I had started to think about
this aspect of life in Colombia the other day when I saw a teenaged boy walking
down the street arm in arm with his mom (or aunt or grandma), but I didn’t know
what to call it until I walked past a church today, Easter Sunday. The church
of Santa Beatriz is between my apartment and the gym and the seamstress and the
hardware store and the closest mini-market, so I walk past it pretty often,
including most Sundays and holy days that we have off work. Without fail, when Mass is being celebrated
on those days, the place is so packed that people are standing in the doorways
or sitting outside in little camping chairs or on tiny folding wooden stools. Non-practicing-anything heathen that I am, I
always think that that seems like a lot of trouble to go to for Mass, but I
also always have to marvel at what moves people to do it. Today I saw this devotion taken to another
level. Not only were people standing in
the doorways, but they were doing so in crowds ten people deep. Others were sitting on the park benches outside the church next to the avocado seller
lady who is a fixture here at Santa Beatriz.
Even later, when the service was over, I noticed (not for the first
time) that many people who walked past the now-closed-up church crossed
themselves as they went by. I am not
saying that all Colombians line up for Mass (in fact, many are devoted to a wide
range of Protestant churches too), or that people in the States don’t turn out
in huge numbers at churches on Sunday, but something about the worshippers
camped out at Santa Beatriz gives me pause and reminds me of the fervor with
which Colombians approach so many aspects of their lives.
Take the family, for
example. Going back to the teenaged boy
walking arm in arm with his mom, I have to say that that’s not something that I
have seen very often in the States and to me, that gesture captures a simple
truth about life in Colombia, namely that family is everything. Having grown up far away from all but my
immediate family and having subsequently moved away from them too, I have to
appreciate the closeness that characterizes so many families here. From my friend Adelaida who spends pretty much
every Sunday at her parents’ house and whose sixteen year-old daughter is not above
coming to the faculty room to give her mom a hug, to María Elvira who rushes
home on her free afternoon to have lunch with her husband and either one of her
grown children if they’re around, to Camila who always seems to be doing one
thing or another with her mom, her dad, and/or her sister, to my Colombian
colleagues who are mystified by my decision to live so far away from my family,
to my student (she’s a senior) whose dad meets her and her brother at the
school bus stop most afternoons, to my manicure lady whose kids sometimes run
around the salon on a Saturday afternoon, family ties are everywhere and are
absolutely cherished.
Indeed, it is safe to say that
the only thing that can even begin to compete with the treasures of faith and
family is the national soccer team. For
the first time in a long time, it has been kicking butt in the latest round of
World Cup qualifier matches (except for their 1-0 loss to Venezuela the other
day), and people are going nuts. On game
day you can buy a jersey on just about any street corner, and you kind of feel
like you need to unless you want to be the only schmuck in the city who isn’t wearing
one. Bars and restaurants are decorated
with balloons and streamers, and everybody from the ladies at the salon to the
patients in a doctor’s waiting room are glued to the TV. If for some reason you aren’t watching the
game, no worries. You can tell when
Colombia scores a goal by the shouts that reverberate through every apartment
building on the block. I can't wait til they play Argentina in June.
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