El segundo y tercer dia

Well ayer we learned about the contacts that Brian and Tara have made in their neighborhood. We prayed for all of their specific situations as we walked past each one’s residence or place of work. Then we got to the “issue prayer walk”. This was a time to pray about issues that Argentines.

We were made acutely aware of the demonic influences in the community. We saw shrines that had been erected to honor Gauchito Gil and San la Muerte, or “Saint Death”, (both local folkloric figures who the people pray to in order to receive protection among other things). If you this sounds a lot like the catholic “cult of the saints”, then you are exactly right, EXCEPT the local catholic churches do not condone it. These are two different populist cults, who actually have to trick the priests into blessing photographs of their chosen medium. When people receive positive reinforcement and believe that their prayers were answered by the gauchito or Saint Death, they are obligated to erect a shrine AND throw a massive party to tell everyone they know about what happened (when I heard this, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if a new Argentine Christian threw a comparable party to celebrate the new life and hope they found?”) The Gauchito Gil shrine that we actually visited was very large and intricate. Large red flags and signs thanking Gil “in the name of God”,  were accompanied by little wooden boxes with candles, trinkets, glasses of wine and water, and rosaries arranged in and around them. We saw some young people come up to kneel. They stayed just long enough to make a quick request and leave. After looking around some more and praying for God to touch the lives of each family that dedicated so much time and effort to the display, we left also.

Today, Nate took us around his part of town to pray about education and families. The main issue was the common Argentine world view that is characterized by hopelessness and defeat. The children in school expect to fail, so much so that they don’t even try during the normal school year, because they expect that they’ll have to go to summer school anyway. I believe he mentioned that 30% of children attend private school, because the public schools are unstable, plagued by teacher strikes and problems with the building that cause frequent school closings. College in Argentina is kind of like the “Hotel California”. It seems amazing at first because anyone can attend and it is FREE! …BUT it is near impossible to graduate. The expectations are outrageously high and the students are ill-prepared.

There are many broken families in this community. There are many single parents, due to teen pregnancy, divorce, and unmarried couples with children who just split up. Alcoholism is also a big problem in the villas de miseria (the towns of misery). Those who live in these very poor towns and surrounding areas have very little. It is normal for parents to not be sure how they will be able to feed their families. Even in this poverty, elaborate fiestas (parties) are extremely important, and some people will save for a year or more, and spend about half their annual income, just to celebrate a child’s birthday, especially a daughter’s Quince (basically her sweet 15th). We prayed for these and other family issues.

Yesterday, for merienda, we had churros. These were much like the mexican churros, but they were filled with dulce de leche and some were even covered in chocolate. Jackie and I missed merienda today, because we wen out shopping. We stopped by the party store to pick up glittery Feliz Cumple signs and numbers for my birthday next Sunday (el 11 de Octubre). Then we headed to a newspaper stand where the owner Angel hooked me up with two spanish-language newspapers, a health magazine and a bridal mag (…a girl can dream…lol). Then we rushed to the ice cream shop to spend the rest of our pesos. We got back to the house just in time for a sip of mate (pronounced: mah-tay). I forgot to mention before that this is a tea made by pouring HOT water over loose ground up tea leaves and sipped through a special metal straw with a filter on the end. Sipping mate is commonly a social event much like peace-pipe smoking. Everyone takes turns sharing the same cup and straw and it is taboo to refuse a sip (even if you are certain that the hot straw and water will leave your lips and tongue with 2nd degree burns). We had delicious pollo milanesa dinner and walked BACK to the ice cream shop for desert. LOL (I felt like eating ice cream twice in one day would be too much, but Jackie assured me that it is totally ok, because “they have different flavors”. The guys who served us thought it was great that we came back and even offered to give me a free kilo of ice cream on my birthday if we were staying that long.)

Anyway, I will say good night now. Tengo mucho sueno, porque I shopped right through siesta today.

Hasta pronto!