been here for a long time

“Although it has only been a week ago that I came to Latin America, I have been here for a long time.  The many new things I saw and heard during the last seven days must have intensified my mental activity.  At the same time, I have had more time for myself than I have had in a long time — more time to pray, more time to read, more time to talk to people, more time to relax and just look around.” – Gracias by Henri Nouwen (10).

Unfortunately I have fallen a little bit sick.  It’s nothing big, but a stuffy nose, soar throat and unquenchable need for sleep.  I woke up this morning to go to work and just could not get out of bed.  Berta, my Peruvian mom, brought me coffee, medicine and bread in bed … and that is where I continue to sit.  Although I have photos to edit and documents to read for my Practicum II class, this “morning” (around 10:30am here), I picked up Gracias – A Latin American Journal by Henri Nouwen.  I had started to read it while we were living at the Belen Clinic and hadn’t had a chance to pick it up since.

Henri Nouwen is a Catholic Priest who came to live in Latin America in late 1981 through early 1982 (about six months).  He came here because he believed that he was being called to live with the poorest of the world’s poor.  He kept a detailed journal of his time here and the many things he learned, experienced and witnessed.  He was here during a really hard time in Latin American history.  Corrupt governments were harshly ruling over people – and civil wars were breaking out in El Salvador, Peru and Bolivia.  You can still notice some of the hurt that surfaces when you ask people here about the history of the Shining Path in Peru.

Anyway, one thing that is interesting about Nouwen is that after leaving Latin America, he never returned to live here.  He said that he desired to, but he knew that it was his desire and not really a call from God.  Instead, he has been living in a community in Canada for years, working with mentally disabled people – and has more recently written that he notices that poverty exists everywhere – and that no matter where we are, we can work with the world’s poor…for him now, that is the poor in spirit, the ones that are discriminated in their community because of their mental limitations.

So – I write all of this because as I was reading his journal this morning, the quote above really stuck out to me.  Here, I will place it again:  “Although it has only been a week ago that I came to Latin America, I have been here for a long time.  The many new things I saw and heard during the last seven days must have intensified my mental activity.  At the same time, I have had more time for myself than I have had in a long time — more time to pray, more time to read, more time to talk to people, more time to relax and just look around.” – Gracias by Henri Nouwen (10).

Yesterday marked three weeks since Kenzo and I arrived in Cuzco…but, I would agree with Nouwen that we have been here for a long time.  Actually, Kenzo and I spoke yesterday about how it seems like we’ve been here longer (which we were excited to realize that although time is continually moving, maybe it is not flying by like we feared that it would).  We have seen and heard a lot.  In my patient record from the Belen Clinic, there is a list of 18 patients that I have seen in the past two weeks – each for at least one hour.  I’ve met with a 24 year old man who’s self esteem is shattered due to a scar on his face he received when he was a boy.  He fears that he is “ugly” and that no one will ever love him.  I have met with a mother who is worried about her daughter who lives in Lima (a short hour plane ride but 22 hour bus ride away).  Her daughter recently had a tumor in her brain, which was removed but now has another tumor in her stomach.  The mother did not say it, but Eliana (the psychologist that I work with) and I both believe that it is cancer.  I’ve met with a father who is so busy working that he has not had time to spend with his teenage daughters.  He has so much anxiety about his new business that he is suffering from panic attacks.  I’ve met with a family where the mother presents with depression, the father admittedly is an alcoholic and cries in the office when we ask him how he believes that his drinking affects his two teenage daughters and his 3 year old baby girl.  We truly have seen and heard a lot.

And yet, as Nouwen says, I have experienced more time for myself than I have had in a long time.  Although we’re working every morning, and sometimes in the afternoon…there is something about the pace of Latin America, the mid-day meal that closes up shops and clinics, that returns fathers to home to eat and lasts for at least two hours – something about this place that calls you to slow down.  To take note of what is around you and inside you.  I’m really enjoying that time to just be still.