Católico o Evangélico?

Católico o evangélico? The question I’ve been asked routinely since the day I got here. And it is a deep rooted division between the two churches. It used to be even more severe but Cecy told me that this is basically nothing compared to the past. Today Catholics even marry evangelicals! Cecy and her family attend an evangelical church called Miel. It is somewhere between a Presbyterian-type church and a Pentecostal church. I have now been to their church the last two Sundays. It is sometimes hard not to be an anthropologist at church because it is culturally so interesting! I kind of felt like I was at a Baptist church since people were so expressive. We even got up in the middle of the sermon and ran around in circles doing “the train”! There was definitely no opportunity to get bored and fall asleep here!

Last week the pastor had asked the congregation to bring fruit to share with the church the following Sunday. I have never seen so many different types of fruit in my life in one place. Women filled up baskets with bananas, papaya, avocados, zucchini, platanos, mandarins, grapes, etc! We all took pieces of fruit and lifted it in the air as we danced around in circles. Most women were dancing in sync with the trumpets but my non-Latin hips struggled a bit more. Finally, we greeted our hermanos and exchanged fruit until we had a basket full of different fruit to bring home.

It was the most unique church service I have ever attended but I also thought it was representative of the thing that is most important to the livelihood of people here-el campo, that is the agricultural land the people are dependent on for food and money. People gave thanks to the abundance of fruit despite the rains last month which destroyed much of this year’s harvest. 

I took this picture a couple weeks ago at the cemetery just because I thought the cross and lighting were nice that afternoon. Carlos, my host family’s son asked me while I was taking the photo, “Are you Catholic? (even though I already had told him I wasn’t)”. I had no idea that a cross like this represented Catholicism. Guess I’m still learning.