La Gringa se fue a La Capia

Inspired by my brothers´ recent blog entry about his ventures into the Mosques of Mali, I have decided to recount my experiences visiting Evangelical Church with my host family in the heart of the campo.

Everyday for three weeks I awoke at 5am to the deep baritone singing of the elder brothers and the choir boy altos of the younger brothers belting evangelical hymns in harmony as they milked the cows, swept the chicken coop, drew water from the well, and fed the pigs. At first I thoroughly enjoyed the beauty in this routine. Naturally, however, I came to miss my music that speaks to complexities and ironies, recounts stories and events. While we worked together in the field, I began to call upon a dozen or so songs that I would hum to myself as the brothers, 6 of them ranging in age from 12 to 26, sang of their undying love for God, their glorious savior.

As is typical in the U.S., there are more fervent Christians living in rural areas. Here, the most obvious way in which I encountered the religious fervor of the campo, was the age in which girls married and bore children. I´ve never felt so old as I did living with the 40 year old mother of 7, grandmother of two. Her daughter, 19 was mother to a 4 and 1 year old. They had quite the work crew to maintain the farm as the father and I traveled each day to the surrounding neighbors, productors of Cosecha Sostenible, to model techniques and assist them in their work. It was common that we would visit productors, age 25 whose eldest child was 12, quickly approaching the age of marriage. Here, the division of labor was more deliberate than I´d encountered with my family in Bluefields, and so children were brought up learning the work of a mother or the work of a father. Naturally, by 14 they were prepared, in practicality, for motherhood and fatherhood and maintained adequate maturity, though many could not read or write. I found irony in marrying so young when I learned that many women in the campo live till 120 years, often riding a mule till their very last years!

Beyond the hymns and the marital customs, I´d come to understand Evangelical Christianity one other way. The mother of my family, Marta, was a strong force to reckon with. She reared 7 children, left her first child with her grandmother to fight as a guerilla in the northern hills with the Sandanistas during the revolution, she woke each day at 5am and barked orders from dawn till dusk, and when she spoke about her God, she spoke with an intensity that made me weary. I appreciated that Marta was not like other women of the campo who slinked in corners, and spoke in whispers.

Marta had explained once that only those who were honest Evangelicals, who swore off alcohol, dancing, adultery, premarital sex, etc were allowed into their church in the presence of the lord. However, most nights from 6- 8pm we pumped the generator and 12 of us piled onto the floor in front of the family´s one luxury: the television. After some time, I actually began to look forward to the Mexican telenovela we watched from 6-7pm that was straught with two- timing women and strutting, drunk cowboys. The one hour of Luche Libre, or World Wrestling, that followed was so tragically bad but so loved in the house. I often wondered, during this time, whether a beer and a good dance was any worse than cheering for "the Undertaker" to beat the shit out of "Jericho."

One night we were having one of our typical English lessons, where the brothers inch closer to me as they ask me the meaning of this or that random phrase or point to words in the dictionary, names of their favorite WWF wrestlers, phrases on their shirt (my two favorites: "if you can read this, pull me out of the snow" written upside down, and "my boyfriend is cuter when I´m intoxicated.") That night the brothers wanted to know how many names we had in the States. In the campo, each person has two first names and two last names. I learned that Ismael´s middle name was Darwin, which seemed appropriate since he´d acquired the nickname monkeyboy, for his fearlessness in leaping from the tree overhanging the river. I explained the connection between Darwin and the adaptation of man. Just then, the second eldest son and most fervent believer, interrupted and asked, "You don´t believe that man adapted from monkey, do you?" Suddenly the mom was standing over me and all 6 brothers looking at me questioningly. I said I do believe in science though I can make space for the story of creation, too. Jader tells me that the science is not true. "God made man..." I try to explain how many believers have found peace with both truths. Albaro, my favorite son, who travels by mule to attend school on the weekends instead of church, turns to me quietly and tells me that he´s read in his science book about the adaptation of man. I smile and nod as the mother begins her preaching, her voice escalating. I drown her out, singing in my head, "Give me that old time religion, give me that old time religion, give me that old time religion, if it´s good enough for Jesus than it´s good enough for me."

We woke the next morning, Sunday, and prepared for our two our trek to church. Though a bit nervous after the discussion from the night before, I felt a trip to church with the family would be a fun adventure and an interesting eye into the life of families in the campo. The boys took turns polishing cowboy boots. We saddled the mules, enough so that each young child could ride accompanied by an adult. The rest of us put our skirts and shoes in a bag and pulled on our rubber boots and jeans for the two hour hike to church, also called culto, or worship, in Spanish. As we hiked over log bridges, through knee deep mud, up steep clay inclines, and through jungle brush, we encountered neighbors along the way; the families of the productors whose farms I´d visited the week before. I came to understand just how central their weekly trek to church was in the social scene of the campo. We arrived and washed mu from our arms and legs with water from the river and then piled into a wooden changing room where women and children changed, combed hair and sprayed parfume (the women don´t believe they should where makeup, however.)

I sat on a wooden bench surrounded by the women and children I had come to know well over the past few weeks. The mariachi band began playing as we stood to sing the songs I had come to memorize. The people sang along, clapping to show they were believers. Women and men sat separately but women led the service. Men, women, and children took turns coming up the front to lead us in a song and the mariachi band accompanied. The songs I´d come to detest had taken on a new beauty backed up by guitarron and accordian or belted by earnest five year olds who voluntarily came to stage. The service was simple and direct. Each person who came to the stage called out a little chant that began, "Who is our savior?" and everyone responded "Jesus." "and Where does he live..."

The pastor stood and shouted his hour long sermon through a microphone that was powered by a generator. This seemed unnecessary, I thought, as my head began to pound. Though the pastor was a small man, his voice was loud enough for our modest group in the small wooden room. The sermon began with ¨there is only one answer..." a simple message, I thought. There was an element of a town meeting that followed, as the church community was trying to raise funds to higher a school teacher and build a schoolhouse for the children of Las Breñas. The service ended with an eruption of prayer in the form of chanting, calling, yelling, clapping, and arms thrown up into the air. We then kissed and hugged our neighbors and filed out of the stuffy room into the bright midday sun where women pedaled fried sweet yucca, enchaladas, corn cookies, and ice cream (bumble gum favored water frozen in a plastic sandwich bag) to make some much needed cash.

I had come to understand that church fulfilled all the elements of life in the campo, socializing, vending (one single mother saddled clothes she purchased in the nearest city to her mule each week and was solely responsible for clothing the entire community of Las Breñas), music and dance, fundraising and organizing, education and spiritual belief.

We trekked back towards our homes, one big pack of mules and rubber boots, and borrowed instruments, chatting as we speed walked back over bridge, through river, up cañon, past jungle brush... I hugged families goodbye as they peeled off, promising to send photos and possibly return before my departure.