Finding Cholita by Billie Jean Isbell

Author:Billie Jean Isbell [Isbell, Billie Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Latin America, South America, Social Science, Women's Studies, Anthropology, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9780252091551
Google: dEgucKlAlPkC
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2010-10-01T00:37:09+00:00

CHAPTER 9

ROMULO’S LETTER

As I stood in front of the battered door to the Rosetti hacienda, echoes of that fiesta so many years ago sounded in my head. My reverie was broken when a group of musicians, a harpist and several violinists, passed by on their way to early Mass and Christmas rehearsal. I turned to knock on the great double doors, which looked as if the twenty years of warfare waged in Ayacucho had been directed at their ancient iconography. The doors had gouges and slashes that almost destroyed the original figures. The puma motifs were almost entirely obliterated and the blocks of salt that signified the family’s colonial power could not be distinguished at all. How prophetic, I thought. The ravine, however, was still filled with garbage and human and animal waste. Plastic bags had multiplied and instead of water the gully was awash with hundreds of multicolored plastic bags that wafted upward with every gust of wind. The smell of the ancestors was replaced by the pungent order of garbage and excrement. The rains were late this year and the ravine had not received its seasonal bath from the onset of daily showers. I pounded on the side of the ancient double door where the small six-inch hinged panel was cut into the right side at eye level. The panel opened and an eye appeared. “Quien es?” the eye asked.

“Comadre Alicia, está Mama Jesús?” Is Mama Jesús here?

“Yes, come in Comadre Alicia, Mama Jesús is waiting for you. She’s lying down in her room with one of her headaches.”

“Have you applied the toads yet?” I asked, laughing while I remembered the wiggling toads that were sacrificed every night on Mama Jesús’s forehead.

“Yes, but we could catch only a few. The rains are late and toads are hard to find. Here, let me take your bag.”

As we walked to my old room, I learned that her name was Julia and that she was from Pumapunku. She had come to Ayacucho to go to night school. She was a bright-eyed fifteen-year-old who could be a younger Juana. But her fate will be different now that Romulo is dead.

“What are you studying?” I asked as I followed Julia into the courtyard.

“I’m in secondary school now and I plan to apply to the university to study to be a pharmacist,” Julia announced as she led me through the courtyard. A lot had changed since 1975. The old colonial fountain was gone and the space was filled with one-room cinder block rentals. A communal bathroom with shower stalls and toilets faced the row of cinder block rooms. Mama Jesús was still a landlady. As we passed the living room and dining room, I peeked inside and noticed that Sr. Philco still ruled supreme over the same plastic covered furniture and the plastic Jesus with the glowing heart.

“Are these rooms occupied by university students?” I asked, pointing to the row of rooms where the fountain had been.

“Yes, mostly, but a few secondary students too,” answered Julia.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.