Before I talk about Assisi, I'm going to mention the apostolic outreach opportunity in which I've been participating this semester. I wrote about this a while back, but the students at Bernardi have the opportunity each semester to do some form of charity work with either the Missionaries of Charity (started by Mother Theresa) or the Little Sisters of the Lamb. I chose the latter, which is not so much an out and about community like the MCs, but they are a mendicant order, meaning that they beg for everything they get. They attempt to give dignity to the poor by begging them for money. Anyway, I've been over to their convent several times, which is about an hour away, past the Angelicum and the Colosseum. The first time we cleaned the concrete walls on the outside of what is essentially a backyard patio, and then we replaced these "walls" of bamboo, which covered the structural walls, with new ones. It's kind of hard to explain, but this is what the little Little Sisters like to cover the walls with, so that it essentially looks like a tiki party: http://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img/2/0/0/3e/e/AAAAAv5nUlYAAAAAAD7kwQ.jpg?v=1175881289000. This was our main project, and afterward, after much dirt and dust in my eyes as a result of scrubbing the walls, we all went back and talked with the Sisters, who no little or no English (fortunately the Italian-speaking Coulter family would come with), and had hot tea with a lemon and frappe--not coffee, but a pastry--http://www.northcoastjournal.com/013108/food0131.html. It all tasted great, and we took the Metro back to the Lepanto stop, about 5 minutes from Bernardi, since it was a coldish night, and it had rained for most of the day.
The next time I went, we all sanded and stained tables, and afterward had panettone (even better than Cosetta's), date cookies, and hot tea. The third time (April 7) was an absolutely awesome day, since it was so sunny and warm that I was able to wear gym shorts and a T-shirt. We mostly did yard work, although several people cleaned out rooms. We trimmed tree branches, weeded, mowed the lawn (weeds, rather) and had to trim vines so that we could replace old bamboo decorative walls with new ones. Matt Slattery and I were assigned to the , this was a real nuisance since the vines interwove themselves between a chain-link fence and the bamboo wall that was tied to the chain-link fence. Unfortunately, not many of the vines survived due to either accidental cutting at the base or because we had to get the bamboo fencing out.
We didn't stay for food or tea, because we all had to rush home to prepare for Maddie Coulter's surprise birthday party, which was....a backyard cookout. Yep, a good, old-fashioned American cookout (it was bring your own meat), and I brought Italian sausage and an onion to grill to put on the side (we even had a whole bottle of ketchup, courtesy of Mary Burns). But other people brought steak, kabobs, chicken, and burgers to grill on the charcoal grill that Dr. Coulter had pushed for a few years back. I also learned that Bernardi once had a ping pong table, but it was apparently given away at least 7 years ago. Even on this warm, sunny day in Roma, we were able to get a little slice of an American summer--just being able to eat outside and smell the grill cooking all the meat--it was just amazing. No other way to put it.
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