St. Joseph´s Day, March 19th, 2011

A month in Andahuaylillas has come to pass, and the goings-on around the world have reached the hills of our adobe-stippled town. 

I don’t remember exactly what Socrates says in Book V of The Republic, but he beseeches Adeimantus that in governing 'the State', one ought to consider words as reining supreme; that nothing should stifle the power of words. 

Reading Plato’s Republic, I can’t help but wonder about the catastrophe that continues to aversely affect Japan, and the now multilateral military offenses which the people of Lybia face -- awaiting liberation and / or something else. 

Words have carried us news of the greater human community during this difficult time. Words make their way from broadcasting stations via radiowaves, from the tongues of Spanish-speaking radio personalities to the Quechua-speaking ladies who cook the food in our comedor -- a place where children from distant pueblos come to fill their bellies after school. 

And words make the world less distant and less objective all the time here for me.

So let me say that tomorrow I hope to wake, to cinch my boots, fill my water bottles, buy a pound of peanuts from the lady across the street, and I hope to hike one of the mountains that buttresses our pueblo. 

Still, I know these things but can’t help to wonder about other places and other people.

These preceding few weeks here in Andahuaylillas mark the advent of my new role in a community that grows slowly but evermore my own. Both last week and the penultimate actually mark my becoming a teacher. I am not necessarily comforted by the thought that I have some knowledge which only I can set afoot in a classroom of high schoolers. Albeit true that they are children, have infinitely more to teach me than I do them. I’m not the first person to think this very thought nor will I be the last. In fact, it’s hard to mention a thought so obvious. 

There`s a line in our principle guiding document (the 'Covenant') which says that I myself acknowledge something concerning justice: the promotion of justice first and foremost depends on my own continual conversion.  It`s a bold implication and in appearances only can strike one as open-ended. But I think what a blessing: the ability to continually convert, deeper and deeper, never certain of what is to come, constantly open to growth. And who can grow without growing pains?

English so far has been a bit of a novelty amongst my students, ranging from my class of 12-year-olds to my class of 17-year-olds. However, I have made a compromiso with my older students that, they will help me learn Quechua (runasimita), and I will mediate English with and for them through Spanish. What`s more, as it is the case that Spanish happens to have a "French cousin", I will also be demonstrating the utility of French, as English speakers frequent more than 20,000 French words themselves. French words and phrases will only count as extra credit options on quizes.

Interestingly enough, the stories which I tell that serve as an aperture into our cultural intricacies captivate them the most. And, through my Spanish words moreso than English ones, I am privileged to take part in writing a page in the human story  here, in Anda --  doing something everyone can do, something everyone does, united in doing so the world over, one word at a time.