The church is fascinating. I learned a little bit of history about the Jesuits from John and from Jean - Jean was the one who invited us...local culture maven, she is...and many of her circle of friends were there. We also met Jeff, an engineer who is on his way to Malingua Pamba after a period of language study.
The Jesuits did laudable mission work until the Pope tossed them out of Latin America and closed all their missions, giving them five days to exit. Originally the Jesuits believed in plain and simple churches, and a simple, self-sacrificing lifestyle, so I had trouble reconciling the gold leaf in the church (Jean says the only comparable one she's ever seen is in Brazil), but Jean pointed out that the local people brought gold as offering. They had so much of it, and it appeared to be something the Spaniards treasured. They shipped it back to Spain in large quantities. The Jesuits melted some of the offerings down, and workmen hammered it into gold leaf and applied it to the inside of the church. (Oddly enough, I didn't notice the presence of any armed guards...the electronics store beside the fountain had one in khaki with a submachine gun at the door last weekend!)
There are many websites that tell the history of the Jesuits in Latin America, and one becomes sympathetic to their cause and their plight when reading them. There's also a great movie from 1986 called The Mission which one could probably rent or watch online.
John described how the Jesuits would entice indigenous peoples in from the jungle by going out into a clearing and playing music. Turns out, some of the tribes they encountered had natural musical gifts. They were drawn to the new religion through the music, and there were indigenous choirs who sang in Spanish and in Latin. They learned to make western instruments that were prized in Europe, and recently a trunk full of music manuscript was found that contained original compositions, many written by indigenous musicians. Some of that music, John marvelled, has already found its way into the European repertoire and is being played there - he enjoyed a concert at Picadilly Circus some years back which included some of these indigenous compositions. I was reminded of the church choirs all through southern Africa who sing western choral harmonies and put the Welsh to shame, in spite of having no such choral tradition in their own music.
It's a surprising world, with many sorts of golden experiences in it. Walking home through the old city, with little traffic and hardly anyone on the streets, the air had cleared somewhat from the day, and the buildings are very beautiful at night. During the day the air quality is truly awful - some street corners where buses converge, including the foot of our street, are as bad as Karachi when I was there thirty years ago. There are trucks that will leave their engines running for long periods outside the open windows of the hostel, like they never would if fuel was taxed more heavily and cops handed out tickets for idling. But even with all of that, when the sun shines, this is a pretty part of town.
In my last diary entry I mentioned that we had a nice farewell dinner with Jeannie last night, prepared by Maggie. One interesting observation was that Jeannie agrees with Dustin about preferring Colombia to Ecuador, and says making friends in Ecuador is difficult (she's been here a year now). The people are gracious and polite with old world dress and manners, but they don't socialize outside of their families, and they seem quite xenophobic and disinterested in the world outside their borders. That would jibe with my observation that Couchsurfing is largely a bust here - and even worse in Cusco, Peru, where the site has been co-opted almost entirely by people simply trying to sell rooms in their homes as "hostels". Dustin and Jeannie both expressed a preference for Colombia, and Medellin in particular. Perhaps Deb and I will plan another trip to check that city out in an upcoming winter.
Like Carole King, "I felt the earth...move...under my feet". We experienced a Richter 6.9 earthquake, half a minute of rocking, with the epicentre just over 300 kilometres north of here, near the town of Pasto, Colombia. and 13 kms down.
We had a nice final visit with Any before she served us a merienda and drove us to the airport for our red-eye to Lima and our connection to Cusco. We saw the broken front window on the floor above hers where Edwin's parents' pressure cooker exploded a four few days ago, putting a hole through their kitchen table and metal fragments through the kitchen. They think the pressure escape valve must have been clogged with food. It's amazing that no-one was injured. If you own and use one, be sure to check that the escape valve is clear and working every time you use it.
Next: Cusco
No comments:
Post a Comment