By Father Bill Hoffman

(Editor’s Note: Father Bill Hoffman, a priest of the Archdiocese of Atlanta and former pastor of St. John Vianney in Austell, is currently doing missionary work with the St. James Society in Peru. He presents in this week’s Bulletin the first of a two-part account of his adventures there.)

It all started on our trip to Lima for the annual meeting of the St. James Society. On the way back, Al Stankard (another missionary priest), was somewhat preoccupied thinking about all the things he had to get ready before leaving for his vacation, the first in three years. He asked Sister Ana and me to come to Ocobamba (the name means the Damp Place) to help him for two weeks. After talking things over with the men in Andahuaylas, it seemed like a good thing to do.

The trip to Ocobamba was a foretaste of what was to come. It rained most of the way, and since we were in the back of a pick-up, that was not very much fun. Rain had caused several landslides and we were able to get only within one mile of the town. The walk into town with luggage was tiring indeed (Ocobamba is about 10,600 feet in elevation.)

Ocobamba is a town of about 500 (counting the general surroundings), and the parish church is about 150 years old. However, Al’s parish extends far beyond the town of Ocobamba and has about 25,000 people in it, practically all of who claim to be Catholics. Al’s job is huge, too big for one priest, and he is hoping to recruit at least two more priests to work with him during his vacation. In the parish at present, there is one nun from Canada, 63 years old, working as a nurse. Seemingly all of the structures in town were of adobe, the poorer ones with straw roofs, the others with tile.

Al wanted to get a lot of details taken care of without letting the office work stop – that meant that the office is where I spent most of my time. The work there in the office consists mostly in issuing baptismal certificates. Until the last ten years or so, the only system of keeping records for people way out in the countryside was done by the Church. Infants or children were baptized and the vital statistics were recorded – parents, date and place of birth, etc. There was no system of civil registration. So baptismal certificates were needed not for church purposes but for Social Security, registration for the draft, marriages (in Peru, civil marriages are the only ones that have legal status).

This does not sound like a difficult job, but there’s more. The books do not have indices in them, but some typewritten indices have recently been made of 1911–1969. However, the rural people here don’t reckon their lives as we do in the Western world. They don’t have watches, and so hours don’t mean very much (things never begin on time for example). Days, months and years don’t mean much in their lives either. They can generally recall the season (planting or harvesting) in which a wedding or birth or death took place. So generally speaking, in the country people don’t know their birthday or age, which means that we have to scan the books for a period of 10 or 15 years.

Finding a brother or sister in the books is a big help, because we can ask whether he is older or younger. Then, too, the spelling of names has varied considerably due to illiteracy or mispronunciation. When you think about it, how do you register illiterates? You presume to spell the name they are pronouncing (the name has a pronunciation but not a spelling) and enter it into a baptismal register. There is no way to be sure it will be written the same way each time, only a hope that it will be.

Well, it wasn’t all office work. There was carnival, the time of merrymaking before Lent. It lasted about a week, with throwing of water and flour on everybody. Our cook got me one day real good with a few buckets of water. On the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the mayor came over to invite us to lunch. His wife and another man were responsible for the celebration that year. The custom here is this: each year there is what you call a “yunsa” which is a tree about l6-18” in diameter, cut down, decorated with fruit, toys and other prizes, and ‘replanted’ in a hole in some open area.

After dinner the crowds would be lead by a band to the yunsa. Along the way there is a lot of smearing of everyone with talcum powder or flour. Once at the yunsa, there is more drink for everyone, the band plays and couples dance around the yunsa carrying an ax (the couple is not necessarily husband and wife; rarely so, in fact). They dance and give the tree a few chops with the ax. The couple who gives the final chop and the tree falls are responsible for the meal, band, drinks and the yunsa the following year. I got smeared but good, and have a picture to prove it.

Then there was the very interesting wedding of Aljemira and Demetrio, a typical country wedding here. The day and hour were set and I was asked to give the instructions and officiate. The instructions lasted about two hours, they went to confession in preparation for the wedding, which was set for 9:30 a.m. At 10 no one was to be seen near the church but me, wondering what had happened. Finally at 10:45, Mass got underway. Following the church wedding, they crossed the plaza to the courthouse for a civil ceremony.

At church weddings, the best man is called the “padrino” and the matron of honor is called the “madrina,” or together they are called “padrinos.” The same terms also mean godfather and godmother. But here the padrinos are always older people who have been married several years and who are expected to help the couple in any crisis, especially marital. A common saying has it that a person should discuss with his padrino any serious decision or difficulty.

The newlywed’s padrinos lived a hundred or so yards away and they went there for something to eat and drink. Even though I didn't feel very much like eating, to decline what was offered would have been very bad manners, so I ate.

I must mention something about the drinking customs here, since they differ considerably from what we have in the United States. At these celebrations, they will serve beer, pisco (a brandy made from sugar cane), and chicha (a beer made from corn). The host, or someone assisting the host, will come around with a bottle of something and one glass. The one serving will fill the glass and offer it to someone, who then takes the glass, offers “salud” to several others nearby, drinks all but very little from the glass, and pours out what is left on the floor (supposedly to ‘rinse’ the glass).

The glass is then handed to the server who fills it for the next person. Of course bigger crowds would require more glasses, but never are they washed before serving the next person. This certainly would worry some U.S. health authorities, but it doesn’t disturb the local country people.

The wedding party moved on to the home of the bride’s family. This was accomplished by my driving most of them in the pick-up about three-fourths of a mile where we had to stop because the mud made the road impassable. From there the whole group walked another 30 minutes through more mud and rain. Once at the home of the bride’s people, there was more celebration.

When most everyone was seated, drinks were served and some flowers were stacked up in front of the madrina. She and another woman then began arranging the cut flowers (about two feet long) in a bundle, covered it with a white cloth, arranged the blossoms specially and put a bonnet over the blossoms. Then the whole thing was put into a baby’s “sleeping bag.” It looked very much like a baby.

With it the padrinos danced and then each relative in turn had to dance with the baby. Finally, they formed a procession to another room where they put the baby in a crib to rest. Then more drinks were served and the first course was served – soup. Some potatoes with tangy sauce followed, and that in turn by another dish of potatoes, rice, cabbage and meat. I could eat only about half of it – enough is enough, I thought. Then huge bowls of meat and potatoes were placed on the table, but by this time only little bits of the meat were cut off and offered to those who wanted some more. I declined that time.

Then more drinks followed and some music was played on a record player. Seemingly all the relatives had to dance with the padrinos, the bridal couple danced together and with their parents, and then there was a rest for some more drinks. Even with all the drinking, no one appeared drunk. Finally, at about dusk, I left along with several others who wanted to ride back to town with me, and the music continued, for how long I don’t know. The two weeks passed very quickly and I found that my education had been advanced considerably by it all. For instance I learned that some places are well named. It rained practically the whole time I was there, my feet stayed wet, and I slept under three blankets the whole time and we are not having summer.

Ocobamba – the Damp Place.

Continued next week.