don't wear fleece to a fiesta

The story of a baptism by volunteer and guest-blogger Mary Murphy. Thanks, Mary!

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Why no fleece? Not because fleece would be inappropriate attire, but because of the mixtura.

Last weekend I was in La Paz for the baptism of Jhunior Adiel, the newborn son of Marcela, one of my former Education students who finished her coursework in 2010. Marcela asked me to be the madrina of her baby, and I soon learned that the Godmother receives (undeservedly, for sure) even more honor than the mother herself. After the church ceremony, we all climbed what felt like hundreds of stairs to the house at the top of the city where Marcela and the baby share a single room and a single bed with her sister and her sister’s daughter. The celebration began with a toast of sweet champagne, followed by an enormous dinner of roasted chicken and all the trimmings. No knives or forks, just finger-lickin’ good food, and we wiped our hands on pieces of toilet paper torn from a roll in the middle of the table.




After dinner, several people slipped out of the room, and I thought they were leaving the party. Meanwhile, because it gets chilly at night, I slipped into my black fleece jacket. All at once, everyone came back, each one bearing a gift for the baby and a bag of white Bolivian confetti, known as mixtura, to shower over the heads and shoulders of the mother and the madrina. You get the picture: just as I’m about to leave for my hotel, I’m covered with thousands of little scraps of white paper, sticking like mad, of course, to the fleece.

I could not have imagined a warmer reception from people with next to nothing, graciously sharing everything they have. One couple even accompanied me on the bus all the way through the city to the door of my hotel. I spent a good half an hour in my room picking the bits off my jacket, all the while sending drifts of confetti onto the floor. Despite my best attempts, I couldn’t clear the rug completely. Feeling a bit sheepish, I left an extra tip for the chambermaid, and hoped that she had a vacuum cleaner and wouldn’t have to do the job, scrap by scrap, on her hands and knees.

I hope not to fall too far short of their expectations of a madrina, especially since I get to do this all over again in two weeks for little Wara, the daughter of another former student. But, this time, no fleece!

one night only

The Carmen Pampa Fund is holding its Fiesta de Ayni -- an annual get-together for supports of the College -- in St. Paul this year. Current students and graduates will be there, real-life examples of who we are -- some of the faces of Carmen Pampa. And my face, too!




Please come and join us if you can! The event will be held June 23rd, at 6 p.m. at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota (Rauenhorst Ballroom on the 3rd floor of the Coeur de Catherine building).

For more information or to RSVP, please call Carmen Pampa Fund's office at 651.641.1588 or write to info@carmenpampafund.org.

A special lunch

Have you cooked for 35 people recently? Students from the College’s church group did today, under the tutelage of our own Sister Jean Morrissey. The students invited all of the elderly from the community of Carmen Pampa to a big lunch and BBQ chicken, potatoes and cheesy rice, plus cake made by the Poor Claires in Coroico.



This is the second year that students have done this kind of outreach. “Our mission emphasizes serving the poor, and the elderly in our community deserve our attention,” said Sister Jean, who is in her seventh year of service as head of pastoral ministry and religious education at the College.



To show their appreciation, many of the guests brought bags of oranges and tangerines from their farms.



After lunch, Father Freddy invited all of the elderly to the front of the church for a special blessing. It was a fine day for all.

Stephan Campos

Today the College lost a son: Student Stephan Campos was found with the wreckage of a small plane that crashed while on a mission for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. He and three other U.N. officials were working on Proyecto F-57, a project to assesses the environmental impact of coca production in Bolivia. The plane was found in the jungle about 60 miles from Carmen Pampa, after two days of searching.

Stephan was completing his research project for graduation while working for the United Nations. We talked last August when he visited the College to turn in a copy of his graduation project, a soil use classification map for our local municipality. He said that he was proud to be able to contribute to the 2009 Bolivia Coca Monitoring Report (pdf) as a mapping expert (see his photo on p. 63), increasing the knowledge of how coca -- both a sacred, ceremonial crop for the Aymara and Quechua people, and the plant used to make cocaine -- is impacting the environment.





I had Stephan in my Tropical Ecology and my Research Proposal Writing classes. He was a very intelligent and friendly young man, with a lot of good ideas about how to improve the College. He is survived by his wife Pamela (an education student) and two daughters. Stephan, his wife, his youngest daughter and some friends are pictured here, in a photo I took last August in Coroico of students selling sausages produced at the College.




We mourn his loss, and asks for all of you who support of the College to keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.