next 2 years. Despite one of my priest friend's claims that "the only thing left unchanged after a Jesuit Mass is the bread and the wine", I'm really looking forward to studying with the Jesuits in Boston come September.


So now I'm back in Peru, trying to take advantage of my last 4 months here. I think I've either gained some immunity to street food or else I've consumed a parasite that is eating the other ones (I prefer the latter theory so when people give me weird looks for eating large quantities, I can just tell them I'm eating for two). I suppose my Spanish is improving but I still can't pronounce the double "rr"s. I've been told to practice saying "perro" over and over to get my tongue used to the sound, but I think it's much more effective at freaking out the other passengers on the buses (imagine a guy staring out the window saying "dog" "dog" "dog"...) than improving my pronunciation. In any case, people seem to understand me well enough, and I haven't accidentally told a co-worker that a patient died in several weeks, so I consider that a small victory.