Caminata de la Solidaridad

On Saturday, I and a couple thousand other youth in Santiago participated in the Walk of Solidarity.  This month of August is the month of solidarity in the Catholic schools and churches around Santiago.  The solidarity is in remembrance of St. Alberto Hurtado, who was a Jesuit priest and social worker here in Santiago, as well as a reminder to all about the need to help one another carry each other's crosses. 

 Poster for Mes de la Solidaridad



 

I walked with a group of people from Andacollo.  We began at the park nearby our school and parish- Parque de los Reyes.   There was a huge stage with a band, a couple emcees to kick off the festivities, and a few priests to lead the beginning prayers.  For over an hour, everyone gathered in the park and sang songs and bought little bags of confetti that they then threw at each other.

 

 

Beginning at Parque de los Reyes

 

We soon began the walk to the sanctuary of Padre Alberto Hurtado.  It was a slow process... the street we began on was quite small.  Simply picture salmon all trying to swim upstream during the migration time and that was what the beginning of the caminata was like.  :) Because everyone is trying to begin walking all at once, and at the same time stay with the colegio that they came with, and yet all the teens were pumped from the rock-ish worship music so it felt a bit like a rave in the beginning with confetti flying everywhere and teenagers bouncing off one another. 

 

 

Some of the youth on the caminata

 

I walked with Mary Jeanne, the students and families from the colegio, a few members of the Pastoral, and Icemick & Jacquy (the Haitian seminarians).  It was a slow process as we all made our way the 8 kilometers from the Parque de los Reyes to the Santuario del Padre Hurtado.  There were booths every kilometer or so, normally with bands, priests, and youth volunteers passing out prayer cards or pamphlets about the need for solidarity in Chile.  Anais, a second grader from Andacollo, my new best friend, and daughter of a family that has sort-of adopted me, thought that one of the best ways to pass the time on this caminata was to sneak up behind me and shove a handful of confetti down the back of my shirt every 15 minutes or so...so 8 kilometers later, you could tell where I specifically had been walking because of the trail of white confetti pieces that were dropping out from beneath my shirt. 

 

It was a sunny day, and for a couple hours actually pretty warm.  So, during the caminata, when we would pass underneath apartment buildings, normally the youth would all come to a stop and shout to the people in the building, "agua!"  Some of the people would then come to their balconies and throw buckets of water down onto the walkers.  So fascinating to watch and made for some extremely slow moving parts of the caminata.  

 

 

Stage and priests at the santuario

 

 

Three hours and 8 kilometers later, we all arrived at the Santuario del Padre Hurtado.  There was a huge stage and music playing that you could hear for several blocks when we arrived.  The archbishop of Santiago and several other priests said an informal mass and there was blessing on all of the youth who had participated in the caminata.  Most of the people took this as an opportunity to sit, eat a snack, and rest.  At the end of the mass, some people headed into the santuario but the majority of people, myself included, flocked to the metro to take it back home, in order to disperse of the confetti that was now starting to make me itch all over!  Overall, it was a wonderful experience that was unlike anything I had ever done before.  I enjoyed spending time with fellow young Catholics that were on this "journey" as well.  I feel that as well as being a spiritual type of activity it was also a cultural one!   

 

 

The santuario at the end of the caminata

 

Besos y brazos, as usual