Only Three Days Left in the U.S.A.

Our time in the USA is coming to an end and I realized that I have posted almost nothing about what our day to day is like here and what we know about the main event.  Last weekend Chelsey and I took a whirlwind tour of the West (nearly 1300 miles in 4 days).  I am going to try to get that post up soon, too.  The picture to the right is of the sky in Albuquerque.  This place is beautiful.

We leave for Paraguay in tres dias... on Tuesday (February 26).  We were originally slated to fly into Buenos Aires and hang out in Argentina for a few days, not arriving in Paraguay until Saturday (March 2) but we had a slight hiccup with our Visa situation and so we are going to arrive in Asuncion, Paraguay on February 27th.  We will leave South America via Buenos Aires so we will still get to see Argentina - it will just be later in the year.

Our travel plans look something like this:  Albuquerque --> Dallas --> Miami --> Asuncion, Paraguay --> Encarnacion, Paraguay.  It will take us about 30 hours to get from ABQ to the Sister's place in Encarnacion.

The reason for the change in itinerary, as I mentioned, is a Visa issue.  We can get a Visa at the airport in Asuncion, Paraguay, when we arrive (fingers crossed).  After trouble-free interactions with the custom's officials, we will be greeted by a Sister at the airport and then we are making the Journey to our base in Encarnacion - which is 5-6 hours away from the capitol city, Asuncion.  We do not know if we are making that trip via bus or car but we have faith that we will get there somehow.  That is pretty much all we know for sure about travel.

Our spanish has gotten much better but I am not positive it is up for the challenge of communicating with a custom's officer.  I will know how it holds up in said situation by next Wednesday and will be sure to let you know.  We are busy with last minute preparations (i.e. filing taxes, eating last america-centric meals, etc.).  Tonight we are hosting the nuns for a completely homemade, from scratch Kentucky themed dinner with a menu as follows:

Appetizers

Pimento Cheese

Benedictine Spread

Main Course

Fresh Greens accompanying

Kentucky Hot Browns

Dessert

Derby Pie

I just put the turkey in the oven for this dish and you can bet there will be a post about the party.  Preparing for this meal, in addition to watching our final bit of college basketball and travel preparations will occupy our day.  Tomorrow we have a going away celebration and mass hosted by the Sisters.  They have invited past missionaries and our friends from San Jose so it should be a great celebration.  

  

While we were in Albuquerque.... we had a have had a very structured schedule.

Monday	8:30 mass (prayer) Breakfast 11:00 Spanish Lesson 12:30 Lunch + Clean Up	13:00 Spanish Self Study 16:00 Music Therapy Casa Angelica 18:00 San Jose 19:30 Return Home
Tuesday	8:30 Mass (Prayer) Breakfast 10:30 Formation w/ Mary 11:30 Cook 12:00 Lunch	13:00 Spanish Lesson 13:30 Spanish Self Study 15:30 Drive to South Valley 16:00 Casa Angelica 18:30 Prayer and Dinner with Sisters
Wednesday	Breakfast 8:30 Mass (Prayer) 9:30 Missionarity w/ Sr. Antoinette 11:00 Spanish Lesson 12:30 Lunch	13:00 Study Paraguay History 15:00 Formation with Mary 17:30 San Jose Ministry 22:30 Return Home
Thursday	8:30 Mass (Prayer) Breakfast 10:30 Formation w/Mary 11:30 Cook 12:30 Lunch	13:00 Self Study Spanish 15:00 Spanish Lesson 18:00 San Jose 19:30 Return Home
Friday	8:30 Mass (Prayer) 9:30 Kindergarten at Annunciation 12:00 Lunch	13:00 Spanish Lesson 15:00 Self Study Spanish and Paraguay History 19:00 San Jose Choir 21:30 Return Home
Saturday	8:30 Mass (prayer) Breakfast & Clean House 11:00 Sr. Christina – formation	Free
Sunday	10:30 Mass (usually)	Free

Some of this might take a little explaining:

We volunteer at Casa Angelica two days a week, which is a home for severely developmentally disabled children.  We participate in music therapy.  Most of the people are bound to a wheelchair and so on Monday and Tuesday a specialist comes in and plays guitar and sings while we help them move their arms and legs.  This helps them with circulation and also is entertaining.  People magazine published a story a few years back about one of the kids there, Patrick.  It is a very moving story about a police officer who worked a case where Patrick, two years old at the time, was hit by his mother's boyfriend and thrown into a cast iron tub resulting in Patrick going into a coma.  The investigator got very attached to Patrick and adopted him at the conclusion of the case.  If you have a few minutes, it is worth the read as it 1) explains the situation for Patrick and 2) gives a good overview of what the Sisters do at Casa Angelica.  Check it out here.

We go to San Jose Parish four nights a week to practice spanish.  San Jose is a spanish church in the South Valley of Albuquerque.  On Monday and Thursday we help teach Kindergartners about the bible in 'Catecismo' (i.e. Bible School/CCD).  On Wednesday we attend youth group for the teenagers and also for the young adults.  On Friday we sign in the choir... in Spanish.  Anyone that knows me well knows I do not sing well in English so my Spanish singing has to be terrible.  Nonetheless, it is one of the most fun things we do.  EVERYONE at San Jose is so loving and welcoming...we have been a bit overwhelmed by their kindness.  We have great friends from there now and are really going to miss them all.

On Fridays we volunteer in Sister Marilu's Kindergarten class at Annunciation, the local Parish.  We only met these kids like 5 times but we really liked them and are going to miss helping in their class.  We self study spanish at local coffee shops in our free time (Chelsey loves this part).  Our Spanish Lessons are also worth mentioning.  When we arrived in Albuquerque we were meeting with a Sister Marisa and she was giving us wonderful lessons but she had to leave for Rome and we did not know what we were going to do.  We have the most wonderful neighbor ever - Senorita Geisler who is a lay Canoissan (member of the community who has subscribed to the Canoissan way of life without joining the order) and a former spanish teacher.  She has taken us into her home for 2 hours a day for nearly a month and taught us so much!!!

Our schedule has kept us out late most nights - especially Wednesdays when we don't arrive home until 10:30 or so.  As an example, we were out late on Valentine's Day at church and so we celebrated with a green chile hamburger from a local chain, Blakes LotaBurger (right).  

ABQ has been great.  We love the West but we are ready to go.  Only 3 days left!!!

Partying with Nuns and hanging with elk

Best Super Bowl Party Ever:

Our Super Bowl viewing experience was absolutely priceless.  I'll ever forget partying with the nuns.  As you can see from the picture (right) the room was divided between the Ravens fans (in purple) and the San Francisco fans (in crimson and gold).  First, I should mention that only two of the nuns have any understanding of how football is played.  Nonetheless, they have a party every year.  Without any understanding of how football is played and with no allegiances, the majority of nuns just split off so that an equal number are cheering for each team.  Sister Kay, the Mother Provincial (head honcho for the North American province of the Canoissan Sisters - in the gold scarf), is the resident football expert among the sisters.  Sister Kay and Sister Christiana (in the maroon sweatshirt) were both huge San Francisco fans as they had spent some time at the Canoissan community in San Francisco.  Chelsey and I were cheering for the Ravens (obviously we were happy with the outcome).

Hiking with Matt Douglas:

Matt Douglas was in town for a work conference so we got to spend a few evenings hanging with Mr. Douglas.  On Friday (2-8-13), I  had some free time and suggested we go on a hike here in the Albuquerque area.  Matt had only been in town for 4 days at that point so he probably had not adjusted to the altitude.  This did not, however, stop us from hiking 10 miles in the Sandia Mountains.  It was a beautiful 50 degrees and sunny on the bottom of the mountain.  Half-way up our hike we hit the snowline and neither our clothes nor our shoes were really appropriate for the weather.  After hitting a very anti-climactic
peak (with no view or anything) we turned around and re-traced our steps.  Along the way, we came across this large Abert's-Squirel (right) which walked with us down the trail for 20 yards or so.  It was fairly curious and stayed very close.  You might not be able to tell from the picture but it was really big and had the face of a marsupial.  Matt spent the rest of the day recovering and touring Albuquerque while Chelsey and I went to a retreat celebrating the life of Saint Bakhita with the Canoissan Sisters.  We met Matt again for dinner.  It was great getting visit with Mr. Douglas before we left.  Now the pressure is on to convince him to visit us in Paraguay. 

Chaco Canyon:  On Sunday (2-10-13) we got up early and headed northwest to visit a remote National Park that we heard of through a Park Ranger at El Malpais.  Chaco Culture National Historic Park is about a three hour trip from Albuquerque.  The weather had taken a cold snap and many of the roads in the area become impassable when it snows, so I was a little concerned we were not going to make it.  As usual, sunny in ABQ but as soon as we hit the mountains we were in the snow on untreated roads.  All went well until we hit the turnoff to the park.  What I have failed to mention, up until this point, is the last 20 miles approaching the park are all on dirt roads.  In our case, they were snow covered dirt roads.  As you can see (above) it was quite pretty and fairly clear on most of the road.  There was, however, a portion of the raod that was completely covered and I had a split second where I thought it was a bad idea.  Anyhow, it was the right decision in toughing it out because the Canyon was awesome and nobody was there.


When we were told about the park, the ranger described it as the "Pyramids of America."  He was not too far off.  Chaco Canyon is, to quote from the NPS website, "The Center of an Ancient World" where "massive buildings of the ancestral Pueblo peoples still testify to the organizational and engineering abilities not seen anywhere else in the American Southwest."  The canyon was the epicenter of a Pueblo civilization that existed between 850 and 1250 AD, connected to other Pueblo civilizations (including Sky City - from my earlier post) by ancient roads.  The park presents a beautiful canyon but also amazing structures that are still intact after over 1,000 years.  They blend so well into the surrounding terrain that you can almost not see them in the photos but if you look close you will see amazingly well designed structures that have withstood the test of time.  I don't think our modern buildings would withstand 1,000 years of weather, but these wood and rock structures, because of their location and the climate, are still here for us to see.  

Chelsey and I hiked a 6 mile loop trail on the top of a mesa.  The temperature on the floor of the canyon was 34 degrees.  It was colder and windier on the top but I still had a great time (I think Chelsey did, too).  The snow presented some really pretty vistas.  On the mesa top we saw tons of Elk droppings and even a bobcat print with bobcat scat.  I was disappointed that we did not see any actual wildlife in the park but I got my wish when we ran into elk right after leaving the park (video below).  It was dusk and there were 5 huge male elk hanging in a field right next to the road play fighting.  It was really quite amazing.

We left the park through the South on a different, longer dirt road.  After 3 hours we were back home in Albuquerque - tired and dirty from all our outdooring.  Nothing better evidenced the dirt than our poor Pontiac Vibe.  Next adventure is the Grand Canyon...

From the Sky to the Core:

Yesterday Chelsey and I day tripped out of the Albuquerque area for some much needed sunshine.  We got a bit of a late start and had to grab some food on the go.  Rebel Donuts was the breakfast destination.  We are going to have to give it a second chance because it was not that awesome and it seems to me like bacon donuts should always be awesome.  Flavors included: cookies and cream; pretzel; rollo; chocolate bacon, etc.

About an hour of driving later we hit Acoma, New Mexico - home to the Acoma tribe of Indians.  There are 18 Indian reservations or "Pueblos" in New Mexico.  Each is a bit of a tourist attraction because no Pueblo is complete without a Casino.  This Pueblo, however, has a different type of destination (in addition to the Casino)... Sky City.

Sky City is a development that the Acoma Indians built on top of a 365 foot Mesa out in the middle of the desert (on top of mesa in picture to left).  It was built in the 13th Century which, according to Wikipedia, makes it one of the oldest continuous communities in North America.  Anyhow, this city is up on this Mesa and, historically, it was very hard to reach (now a bus takes you up there).  There were only 4 staircases to get up and they were very well hidden.  Many only consisted of handholds and footholds making it impossible to carry things with you when you climbed to the top.  We, by chance, went on a day when the Acoma people were celebrating the election/appointment of
their new tribal leaders.
As a result we were not able to take pictures on top of the Mesa although we did take a few photos from the bottom.  There was a parade and people had come from all around the reservation to watch the celebration.  Only 13 families live on the Mesa permanently.  They have no running water, no sewage, no electricity.  It is just a big rock out in the middle of the desert.  Chelsey and I spoke with a local lady who pointed us to the only remaining usable staircase.  We descended via this primitive "staircase" and Chelsey was scared to death (above).

After Sky City we headed further West to El Malpais National Monument.  As proof of my advancement in spanish, I will translate "El Malpais" for you.  It means "the bad country" or "the evil country."  It was awesome!!  We stopped in the Ranger Station and, lucky for us, it was kid's fun day in the park.  The Ranger loved his job very much and was a bit like Dwight Schrute.  He explained all kinds of things to us about the park's formation and about general philosophy, including how nature was the first, and is today, the only true democracy.  I told him that was "an interesting perspective."  That is not something we covered in my Democracy Masters program.  Chelsey did not like him because he spoke only in a series of non sequiturs.  Anyhow, he told us a few stories about the park while using stuffed animals as props.  That was our cue to go and explore on our own.

First, we hiked a portion of the Narrows - a clifflike portion of the park with red dirt and lots of rocks (left).  Instead of having trail markers on trees they have cairn markers in El Malpais.  A cairn is basically a stack of rocks.  You never leave one cairn without having another cairn in sight.  It makes for a more involved hike.  I speculate that this is the case because, first, many of the trails do not have trees and, secondly, where there are trees they likely burn frequently.  The first hike got us up to a good elevation and gave us a great view of some of the lava fields (left below).  After getting this view we decided that it would be more fun to go walk around the lava fields so we turned around and hiked a different trail amongst the lava.  On our way down we came across some HUGE prints (likely Elk) and droppings.  As you can see from the picture the prints were bigger than Chelsey's hands (above right).

The lava hike was really neat because it was just so different.  According to the excited guide earlier in the day, El Malpais is home to the "largest former volcanic region in the solar system."  I think this is kind of an outlandish claim and I doubt its credibility but that is what he said.  What remains at El Malpais that look like Mountains are in fact the cores of very old volcanoes.  Over time the outside has worn away and all that remains is the very center of the volcano.  The lava spilled out all over the region and, in many places, provided outstanding soil and caused huge natural growth.  The guide explained that the Phoenix area was actually settled because of its historically lush environment.  Anyhow, the lava is cracked all over and there are large cavities and sink holes all over the place.  It is a different type of terrain and was very beautiful.  

We finished our hiking and headed back to US Route 66.  It was a bit less direct but we took it all the way back to Albuquerque.  First we saw a gorgeous sunset with a really pink and purple sky then, once the sun had set, you could see so many stars.  We jumped out of the car (after we parked it) and checked out the sky.  You could see satellites and more stars than I have ever seen.  We are going to take a trip in a couple weeks to Chaco Canyon for an astronomy night.  You are supposed to be able to see the entire Milky Way from the rural and dark places in New Mexico.  We finished the evening with a green chile cheese burger from the Route 66 Diner in Albuquerque.  It was a great way to finish an eventful Saturday.