I always miss a few words: the Catholic-Aymara-Gringo World

Last night we walked along the Titicaca lakeshore to the Tocoli schoolhouse. The one-room schoolhouse had been temporarily converted to guesthouse. There we found Katy, Heidi (who both work for a US study abroad program), Calixto, Teresa (a married couple who were the hosts or "guides" for the US students' homestay in this small indigenous village), and a woman everyone soley addressed as "abuela" or "abuelita" ("grandmother").  What Abuelita lacked in teeth she made up for in coca--such a cheekful that even had I spoke Aymara (her only language), I wouldn't have been able to understand a single word she said.  But she cheerfully invited us to 'chupar' coca: an outstretched arm--the language of the body, which I speak.  I learned to say "thank you" and "delicious soup" in Aymara to thank Abuelita for the delicious meal she'd made and shared.  The seven of us sipped soup, sucked coca, and bounced between Spanish, Aymara and English--always returning to Spanish when translation was important.  I have learned to live  in a world where I always miss a few words.  We, both gringos and Bolivians, continued to speak to Abuela in Spanish even though we knew she couldn't understand.  Because that is what human beings do. We try to communicate with whatever tools we have.  "Look up at Heidi, Abuela!" we called. Calixto and his wife translated to Aymara: "Open your eyes when she takes the picture."  Abuela has no experience posing for pictures.  (Is there an Aymara word for "camera"?)

Lighting the Advent candles on our "table" for our Christmas Day Brunch

Calixto is both a Deacon in the Catholic Church and an Aymara Shaman, apparently the only Bolivian uniquely fulfilling both spiritual leadership roles.  In this lakeside indigenous pueblo, I wonder how he connects the two worlds, or if he feels them as separate.  Does he find contradictions? Does he struggle to reconcile beliefs and practices?  I wonder where he sees them agreeing and amplifying one another, where disagreeing and undermining.  I pound he and his wife with questions.  They respond generously, and what's more, offer to hold a ritual ceremony for us on their next trip to Cochabamba.   My mind spins as they share their story, as I connect it back to my own struggle and wondering how this all-encompassing love of God--expressed in God's incarnation, life and death--relates to all the spiritualities around the globe practiced by this species which is "made in God's image."