As most of you know, I am not exactly what one would call
religious. My father is Jewish, my
mother Catholic, and although I went to CCD every Monday night a child and made
my communion and confirmation, I probably spent more of that time making glue
balls (sorry mom, and all the catholic school kids whose glue we “borrowed”
over the years) then learning about God.
This is not to say I don’t believe in anything, or don’t have faith,
just that organized religion is definitely not my thing. I believe in Mother Nature, and I go to
church every time I step onto a road or trail and begin running.
Well,
Panama is a Catholic nation, and Loma Bonita is no exception. In the school in my community every morning
is begun with a prayer, usually a religious song as well, and religion is a
class. We have a church here in Loma
Bonita, that holds masses every Sunday morning.
However, it is not often that a priest holds the masses, it is usually a
community member. I actually enjoy the
masses more when a community member leads them then when a priest does, simply
because the sermons always relate SO much better to the people and the
community. From the beginning of my time
here, when people ask what my religion is I tell them I am Catholic, a1.
Because technically I am, b2. Because most people here are not familiar with
most other religions and really would not understand my mother nature/running
explanation of religion and c3. Because being Catholic gives me something in
common with 99% of my community.
With
all this explained, you will now understand how I find myself sitting in church
every Sunday morning at 10am. This
however does not explain, how I ended up going to chtourch 13 times in 16
days. Hands down a life record for me,
probably more times than I have been in church in the last 10 years truly.
It all
started because my host mom asked me to go with her to a mass in a nearby
city. My host mom sings deseos and
tamborito, and they wanted someone from Las Lomas (the corregimiento Loma
Bonita is in. . .basically like a county in the states) to go and sing and
represent the area. My host mom is 74
and doesn’t like to travel alone, but anyone she asks to go would have to pay
for their travel and most people in my community don’t have a few dollars to
spare, soooo she asked me. I said sure,
and this is how I found myself taking a car, and 2 buses to a nearby city, then
siting through an all day church service on a Saturday. It was kind of interesting though, the
service was for a priest who passed away some years ago, but did a lot of
things to help campesinos and protect the environment. If it hadn’t been so outrageously hot I may
have even enjoyed it, they had the mass, people sang, some little kids did a
dance, they had speakers on the environment AND free arroz con pollo and durros
for lunch. All in all not the most
miserable of events.
The mass
adorable kids dancing
My host mom singing
Actually this was
the second such event I went to, the first one, a few weeks back (I tried to
post something about it but the videos where not uploading >:-o) was an
ecological walk and mass that I went to with about 25 people from my
community. Again, the heat ruined in the
event for me, but it was definitely my kind of mass. We hiked about ¾ of a mile to a clearing in
the woods, stopping along the way to talk about the environment, then they held
the mass in the clearing, and again people sang and danced. I felt lot’s of town pride when my host mom
and a girl from my community sang and 2 of the 3 drummers were also community
members J.
Lots of people
Host mom singing (her shirt totally says I <3 my boyfriend)
Ok, but that is off topic from the 13 masses
in 16 days.
The
week directly following the Saturday thing, was the beginning of my towns
Patron Saint (San Antonio) celebration.
During this time they have a novena (9 evenings of church), a procession
and then a mass on the last day (and I learned the hard way that during the
novena, church is still held on Sunday morning and then AGAIN that night. .
.haha). The novena was a bit rough,
church started at 6 and night and just went on and on. One night I did not get home until 10. . .and
let me tell you walking in the dark on a trail that a man killed a VERY LARGE
viper on only days before is a tad
unsettling.
The procession was quite the
experience. 4 men carried a HUGE float
for the whole 3 hours that we walked.
The float had lights on it, to have the lights lit, they put a generator
in a wheel barrow and pushed that alongside the float. They also put an amp in a wheelbarrow for the
guitars. In addition to the guitars
there was a 4 piece marching band. We
walked and said the rosary and sang and stopped in all the different sectors of
my town (or at the entrances since some are pretty far off the road).
The mass was QUITE the event. Women began making arroz con pollo at
4am. I showed up at about 730am and
helped them cook. It was a lot of fun,
and a great way to bond with the women in my community (recently I also went
and made empanadas with the church women).
The mass began at 10, and the church was PACKED, people from surrounding
communities came and they were doing baptisms as well. After the mass everyone got free arroz con
pollo, bread and chicha de maracuya.
There was also a feria where people could sell things. My community had been preparing for this event
for MONTHS, so I was glad it all went so well, and glad a participated, even if
it was a BIT too my church for me.
ALSO recently, my town and the
towns around me had a gringo invasion.
About 50 missionaries from Kentucky were doing some work at a church 2
towns over, and were also putting on skits/singing songs/talking with community
members. Imagine my surprise one
afternoon when I was re-organizing my room (I will write a post sometime soon
bout my living situation), and a group of gringos walked up to my house haha. They were all extremely nice, I enjoyed
speaking in English, and I also ended up doing a lot of translating, impressing
myself with my new found Spanish abilities haha. It was also neat to hear my community call me
one of their own. Members of the
missionary group also said a few prayers for me, which as said, I may not be
the most religious but I still REALLY appreciated it, it was nice to be
supported and I needed all the help I could get seeing as I had been sick for
about 3 weeks (I believe drinking some not so clean water was the culprit). I gave them my blog address so, if any of you
are reading this, thank you very much for you support and kind words! Also, my
community members honestly loved having you all visit, one told me the other
day that they love when North Americans visit because unlike the rich
Panamanians we eat with them, talk with them, sit with them etc. I don’t know how true the comparison is, but
it is always nice to know we are appreciated and doing something right!
Ok, so longest post ever, but I
haven’t written in a while so this should make up for it. I hope to be adding a lot of posts soon to
make up for my lack of post recently!
And I will try to have more photos and not bore you all to death
haha. Unfortunately my camera was out of
battery for about 3 weeks straight and charging my phone won out over charging
my camera.
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