I never liked going to church

by Sara Zuluaga (Colombia)

A leap into the unknown Nepal

Eyes shut. The smell of incense coming slowly through my nostrils, humming voices chanting incomprehensible mantras, the sound of the harmonium interfolding with the delicate movement of the man’s fingers caressing the tabla. · · · I never liked going to church. Every Sunday my grandma, already knowing my answer to her proposal, asked me once again if I wanted to join her to mass. I was raised catholic but had grown to be an atheist –or at least, that was the word I had found to describe my relationship with religion–. I didn't find much sense in listening to a man in a white dress, covered by a purple tablecloth-like cloak impart sententious discourses for minutes that seemed to last days about a God I’d never known. · · · I tried mimicking the movement of the lips of the old man in front of me. My tongue seemed to have no major problem with reproducing the sounds that emerged from the mouths of my companions. Despite the fifteen-thousand kilometer distance between the place I was now in and my hometown, the melody of the words we both used to name the things around us didn’t seem that different at all. The rolling of the r’s felt a little softer and a greater abundance of i’s made everything sound merrier but, even though I had no clue of a word I was saying, the repetition of the same chants over and over again seemed to have been casting a spell on my senses. · · · My friend and I first doubted whether we could enter the small, carved, wooden doors from where the music appeared to be coming from but seeking to assign faces to the carols I was hearing, I sneaked in willing to take a short look. All I got in response to my impertinent short glimpse was an uptight look from a lady in a wine-red sari. · · · We call them Villancicos in Spanish and my favorite thing about them is chanting alongside my mother the one that goes on about a girl and the various (very diverse, by the way) elements that through a twelve-day course "her true love gave to her". Their arrival is always accompanied by dishes of fritters and custard, nine days of shared prayers and neighbors’ parties in the streets. · · · We bought the plane tickets for that day because it was the cheapest amongst all the others at that time of the year (no wonder why). We got to the city when the shadows had started to grow longer and the sparse lights poorly arranged had begun to light up the narrow alleys of Thamel. Traces of the 2015’s earthquake were still visible; scars seemed not to have healed yet completely. · · · That night we didn’t have "natilla" but instead, some butter cookies along with warm sweet masala tea in small paper cups that were passed to us as if we had always been part of their “guest list”. I closed my eyes and did a rough count. Five months. I had left home in the middle of the summer and I was now wearing long, wool socks to keep my feet from freezing in the night-cold air. The next day we would head to Pokhara to set out for the Annapurna Circuit trekking route, my first attempt to carry out such a feat. As the temperature dropped, the singing grew louder and our chanting grew bolder. I opened my eyes and caught the old woman in the florid handsewn robe looking at us. I gave my friend a soft squeeze in the hand; she gave us back a gentle smile. I closed my eyes back again and thought of my family; I had never before spent Christmas away from home. “Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma” – I murmured for myself. “Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma” – I repeated with more resolution, joining the croons that flooded the dim room. “Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma”. I closed my eyes and thanked God for my grandma.