Happy Anniversary Habitat!

This Sunday we joined our neighborhood in celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the founding of Habitat.  There was a special mass in the chapel in the morning, which included a Jesuit Archbishop from Huancayo (north of Lima in the mountains) as a co-presider with our own Father Fred.

After the mass, the celebration moved out to the plaza next to the chapel.  We stood around for a while because we were waiting for more guests to arrive, and eventually the mayor of Tacna himself showed up for our celebration:

The mayor is the larger man in the light pink-ish shirt and khakis who is greeting people in the photo above.  Father Fred is the skinny guy in the suit to his left. :)  Workers from the city came bright and early to put up the canopy that you can see in the above picture. This involved banging metal poles together to form the canopy frame, which we heard before 6 am since our little apartment faces directly onto the plaza.  The presence of all the city types, including the mayor and the early-morning worker bees, was due to the project that had been going on in the plaza for the last week or so. 

One day, several workers showed up and dropped off a bunch of wood.  Later, they came back and were pouring cement in a trench they had made.  Later, they were putting up rebar in an odd shape. Later, they were back with various other tools and supplies.  Eventually, someone explained to us that they were putting up a statue to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Habitat. So, Thursday afternoon, when I looked out our bedroom window I saw this:

 

 You can see both the nearly-completed statue and the working equipment that showed things were not done yet. By the time the workers left on Friday, the statue was wrapped up for the unveiling (somewhat anticlimatic for us, but still a nice event).

 

Here is the unveiling:

Father Fred is on the left, then the mayor, and various other officials.  After that, Father Fred gave a short speech and so did the mayor.  The mayor is actually a former student of Father Fred's, at the other Jesuit school that he founded, I believe in the early 1960s.  That school is called Cristo Rey and is a more elite, boys-only Jesuit school here (sort of like the Brophy Prep of Tacna for those of you in Phoenix).  Miguel Pro, where we now work, was founded by Fr. Fred in 1992, with help from many Cristo Rey grads.  Anyway, the mayor actually gave a nice speech about Father Fred and how he still tries to draw on what he learned from Fred in terms of Jesuit values in his political life.  

After the speeches, it was on to entertainment. The ballerinas danced again (like they did at Fred's welcome back party) and there were some Marinera dancers, large and small:

 

After that, of course, we had to have a parade of marching students, which seems to be mandatory at almost any celebration. So, we got to enjoy little kids marching

and bigger kids marching (who seem to be a little more serious and practiced):

 

Overall, it was a nice celebration and a fun way to spend our Sunday morning!