Am just back from our annual retreat with the St. James’ priests at the Ecuador Retreat house at Ayangue on the Pacific coast. It is a beautiful site and takes about two hours to get there from Guayaquil. We actually go once a month for a business meeting but in November we go for four days spiritual renewal and retreat. This year we were led by Fr. Mike Duggen from the Maryknoll Missionaries (an American order) but he was conspicuous by his absence of mentions about missionary life. As well as having been on the Missions in Korea for twenty-five years, he is also an expert in Massage treatment (which he uses to great effect on the retired missionaries in their house at New York) and which he offered to anyone who wished. I took the chance esp as it was free. As well as the talks and the Masses in such a retreat, it allows us an opportunity to meet up and chat with our own fellow priests. There were priests from the high Andes near Cusco, Peru as well as us city dwellers from Lima, Quito and Guayaquil. And we also had visitors from Ireland and Boston. There was an opportunity to relax in the sea nearby the house and, while beating Jamie Maxwell in a speed swim, I got stung by a jellyfish – ouch! However, the main sporting activity of the few days was the second floor jump into the swimming pool (you can catch this on my page http://www.bebo.com/ and follow to Martin Chambers or mhartino2004). On the final night, once the retreat was over we celebrated Thanksgiving Day with our American friends and, although I gave a good rendition of Scotland eth Brave, we left Ayangue to the sound of the great Tom Oates singing “God Bless America, my home sweet home!”

In Nueva Prosperina, we are moving ahead with the building of the school . I have to say this architect is a different one from the one who built the other parts of the school and he is certainly moving at a different pace. He is very good - he built the Church and Nursery but he is a little disorganised. But he is in fact very lucky toe escape with his life as the other day they robbed him of $5000 which he had just taken out of the bank. They robbed him in a busy street in broad daylight. In fact the money he had was money he had just cashed from my cheque to him - he was going to pay for some material for the school. Lucky white heather, eh?. Things in the sector go well - as always it is the ordinary people who remind me why I came here in the first place and they who encourage me to get on and do some things. I went the other day to the house of a woman who was dying - Fabiola - and the family we are gathered there around her. What struck me though was that the only thing between her and the dirt floor was a thin mattress. No dignified way of dying here. I said the prayers, blessed her and went on my way. I heard that she had passed away the next morning. Back home a priest would then get involved in the funeral but not here - most of the people from these shanty towns have come from up the north of Ecuador so they quickly get themselves together and head to their home town to bury their dead there. That's what happened with this woman. Lived poor and died poor!

Well that’s them away – Ian & Michael. It was fantastic to have them here. It is great to have people here all the time. As I have said before, the way I now approach people coming out from home to experience life in the shanty has changed: I used to think that I had to create a heavy schedule and keep everyone busy and therefore contented. Of course, people like my friend Jamie Maxwell, who is out for three months, have a different plan – he is here to work in the school teaching English and gets on with his own tasks. However, normally people can only manage for less time (ten days or so) and I now think that it is as easy simply to say “Look, I am doing this and I think you’d get a good idea of the situation of the poor people and their families simply be tagging along”. And that is what we did with Ian & Michael: we visited some old folk in their homes; we visited the school; we celebrated Masses in the various chapels; we popped in to see poor friends; we visited some priests in the area. As well as that Michael & Ian’s visit coincided with the one-off Pastoral Visit from the Archbishop. This consisted in a walk with the Archbishop up and down the dusty streets to see people and places in the Parish; a meal with the Arch and his auxiliaries; and a big Sunday Mass with fiesta afterwards. This meant that my Scottish guests were meeting high heid yins all week: another surreal moment, no doubt. As we said farewell this morning and reflected on ten jam-packed days, I could hear from their voices that they had been touched and affected by the experience of poverty here but more so by the love and affection shown to them. It is the same “best ever” experience that we all have having lived here.

When I was home in Scotland at summer several people asked me what was the big project that I would still love to do while in Ecuador. Without much hesitation I said “Bring a group over to Scotland”. I had seen various other people doing the same sort of thing and I thought it was possible; and, after all, the youth group from St. John’s, Stevenston had already asked us to think about it. So, when I came back, I investigated whether it was in fact possible. At every step I met with an open door of people who thought it was a good idea – offering funding along the way. So, after asking the youth from the four Parish youth groups here to fill in an application form, yesterday I announced the names of the eight people who will come with us in February/March on an exchange trip to St. John’s, Stevenston: Adela, Freddy and Carol are the leaders along with me; the girls are Flor, Sonia, Lucy and Carmen; and the guys are Manuel, Jose Carlos, Andres and Andres. Of course, they were over the moon; but what struck me was that there were only a few sad looking faces from those who weren’t picked – in the main, the rest of the groups decided to get stuck in behind their own representatives. While in Scotland we will work on a regeneration project in North Ayrshire, visit the new St. Matthew’s Academy, Saltcoats, take part in St. John’s Masses and activities as well as making a visit to Celtic Park, the Scottish Parliament and other places. Personally, I am looking forward to it greatly. There is still a lot of work to be done - not least in raising funds and making sure we get passports and visas for all our people (none of whom have such a thing). This is a unique opportunity for people who, under normal circumstances, would not be able to afford a trip to Quito in the north of Ecuador. Yet once again the generosity and support of people in Scotland has been fantastic and I am sure it will be a great success. We have a strong team!

Of course, the big event over the past few days has been the arrival of my brother, Ian, and brother-in-law, Michael. I am sure that they will really enjoy and benefit from their ten-day visit to Nueva Prosperina. Since arriving here, I have had the privilege of welcoming quite a few visitors, At first, I was always concerned that I should have a tight schedule prepared for them filling their time and covering all bases of the shanty experience. Now I am less concerned about being that precise and am happy simply to have visitors more or less follow my mad timetable and thereby get a good feel for life here. One of the first stops for this week’s guests was our Parish School, Sagrada Familia de Nazareth, where they were hugged and embraced in typical Latin style by both kids and staff. With the help of donations from home, we have been able to make great strides in developing the look of our school: in three years we have gone from nine bamboo huts to nine brick-built classrooms. At the same time, the school roll has doubled so we still have nine classes being taught in bamboo huts. I am always looking to completing the building programme so I was happy to start a new phase on Monday there – four new classrooms being built at the bottom of the yard – two up and two down; this should be completed by the end of January. This will, of course, kill two birds with the one stone as we were badly needing a new toilet block. You see, recently we had a major problem with the toilet waste leaking out onto the street – neighbours were ready to lynch me when I came back from Scotland. It took a while to work out exactly what the nature of the problem was but now with the new building project going on, we will have a better toilet system and new shiny classrooms. Life is never dull here.

You catch us on a quiet long weekend for the feast of All Souls’ Day tomorrow (Friday). Since most people in this shanty town have come from other parts of the country and, since most people travel to visit the graves of their dead relatives for the feast-day, it will be a quiet place this weekend (oh great - no Saturday night discos blaring until 5am). When Nueva Prosperina goes like that, I love to get out and about and walk the streets saying hello to folk and visiting the sick and housebound. Today I am going to pop in to see Olga and Jaime, an old couple in their 70s. Jaime was a bus driver for many years but for the past five has been housebound whereas Olga, although 71, is more robust and gets out and about shopping and visiting family. I have had a soft spot for them for a long while for many reasons: they were the first couple to get married after I arrived in the Parish (although they had lived together for thirty years); they suffer from very ill health and cannot afford the basic $1 medicines; their house is the size of a small living room and yet it is the first house they have “owned” in their entire lives; and yet, because of a lack of running water or drainage, they have never lived in a house where they can turn on a tap or flush a toilet. Poverty screams out of their lives. And yet what I find is always a warm welcome and a couple who are able to enjoy life and laugh in the face of problems. That is why I will be happy to pop in and see them today.