Postcards from Sicuani
John Burger
Fr Burger tells us about his recent visits to Peru.
Visits with missionaries are part of my job description. On previous visits to Peru, I have spent all my time in the vicinity of Lima, where most of the Columban effort has been concentrated but this time I reversed the proportions. This time, most of my time in Peru was spent with Fr Paul Prendergast and Fr Donald Hornsey up in the mountainous prelature of Sicuani. It's great to see so much good work being done.
Fr Paul showed me around the main Church that was re-constructed with help from an appeal and various other sources. It looks good, in fact it was done so seamlessly that it looks as though it has been there for years.
Currently some restorers are working on the large elaborate reredos behind the main altar, so scaffolding is still in place in the sanctuary.
Of course, the parishes in the mountains are so spread out that you start to wonder, "How did these people ever find these places to live?" On the way to the end-of-the-line at Choccayhua where there is a new adobe chapel and an old one that the Ministry of Culture forbids the community to tear down, we passed two other adobe chapels that are under construction. Work on one halted when the local bull decided to use its corner as a scratching post. Vigorous scratching did major damage. Cracks have appeared in the other one from water seeping underneath it during the recent rains.
On the way over the mountains, we passed a few amazing sights. I saw a woven swinging bridge like the eponymous one in Thornton Wilder's Bridge of San Luis Rey that I read in high school. Luckily, there was a steel bridge over the gorge a mile or so away, so we did not have to take the dangerous-looking footbridge. But you should know that the steel one did not look to be in the greatest shape either.
Another of the sights was the women in their traditional clothing: something like a bowler hat, shawl, wide-ruffled skirt. Many of them spend most of the day on the mountainsides with the sheep and llamas. As we passed close to one of these women, I noticed that she had a large portable radio with her that looked like something you would see on the beach in the pre-transistor days about 1954.
Back in Fr Paul's dining room at the parish, I noticed two bicycles locked up in a corner. He told me that he received some money for a youth project and the youth use the bikes to travel between villages. We are at the 4000m level, and, though I did not feel bad, I did not feel like biking uphill!
When I arrived at Fr Don Hornsey's parish, I found him working in his vegetable patch while being interviewed by a lady from the diocese. His parish is not as high up as Fr Paul's but still there are frequent problems with unexpected frost damaging the plants, so Fr Don was scrambling with plastic sheeting to try to keep the frost at bay. This was in early December, the southern hemisphere's equivalent to early June.
If his garden produces too many tomatoes or zucchini, Fr Don never has trouble getting rid of them, because the parish has a commedore (a communal kitchen) that produces meals for about 350 people each day.
The parish church is a huge adobe structure with thick walls that were butressed by big adobe supports to keep the weight of the structure from pushing outward. Fr Don told me that several of the old paintings that belong to the Church are being restored in the workshops of the Ministry of Culture, near Cuzco and he is looking forward to having them hung in the Church once again.
In the kitchen of the priest's house, a few teenagers were seated around the kitchen table covering hymn books. We did not have much time to visit with them since Fr Don was taking me with him for an evening Mass about 12km away. When we arrived at this place, it was dark. Nonetheless, by the light of his flashlight, Fr Don showed me an old adobe chapel with an elaborate facade, but with one side collapsed.
Then gradually, the people started appearing in the hall of the school for Mass. There was no electricity in the hall itself. So someone rigged a long extension cord from a nearby building and by the light of one light bulb we heard the prophecies of Advent.
That night I slept under several blankets donated for the poor in a room that Fr Don is using as a place to store goods donated to the parish by Peruvian customs authorities. Those of us used to ‘separation of Church and State' are suprised by that, I think. I was even more surprised when Fr Don showed me an award he recently received from the town Copabata honouring him for extraordinary efforts in evangelisation.
Back in the vegetable patch beside the parish Church, Don showed me where in his garden he plans to have bee hives. I think the busy bees will feel right at home in his parish.
