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Santa Cruz, 20th April 2008
I am peeking at Holy Mass celebrated by the Pope Benedict XVI in New York. His visit in the USA finishes today. Thanks to the Catholic channel EWTN we can experience the days which are so important for the Catholics from the USA but also for all of us bound with the Peter of our times.
Today we have the next Sunday of the Easter period. This morning our St Anthony church filled up with people twice. During the Holy Mass ten next children were baptized. And it would not be Bolivian people, if they did not honour it with loud applause. Almost every Sunday our parochial St Anthony community expands through the sacrament of holy baptism. The Bolivian society has many young people, teenagers and children. The whole generations, from grandparents to the youngest children, come to church. When I go towards the bell tower to announce the Holy Mass, the children queue up because all of them want to pull the rope and ring for the Mass. I really do not lack helpers. The children are confident. They come and pull my habit because they want to greet me. During the sign of peace they run to the altar to give the celebrant their hands. They do everything very spontaneously and joyfully.
Today it is sunny and pleasantly warm. The temperature reaches about 28 - 30°C. However, it is not the heat of the summer anymore. The nights are a little bit cooler and the walls do not heat up so badly that you feel as if you were in a sauna. The summer is coming to an end and the rainy season is starting. For the time being, everything is still green. And at the stalls piles of citrus fruits appear. There are oranges, mandarins, grapefruits and lemons. Yesterday I bought a bag of grapefruits - about 15 kilos for 10 bs., which is about... 1 euro. Each season has its fruits and vegetables. We can eat some of them throughout the whole year, e.g. different kinds of bananas. Some fruits are not known in Europe because they are too delicate to be transported there.
What do people do on Sundays in such a city as Santa Cruz? As everywhere, probably, they use the quiet morning to get enough sleep. Many people participate in the Holy Mass, but surely not everybody. Protestant churches as well as different kinds of sects have their meetings or services on Sunday afternoons. The streets are quiet. The whole families visit each other. They are with their relatives, their parents, brothers and sisters... They light the fire to roast the meat... etc. In the afternoon the parks, sport fields and ice-cream shops fill up and in the city there is more and more traffic. It lasts till late evening, when it is warm of course.
In the villages the family life also takes place outside on Sundays. People spend time in front of their houses. They meet, visit each other. Sometimes there are football matches, village "fiestas" etc. You can meet teenagers and children everywhere.
In the convent we almost do not see each other as well. Only in the morning at the Holy Mass and in the evening at about 21.30 when we return home. Each of us eats dinner at different time. On Sunday each priest celebrates... 5 Masses in different places.
Last week I spent most of my time in the office. Our Juan Carlos - one of my two associates - fell ill so he had to spend some time in lying. At Oswalds - my second associate - the family expanded, so as long as the little Moreno and his Mum were at the hospital, Daddy was watching over them. The only one "healthy" - namely me - was on duty in the office. Actually, I wanted to go to the Vicariate, to El Puente for a few days to congratulate our Fr Sixtus on the 25th anniversary of his ordination and on his birthday... but sometimes the plans have to be changed. You know how it sometimes is... you would like to do something but it is impossible.
A so-called "consejo", i.e. a meeting of the economic council of the Vicariate took place in Santa Cruz on Monday. Our Bishop Anthony took part in this meeting. We have not, however, solved many problems we have been contending with for months. Fr Bernardo could not come to the meeting because of his health problems. There are still many matters which have to be dealt with.
But a little bit earlier I had been able to leave Santa Cruz for three days.
Why was I able to do it? Because of the blockades and strikes. The road towards the border with Argentina has been blocked and closed many times recently. The date of the Franciscan brothers meeting in Machiareti, in the Bolivian Cordillera - about 400 kilometres from Santa Cruz had been set one year earlier. But we did not know till the end whether the meeting would take place or not. Finally, Brother Mark and I decided to take the risk. Maybe we took this decision because it was the first time we had the possibility to go there so we were curious about the way there, about the surroundings etc. The road was made of asphalt and I think it was the best road I had driven in Bolivia. And the further away you are from Santa Cruz, the more beautiful are the surroundings. Forests, rivers, mountains, wonderful rock compositions made me feel as if I were at terrains taken from a western. And everything would be ok, if there were not any... cows and cattle. You had to slow down all the time. But, luckily, no cow died and the car also has no dent. I was very surprised when, after 300 kilometres, we arrived to Camiri, a town of about thirty-five thousand residents, beautifully situated in a valley, among mountains. I thought it was a little village but it appeared that Camiri was a very nice town. Italian Franciscans had worked in this region for many years. A Franciscan Bishop - an Italian - has been at the head of the Camiri Apostolic Vicariate to the present day. The Cathedral is in the centre of the town and the Our Lady of Angels convent is at a hill, above the town. We were very warmly received by our Italian fellow-brothers. And when we were going back they prepared a real Italian dinner. We had a distance of more than 100 kilometres from Camiri to Machiareti so we arrived there at the nightfall. Only the next day could I admire the location of this old Franciscan convent. There are three Franciscans, one from Italy and two from Bolivia, who have been working there currently.
There were ten brothers at the meeting but they came almost from the whole Bolivia - from Copacabana and Potosi in the high mountains to Concepcion in our Bolivian tropics. But the atmosphere was very friendly, mainly thanks to brother Lorenzo, a Slovak, who was "mixing everything up" and entertaining all of us. On the day of our "deliberations" we found out that the road was blocked. On the day of our departure it was open and the next day after our arrival to Santa Cruz it was blocked again. Generally speaking, we were lucky. At the meeting we shared our experience and in the afternoon we visited the parents of one of our fellow-brothers who came from here. We arrived to Villamontes, a place where the Franciscans worked not such a long time ago. We visited the Sisters of Saint Clare who seemed to be pleased with our unexpected visit. We did not have enough time to get to the border with Argentina, although we were only 100 kilometres away, which here is really not much. But maybe I will have another opportunity to go there. Generally, this land is covered with forests and there are not many villages on the way and, as everywhere, they are very poor but... with many smiling children.
And as far as politics is concerned... oh my, it is not worth writing about it because there is nothing good at the moment. There is no unity, no compromise. Politicians are slinging mud at each other. Everybody have their own opinions and nobody wants to give way. There is no political maturity and the situation is very tense.
That is it all for today. I am sending you best greetings from the far Santa Cruz.
Tarcisio Josef Lamik, OFM
Camiri - the Franciscan church
Camiri
Hello, I am a Toucan and I live at the Franciscans in Camiri
the Franciscan church in Machiareti
together with the brothers in Machiareti
Machiareti - the view from the church square
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