Sundays in Venilale

Went to 9 a.m. mass with all of the girls here at school. One of the sisters let me use her prayer book that detailed the mass in Tetum. It was wonderful to have. I was again blown away by the joyful singing at church. The choir consisted of only boys (seminarians I guess), but they sounded great and everybody joined in. The priest appeared to be Caucasian but was either a native ET or had lived here a long time because he spoke Tetum perfectly. His homily was pretty long, and I would tune in and out frequently. When I did tune in, I was surprised to find I could understand a lot of the words he was saying. AT one point he was emphasizing how important it is to believe. Point well taken. At the end of the service a man got up to read the announcements. This lasted almost 10 minutes. The length of the mass was 1 hour 20 minutes (a little longer than the 50-55 minute masses I attend back home).

I was surprised to see that every single girl from our school (and in the entire congregation) wore a skirt to mass. Many of the girls did not match their skirts with their tops, but they had at least made the effort to dress up for mass. I also noticed at communion that everyone received communion in their mouth instead of their hands. I thought I should try too, but decided against it at the last minute. Maybe one of these days I will change my mind. There were 4 altar server girls, and 3 of them didn’t wear any shoes. I thought that was interesting, but maybe it was a sign of respect for the holy altar.

At 3:30 Ulla and some of the orphans knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I excitedly said yes. I didn’t realize the stroll would be an hour long! I didn’t mind the length, I just wasn’t prepared for such a long, uneven, rocky walk in flip flops. If I had known, I would have worn tennis shoes. By the time we finished, I had a big blister on the bottom of my left foot and the space between my big toe and second toe was raw and painful.

The walk itself was beautiful. Girls held my hand the whole way and we sang many different songs. We reviewed the songs I taught them yesterday, but of course, their favorite song was the Makarena (which is a little difficult to do while walking). We walked into “town” and cut off onto a side street and went down a dirt “road” until we arrive at a church with a spectacular view of the mountains. I wished I had brought my camera, but I am sure we will return there sometime. We stayed in this spot for a while and then headed back the way we came. I figured this was the end of our walk, but before we reached the school grounds, we turned right and went up a different way. I figured we must be approaching the school from the back (or the driveway). We walked for a good 10 or 15 minutes before reaching the end of the road and seeing another beautiful view of green plains. I didn’t know where we were, but I hoped we were close to the school because my feet were hurting a lot at this point. The walk from there was only about 10 minutes, thank goodness.

Once we got back to the school grounds, I figured I would go to my room and rest until the rosary at 6. The kids had other plans. They wanted to learn the Makarena and the Hoedown Throwdown. As I began dancing to the HT, I attracted a huge audience of girls. Some of the girls wanted to learn it, so I tried to teach them the moves, but they weren’t quite getting them. Since they seem to love the song so much, I am sure I will be dancing it every day for at least the next month, so they should have plenty of time to practice. Most of the girls just wanted to see me dance the HT by myself. There was great cheering and applause after I danced it each time. Some older girls came up and watched and immediately recognized the dance from the Hannah Montana movie. They were so excited! Everyone asked me if I knew Hannah Montana. I kept telling them I knew OF her, but I did not know her personally. Honestly, they treated me with such enthusiasm and gratitude that I might as well have been HM. I don’t think they cared.

When I got a chance to take a break from dancing, a little girl came up and took my keys from me.  That’s the problem with skirts-no place to put your keys. All the girls liked my flashlight, or “lampara”, and wanted to play with it. The little girl was more interested in playing hide and go seek with my keys. She would ask me to close my eyes, and then she would hide the keys in her pocket or give them to one of her friends to hide in their hands or pockets. It was a fun game and very entertaining.

Several girls walked me part of the way back to my school, and I asked their ages, thinking they were 5 or 6. They said they were 11! I couldn’t believe it-they looked VERY young, and VERY short. Malnutrition? I’m not sure what the deal is.

Every night except Tuesday and Friday the girls here at school dance for recreation. Today I joined them and had a blast! The very first song we danced to was by Celine Dion. The girls decided to use the Makarena dance moves. Even though they had started dancing to it, they all watched ME dance to it and laughed when I “shook it” after each Makarena. We then danced to a few traditional Tetum songs, which was a lot of fun.

The girls want to learn American dance moves because they say the Tetum ones are so boring. I happen to quite like them. I guess they would feel the same way about American moves. Seriously, though. What is an American way to dance? Crunking and grinding? I definitely cannot show them that! Usually when a song comes on you just kind of shake your groove thing in whatever way suits you. There is no choreography, just dancing! I wish I had the electric slide or cha cha slide music because that is about as choreographed as we get. Or a 2 step or shuffle, maybe.