Arequipa

Earlier today I wrote a lot about Santa Catalina Convent but I am afraid all is lost because the internet connection was lost before I ended the session. So I will recreate what I wrote in case the earlier text will never appear.

I got to Arequipa yesterday evening and there was some kind of student festival and there were many groups of young people singing, dancing, and playing music. The group of doctores to be was amazing. I stayed on the main plaza until midnight. Today I woke up early and decided to head straight to Santa Catalina Convent as it was advertised in the guidebook as the most remarkable place to visit in Arequipa. Here's the website: www.santacatalina.org.pe I stayed there most of the day. It is a city within a city, full of cobblestoned streets, plazas, nuns' apartments, steps leading to tarrases. All the buildings are made of silla - a white porous volcanic rock - which is mostly painted ochra and bright blue. Judging from the "apartments", the kitchens, bathrooms and the indoor pool, the sisters lived a very comfortable life there. At one point there were 450 of them (now there are 30 living in part of the convent closed to visitors). One of the archbishops of Arequipa called the convent the "Women's Tower of Babel." They were declaring chastity, poverty and obedience. Maybe they lived a chaste (they lived in total seclusion, their only connection with the outside world being through small revolving windows close to the entrance) and obedient life but definitely not a poor life. They all brought to the convent hefty dowries. They were also renting out the properties they possessed. They owned servants and slave girls. When the times were raugh, during wars or natural diseasters, and they couldn't collect the rent, they would sell or barter their slaves. I read all the history in the little museum. Very interesting... I also read the statement written by the present 30 nuns in which they say they pray for the salvation of the world. They spent most of the time praying and meditating, and some baking cakes for the cafe in the monastery and making souvenirs for sale (they also get a cut from the visitor's fee) , totally cut off from the outside world, its mysery, poverty and suffering. I would say that this is exactly what people in San Pedro de Atacama do except the Atacamenans don't claim they are saving the world. Architecturally the convent is exquisitely beautiful but spiritually it's a very fake place, as fake as San Marcos on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. San Pedro is very much alive; it's very down to earth. I love down to earth places, places where forced fake social rules don't exist, where people laugh loudly and when they do they snort, spit saliva and klap their hands, they are laughing so heartily... that's life, life in the purest form. Kids run around, grandpas sit in front of their houses reliving the past and getting ready to depart, young people kiss and hug whenever they feel like kissing and hugging, dogs play and fight and chase the fleas and everybody celebrates the Saturday fiesta until dawn. Everything is as it should be, natural. There's time to be young, to be mothers and fathers, to be old, to get wrinkles and rheumatism, and to die. Really, no big deal. Maybe the world needs convents and nuns to be saved but I would say it needs more small communites like St. Pedro the Atacama.