Happy End-of-April!

Today actually feels like summer is past (if I conveniently forget to look at the calendar and at all the flowers in bloom).  It's sunny and beautiful as always, but instead of being super-HOT in the sunshine, it's just very pleasant.  I really do prefer the cooler weather, and one nice side benefit is that our church meetings will begin at 9:00 am for the next four months instead of 8:00 - just because it is so cool in the mornings.  (The natives say "cold" but to me that's a slight exaggeration, at least right now.)

Anyway, there hasn't been a lot going on this week, but I did take a few miscellaneous pictures.  For one thing, we went down to the Cine Center one afternoon just to get a hot fudge sundae!

Above is the Cine Center.  The theaters are on the top floor; 

the bottom floor has a food court and several small boutique-type stores.

This is the one where we get the hot fudge sundaes.

I find it interesting that the sign is in English, don't you?

It's the only good ice cream in Bolivia, as far as we know - 

and if the sundae just had nuts, 

it would be as good as Dairy Queen! YUM!

Another day we went down to La Cancha to pick up some yarn.  Near the yarn store we came across this man who sharpens knives for a living.  Farron offered to pay him to let us take his picture, but he adamantly refused.  You can see from this picture that the grinding wheel is foot-propelled like a treadle sewing machine.  (His foot is on the pedal in the picture.)

I know you can't see the expression on his face,

but it is unfriendly to say the least.  Oh well . . .

After we got on the bus and started home, I decided to snap some pictures of the street sellers which are everywhere.  There seems to be no regulation whatsoever; you just pick out a piece of sidewalk, lay down a piece of cloth and set out your wares - or, if you are a little more prosperous, you may have a little "stand" or cart as you can see in some of the pictures below.

Selling bread and rolls . . .

Selling candy . . .

 Selling children's toys (can you see the English labels?)

Selling apples and oranges (yes, the oranges look green but they taste orange.)

Selling (for want of a better description) junk food, as well as prepaid cell phone cards.

Selling toiletries (shampoo, lotion, etc.) and cosmetics.

 Selling (I think) plastic goods.

Selling bras, camis, and corsets (!) among other clothing items.

Selling hand-crocheted and hand-knit items.

This florist shop is a permanent store, not really a sidewalk seller.

They have GORGEOUS flowers down here; 

in fact, they export roses.

And lastly, just a couple of shots of bougainvillea - which grows everywhere here - that we passed as we walked through the Recoleta the other day.

I've never seen purple bougainvillea before, only the fuschia color we have at home.

Here they have purple (above), orange, and this bright red (below) - 

and I'm not sure how many other colors.

Okay, that's it for today.  Have a happy, healthy, safe week . . . y vayan con Dios!

Hello, Everyone -

This week we had an opportunity to visit with President and Sister Jensen the Convento de Santa Teresa in the center of the city.  It is a national historical monument and is called La Joya de Bolivia (the Jewel of Bolivia.) I think I've mentioned before that this is the only country we know of in Latin America where the Catholic churches are called not cathedrals but rather templos.  Here is a picture of the front of the Templo de Santa Teresa, which is not open to the public (or rather is only open to worshippers during mass, etc.) Right now the front entrance is blocked by scaffolding because they are restoring various parts of both outside and inside; this picture is from before the restoration began.  We had to go in a side door to get to the convent.

The original convent is part of the church and offers tours to the public.  Here's some information about the convent itself, and then some pictures from our tour.  The nuns are a Carmelite order, which follows the practice of seclusion ("cloistered nuns") meaning that once a young woman enters the convent she has absolutely no visual contact with the outside world from that day forward, not even family members. Back in the day, young girls were sent to the convent in accordance with the wishes of their fathers. It was customary for the first daughter to marry, and the second daughter to give her life to the church.  (This is from an article about this particular order.  It doesn't say what happened if a girl didn't want to dedicate her life to the convent.)  

The opportunity to enter the convent was considered a privilege, and the family had to pay a sizable dowry. (This we heard from our guide.)  For this reason, the convent was very wealthy back when it was first founded (1760). Hence they could have this massive gold-plated altar in the upper floor.

This is a picture of what it looked like.  The guide didn't say what happened to it, but we have to assume it has been damaged by time and lack of funds for proper maintenance, because it's not anywhere to be seen now.

Life inside the order was completely segregated, based on race and money. The richest girls of European descent wore black hoods and spent their days praying and sewing. The nuns of indigenous heritage wore white hoods and were basically servants who cleaned, cooked, did laundry, cultivated the gardens, etc.  That was the order of things for a hundred years or so, but now, according to our guide, there is no such distinction (and unfortunately girls don't enter the convent with big dowries, so there isn't a lot of money either.)  All the nuns are the same (white hoods next to their face and a black hood on top of that) and all work together at all the different tasks.  The convent membership is limited to 21 women, by the way.  (I can't imagine trying to take care of a place that big with only 21 people and many of them elderly.)  Only when one of the nuns dies is someone else permitted to enter the order. Because they live such a quiet and simple life, they live to a great age (90+) and therefore only 96 women have entered the convent since it was dedicated in 1760.  (There is a list of their names, ages, and date of death hanging on the wall, but like an idiot I didn't take a picture of it.)

This is the original door through which young girls entered the convent, turning their back on the world and never seeing anyone but their fellow nuns for the rest of their lives.  I am kicking myself because the guide told us what this door was called (something like "the door of no return") but I didn't write it down and I can't remember now.  Stupid!  Anyway, it's huge as you can see and very, very solid.    Also you can see from the condition of the walls and the door itself, the convent is not rich any more.  It's in pretty bad shape, actually, and a newer convent behind this one actually houses the nuns and their various workshops, chapel, etc.  That newer convent is strictly off-limits to everyone because this is still a "cloistered order".

One other interesting fact and then I'll get to the pictures.  There are actually three cathedrals/churches on this site.  The first church was the usual rectangular shape with one chapel, but it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1790.  When the second structure was begun, the architect intended it to have a "poly-lobular shape, like a flower". The technology necessary for this design didn’t yet exist and the project was abandoned, but only after the 3-meters-thick walls had been constructed.  Our guide told us the architect AND the plans disappeared without a trace (also the money to build that unusually-shaped building.) According to the guide, nobody knows what happened to either the plans or the architect, so the church leaders decided to build a third cathedral inside the poly-lobular walls.  (Our guide had a floor plan showing us how it worked and I wish I had a copy to show you.)  They are now in the process of restoring the original convent and connecting the newer walls to the older ones.  It will be magnificent if and when they are able to finish it.  We saw part of the restoration work -- people chipping away at centuries-old stone and plaster and not even wearing masks to protect themselves from the dust.  We could hardly breathe and we weren't even in the middle of it, but that's Bolivia for you.

Okay, here are the pictures . . .

Going back to the entry (the big door above) - this opening, called "El Turno", is in the wall to the right of the door.  The "turno" is a wooden turntable.  People from outside world could come in from the street and (although I'm not sure how they let anyone know they were there) tell the nuns what they wanted to buy (i.e., bread, vegetables from the nuns' garden, cloth, jam, etc.)  The nun would tell them the price and they would put the money on the side of the turntable that faced the entry.  The nun could then rotate the turntable, remove the money, place on her side of the turntable whatever product was being sold, and rotate it again to deliver it to the customer.  That way, the customer couldn't see her nor she him, thus maintaining the cloister rule.

This picture is in that first room also.

It is a painting of La Virgen del Carmen, the patron saint of the Order.

Interestingly, no one knows who the artist was.

He was an indigeno and they were not permitted to sign their work!

This was true of all the artwork in the convent.  Isn't that sad?

This was our first view of the ground floor colonnade.

The convent is built in the traditional Spanish square around a central patio.

 This is one of the antique benches in that first colonnade.

Notice the original flagstone floors - very rough and hard.

As Sister Jensen said, "I hope they had good shoes, walking on these stones all day."

The chapel opens off the colonnade.  It is in rather bad shape but they are actually using it right now

for mass, because the cathedral itself is under reconstruction.  Notice the thickness of these original walls.

This artwork hangs on the wall above the altar in the chapel.  That's La Virgen del Carmen in the center.

 

 This is another picture of her, done in the "Baroque Mestizo" style,

which among other things confirms that the artist was an indigeno.

You'll notice from the picture of the identification plaque below that his name was not recorded.

 From the chapel we moved out into the patio.  The ground floor all the way around was used for daily tasks and/or worship in the case of the chapel (and the choir room, which you'll see later).  The upper floor was where the bedrooms (more like cells) were.

A good view of the "third templo" from the patio.

And a view of both stories, from the same spot.

 This is one of the rooms on the ground floor.

The words in red say, "Long live the blood of Jesus Christ"

and in black, "The 'female hermit' of Mercy" (I suppose that was a very saintly nun.)

Another important room downstairs was the choir room.  These are the chairs where the nuns sat to practice.  There are 10 of these on each side of the room, and in the center (which you can't see) a special slightly-elevated chair for the Mother Superior.

This is a closeup of the detail above the chairs.

The 3 stars on the crown stand for the Trinity.

Apparently the present group of nuns still come to this room to practice, because there were not only a small organ and a very old harmonium there but also a newer upright piano.  The guide told us the piano was kept in very good order (although how he could say that when it was horribly dusty, I don't know) and asked if one of the four of us knew how to play.  Of course the Jensens volunteered that I could, and nothing would satisfy them or the guide but that I sit down and try the piano.  Luckily (since I can't play anything without music) there was a very old book of music on the piano and I found a simple little Christmas song to play. The piano had an incredibly beautiful sound!! I was amazed and felt even more sad that they weren't shielding it better from the dust of the reconstruction. (It was covered with a cloth, so I guess that's the best they could do.)  Sister Jensen said later that the thing she would remember most from our tour was that beautiful song I played.  Wasn't that nice of her?

The next three pictures are artwork we saw in some of the downstairs rooms
(I think the first one was in the choir room).

These are the stairs leading up to the second floor.

This is a view of the current cathedral/templo/church dome 

from the upper colonnade and looking over the patio.

Another view from the upper level.

This is the door to one of the original dormitorios (bedrooms).  They were very small and as you would expect, very plain and fairly uncomfortable.

Farron about to enter the dormitorio.  You can see how small the door is.

 This is an example of the pitcher and table in each cell.

This bed was VERY hard.  The clothes are an example of what the nuns wore.  The floor was flagstone of course and only a thin mat between their knees and the stone.  Did I mention, by the way, that one of the vows the nuns make is to pray for 3 hours every day?  And they kneel - on these stone floors - to do it!  I can't imagine.

When we went back downstairs, we looked at the restoration work in process.

The guide took us to where we could look up and see the original walls from the "poly-lobular" building. 

 This is Farron standing by one of the original inside arches.

Can you see how wide it is?   Easily 9 feet (3 meters).

Doctors (or anyone else from the outside world) were/are not permitted to enter the convent

except in cases of life-threatening illness, so one of the nuns always had the responsibility of learning

and practicing "medicine" of a sort - like a modern-day pharmacist.

This was their pharmaceutical closet (along with some closeups of the antique bottles.)

And this was the pharmacist's handbook.

I forgot to mention that in the reconstruction of the roof,

they are using the ancient method of tying the rafters to the roof 

(or vice versa).  This was the best picture I could get.  You can

just barely see one of the cords if you look very closely.

This was taken from the upper floor, obviously.

This is without doubt the biggest - and most beautiful - poinsettia TREE I've ever seen.

Isn't it lovely?

I left this picture for last even though it's near where we entered the convent.

This is called the "visitor's bell".

If a doctor did have to come (or anyone else - maybe these days a plumber or something),

this bell would be rung and the nuns would know to immediately cover their faces

and go as quickly as possible to their bedrooms until somehow they received the "All Clear".

(Again, you can see from the condition of the walls how run-down is this original building.

I'm glad they finally have the money - including a grant from the U.S., according to our guide - to restore it.) 

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this centuries-old building.  I am always amazed at the sacrifices people have made for their religion throughout history.  I also am fascinated by these old, old buildings, especially since they were constructed without any modern machinery.  Can you imagine the sheer physical labor it took to build these (three) cathedrals?!  Humbling to contemplate, isn't it?

That's all for today.  Have a safe, happy, healthy week . . . y vayan con Dios!