I can hardly believe that it has already been a month. I can confidently say that I feel like I’m in the groove of things here, and to be honest it feels good. With that being said, a few people have requested a post about what my life here looks like on a day-to-day basis, and since I’m now feeling much more accustomed to life here, it seems like the perfect time to write a bit about what an average day in Esquipulas looks like.
Before I start, I should make a bit of a disclaimer. While I do feel like I’m getting into a groove here, as one can imagine, no two days have been identical. While I am getting into more of a routine here, the beauty of this place is that there seems to be always something to interrupt this semblance of a routine and remind me that I am in a truly unique and wonderful place.
Speaking of a wonderful place, I imagine there are many of you who would like to see a more detailed look of the monastery where I am living. Well today is your lucky day, as I have made a video tour of the Basilica and the monastery within to (hopefully) answer all your curiosities.
Now that you know what the place looks like, allow me to take you through an average day of my life within that place.
Every day always starts at 5:45, which as you can imagine was a rough thing to get used to. Fortunately, now it feels perfectly normal. I have to get up this early to go to morning prayer, or Laudes at 6:00. If you’ve never been to a monastic prayer (also known as the divine office) before, allow me to walk you through what it looks like.
Each session of prayer begins with all the monks rising, facing the high altar and reciting the liturgical opening- “Dios mio, ven en mi auxilio: Señor, date prisa en soccorerme” or “God, come to my assistance: Lord, make haste to help me”. After this the monks bow and recite the Gloria, and then sing a hymn. Usually in the morning there are 4 hymns that we alternate through in ordinary time, though there are many others for other parts of the liturgical year and for feast days. After this the monks are seated, and the recitation of the psalms begin. During Laudes we recite 3 psalms or other Old Testament canticles, all of which are chanted in unison. Once aspect of morning prayer I really enjoy is the fact that the organ is constantly being played throughout the entire session, and from what I can tell it is usually an improvisation based off the hymn we start with. I often find my mind listening to the organ music more than the psalms themselves, especially in the morning when it provides such a unique and beautiful accompaniment to the chanted psalms. Anyway, after the 3 psalms, there is a brief reading, then we sing the Benedictus, also known as the canticle of Zechariah. Finally, we do the Preces or Responses, which is essentially a series of petitions followed by a response from the monks, and finally we sing the Lord’s Prayer and then leave. A few ways morning prayer here differs from that of Saint John’s is that the entire session is set to music, rather than just a hymn and the Benedictus, there are no long pauses in between psalms, and the Gloria is recited at the end of every single psalm we recite.
Morning prayer is usually done by 6:30-6:40, and this part of the morning is usually a bit awkward, as breakfast isn’t served until 7:30, so there is a bit of time to kill. Recently I’ve been getting in the habit of grabbing some coffee after morning prayer and reading the Guatemalan Newspaper Prensa Libre before going to shower and get ready for the day. I was given the advice to read local news not only to be more aware about things happening within this community, but also to help improve my Spanish, as newspapers are always written in clear, common language. So far this has been very helpful.
As I said breakfast is served at 7:30, though this time is fairly loose, and many monks come and go from the dining room at their leisure during this time. As for the food, breakfast has been very consistent. There are always scrambled eggs, there are always black beans, there are always tortillas, and there is always cheese that is produced from cows that live on the Basilica land. Almost every day there is also some form of cooked plantains, which I have been absolutely loving. I enjoy the fact that breakfast is freer, as it gives me the opportunity to talk to some of the monks here and warm up by Spanish brain for the day.
After breakfast is where the itinerary splits depending on the day. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Fredi and I use the rest of the morning before lunch to plan for our classes in the afternoons. Most days we go to a coffee shop in the heart of Esquipulas, called “Don Nicolas Coffee Shop”. It is in a beautiful old building that is almost as old as the city itself, and the coffee here is absolutely to die for. I try to try a new preparation method each day, so unfortunately, it’s too early for me to share my go-to order, but perhaps I’ll post it soon enough. In any case, Fredi and I usually spend a few hours here grading assignments and figuring out what our lesson plans are going to be. I enjoy getting into the flow of things during this part of the day, and the time always passes quicker than I think. Once this is done, we usually head back to the monastery for lunch.
If it is a Tuesday or Thursday, instead of making lesson plans, Fredi and I will go to Colegio San Benito and help the English teachers with the younger students. All the students who go to the Colegio in the morning are of elementary school age and are absolutely adorable. Fredi and I have only been going for about 2 weeks now, but it has always been a very enjoyable part of the week. There are two English teachers in the morning, one for the 1st through 3rd graders, and another for the 4th through 6th graders. So far most of what we have been doing is helping with pronunciation of words in a native speaker accent to help the kids get more familiar with the sound of native English, but most classes end up being occupied by the students asking us personal questions and trying to get to know the exciting new faces. The morning period of classes ends at noon, which gives us just enough time to get back to the monastery for lunch.
They serve lunch every day at the monastery at 12:30, and with the exception of weekends, this is much more formal. Luch is usually rung in with a bell, at which point anyone who is not already in the dining room comes in and stands in front of their assigned seat. The abbot says a brief blessing and then we go line up to get food. Food varies a lot more during lunch, but there are always tortillas, there is always some amazing kind of soup, and there is almost always steamed vegetables. While we eat in silence, one of the monks reads from a book usually on some theological subject, making lunch time a bit of a theology lesson as well as a meal.
In the afternoon, we have our classes. For this current bimester, Fredi and I are co-teaching 4 classes, each of which meet twice a week. Normally the routine has been for us to arrive a little bit early and review our notes and make sure we are on the same page about what we are doing, then to head to the classroom and start prepping the whiteboard for whatever we are doing that day. So far, the general pattern has been one day per week that is more lecture focused, and one day that is more activity focused. As I mentioned in my previous entry, it Is very difficult to teach effectively with a class time of only 35 minutes, but I’m gradually adapting and understanding how to better make use of the time we have. After or between classes (depending on the day), the students have recess, and Fredi and I have been trying to make ourselves available to students who desire extra help with the stuff we cover in class. If no one comes, we usually use the time to grade their homework. Anyway, as you can probably imagine, every day at school is different and every class has a different energy level, but at a zoomed-out scale that is generally what classes look like.
After classes we usually have a little bit of free time before evening prayer or Vísperas, which starts at 6:30 PM. The structure is mostly the same as morning prayer, though with a few minor differences. At vísperas all psalms are set to music and sung instead of chanted in unison, we do 4 psalms instead of 3, and the ending canticle is Magnificat, also known as the canticle of Mary. Most of the time during evening prayer I find my mind drifting off to food, as we always eat dinner immediately after evening prayer.
Dinner is very similar to lunch, with a variety of food and the same tortillas, soup, and vegetables always being there. The only major difference in the structure of dinner is that according to Benedictine tradition, at the end of the meal, one of the chapters from the Rule of Benedict is read before the abbot says a blessing a dismisses everyone. After dinner my activities vary. Sometimes I drink tea and play damachinas, or Chinese checkers with the monks, sometimes Fredi and I just chat for a while, or sometimes I’m so beat that I just head straight to bed. In any case, I’ve been going to bed here WAYYY earlier than I ever have before to compensate for the early wake-up call. I’m usually asleep by 10:00 at the latest.
And there it is! That pretty much sums up a day in the life here in Esquipulas! Add in a few random encounters, a few sojourns out into the town and surrounding area during the week, and several moments of embarrassing myself with bad Spanish, and you’ve got a pretty good picture of what life has looked like here for the last month! Things are very good here. As always, I’m extremely grateful for all the wonderful people who have supported me here and made the transition easier, as well as all the beautiful people back home cheering me on. The last month would’ve been near impossible without all of you, so thanks a million!
Next week is the week of Guatemala’s Independence Day so it’ll be fun to have everything I’ve just written about here turned upside down. The school has a ton of events planned, and I’m definitely planning on making a post after the fact to talk about all the traditions I learn about and experiences I have during the celebrations, so stay tuned! Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
The only dependable things are humility and looking
-Richard Powers, The Overstory