Hello darkness my old friend...

This past weekend in Salasaka, there were a number of First Communions for kids from my sector of the community. Among the girls receiving First Communion were both my goddaughter Zoila and the girl I live with (Marga, the patron saint of abused animals). So of course, I found myself in church. Again.*

The morning started out innocuously enough, with a fine mist that was much appreciated. (When it doesn´t rain, or at least mist, Salasaka turns into a big dust bowl, which is exacerbated by the high winds at that altitude. You end up with dust in your mouth, nose, ears, eyes---you get the picture.)

However, what followed was anything but innocuous. By the time I got to the church with the kids (the parents were busy still cooking) it was raining in earnest. We went about setting up the table with the communion wine and host, at the entrance to the church. The tile floor was slippery due to the rain, but we thought nothing of it until ---CRASH--- somebody slipped and brought the whole table down. There was wine and wet wafers everywhere. Of course, it was blessed wine, which they don´t exactly sell down at the corner store. So, somebody had to go to the provincial capital to buy more. These things happen. We settle in and get ready to do some waiting.

In the meantime, a random woman (who is not Salasakan, but who is at the church, for whatever reason) approaches me and starts asking me a bunch of random questions. Then, out of nowhere, she asks me to be godmother to her daughter. In fact, she insists. I tell her that no, I already have both a god-daughter and another soon-to-be god-daughter (Marga) to attend to on that particular day (the maximum allotted god-child number being two for any one occasion). And so she then asks me whether on a different day, maybe for example, in September, I could be godmother to a different daughter for her confirmation. She is really pushy, and has unfortunately already noticed that I have a cell phone. I tell her it´s not mine when she predictably asks for my number. Thankfully, I also have an out for the September confirmation; I will be back in the States. She offers to change the date. I tell her that that´s not a good idea, since I don´t know how long I will be gone. She perseveres until I at least give her my business card (yes, I have a business card). I am pretty sure that she doesn´t know how to do email, so I breathe a sigh of relief and get ready to listen to the priest, who is by now making overtures at the front of the church while the 2-piece band is setting up.

The priest (who I know from when I baptized my goddaughter) decides to take advantage of having the captive audience while we wait for the new bottle of communion wine, and gets on the microphone to make “a few little announcements”. Through the over-modulated maxed-out speaker system, and with the mic about one centimeter from his lips, he starts lecturing the congregation about teaching their children manners at home, and how he has noticed some really badly behaved children around town. He says that he has even seen kids throwing mandarin peels on the ground. (Oh my god, not biodegradable trash!, I am thinking. As if the kids don´t have bigger problems.) He is posing questions like “Do you want your children to grow up to be lazy?”, and “Do you think GOD wants your children to be lazy?”. He then pauses dramatically, waiting for the unanimous chorus from the (with very few exceptions) indigenous congregation. “NO!”, they say in unison. He makes them repeat their responses to his absurd questions with more emphasis when he deems the initial response lackluster. I am already thinking that this guy is kind of a bastard, when in the middle of his numerous and petty call-and-response-formulated recriminations, his cell phone rings. With the mic still at his mouth, he pulls out the phone from under his robes to see who it is. I am surprised by this, especially in light of the topic at hand. Then (wait for it….) he answers his freaking phone. And proceeds to have a full-length conversation, in front of all 200 of us. We are all looking at each other with amazement as his little phone conversation transpires. After about 2 minutes, he hangs up and puts his phone back under his robes, without so much as a word of apology or an excuse. He goes back to castigating the parents some more about manners. Unbelievable. I´d like to ask him if God would want him to be such a racist prick. This would never, I repeat, never, never happen in a non-indigenous community. The church (and indeed, the congregation) would have his head. As this is all going on, I am trying to distract myself by looking at the recently-completed mural behind the altar, which depicts a bunch of Salasakans, walking through the countryside, sort of waiting in line to meet Jesus. Jesus, of course, is depicted as being white white white.


And then I notice that the closer to Jesus the Salasakans are in the line, the whiter their skin is. The baby that Jesus is holding in the painting looks more Norwegian than Salasakan, while the people at the back of the line have the appropriate complexion. There you have it, folks. In case you didn´t already know, Heaven is getting to be white.

While I´ve been spacing out and looking at the oil and water recapitulation of racist church ideologies, a man who is still drunk from the night before has wandered up the aisle. It is obvious that he must´ve gone to one (or several) of the graduation parties the night before, slept in the road somewhere, and then decided to come to church to chat with the lovely priest. He is gesticulating and mumbling, and stumbling closer and closer to the altar. He doesn´t seem to be able to see straight. On the other hand, everybody sees him just fine, although nobody wants to associate themselves with him enough to even remove him. People are in fact moving away from him like he has the plague. Once he gets to within a few feet of the priest, Mister Manners himself finally asks for somebody to please take him out of the church and (wait for it…) back to the bar. I´m sure that´s exactly what he needs, more trago.

Finally, the wine arrives and the mass gets started. The kids all proudly take their first communion, two-by-two. The parents and godparents are all gathering around, stretching their necks to get a better view. Some are taking photos. Todo normal. Until I notice the music. The accompaniment is an electric guitar and a Fender Rhodes-sounding electric piano, both turned up to 11. The majority of the hymns themselves are set to the tune of various Simon and Garfunkle songs**. I don´t know all hymns in Spanish (yet, although I will soon enough), so I instead sing the words to the songs that I learned while growing up. I´m sure that God won´t mind.





* I have been in church more in the past two months here than I have in the past two years.

**In defense of the Andeans, Simon and Garfunkle actually stole at least one traditional Quichua folk song that I know of, which we know in the States as “Flight of the Condor”. How the other songs got reintegrated into the Andean Catholic canon, I don’t know.