Yesterday, while I was suffering because of the heat, the seminarians were dealing with a different sort of heat altogether - the latest heat of their internal basket ball tournament.  I have to say that I felt pretty old and helpless as I watched them running and jumping around the court while all I had to do to break into a sweat was breathe!!!

Regular, and obligatory sport, is part of their seminary programme.  They also, of course, have many religious activities during the day.  Morning meditation at 5.30am, followed by Eucharist at 6; 20 minutes of prayer at midday ( they refer to it as the Angelus but it is really a time for reflection and spiritual reading); evening prayer at 6pm and Night Prayer at 9.30.  Tomorrow there will be exposition of the Blesse Sacrament all day so they will organise themselves so that everyone takes their turn in the chapel.

All is not serious, however.  Last night marked the closure of their annual Bible Month which is a month during which they have special talks about the Bible and activities based on some aspects of it.  Yesterday evening they held a Bible Quiz which was very entertaining (along the lines of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" - I will have to hold my hand up and admit that I wouldn't have been able to answer a lot of the questions, especially the ones about history in the Old Testament.

Today I had a busy morning getting stuff ready for class next week and making photocopies to hand out to the students.  In the afternoon one of the lads brought me out to see a little of the city - my first visit into the big bad Panamanian world!!!  We travelled by metro - an entirely new metro opened only during the summer and still looking very new.  A ticket costs only 35c of a dollar.  Apparently this is to ensure that absolutely everybody can afford to use it - with the cost of travel rising practically annually in Ireland perhaps we could learn something here.  The metro is lovely and, while they only have one line at the moment, they have already begun with the second one.

Gabriel (the seminarian) brought me to a large shopping mall - by far the largest I have ever seen.  It dwarfs even malls I have seen in the USA!!!  It's quite surprising to see that many of the shops we have in Dublin are also here - but there are also some Panamanian and South American ones.

Tonight the heat has risen again - it's suffocatingly hot!!!  I am presiding at the Eucharist tomorrow so I'll sign off as I have to write my homily.
I will include some photos as evidence of the lads playing what they call Basquetbol
Hasta Pronto
N