On Sunday afternoons we went to la misa campesina,peasant mass, where Uriel Molina, a great priest of the revolution, talked about what God had revealed at Vatican II, the new directive Lucharemos o moriremos! “We will fight or we will die!” he told the Internacionalistas, because the place was always full of Internacionalistas, so many that buses had to bring them. They filled the church, sat on the floor, stood in the back, blocked the campesino murals. Some had to wait outside. There was hardly room for the Nicaraguans. A few Nicaraguans, the musicians, fit. They played their instruments on the side. Some Internacionalistas danced, marimba-style, in the aisle. Some took photos of the walls.
“Where are the Nicaraguans?” George said. “They’re missing all the fun.”
“Oh, they come in the morning,” the Internacionalistas said.
“Imagine,” said George, “what it must be like in the morning, when the Nicaraguans are here, if it’s like this now.”
One week George and I went to the Sunday-morning service. We woke very early and rode several linking buses across town. The church had Nicaraguans in it, but it was silent. No music, no shouting, just Molina at the front, murmuring Mass. “You should come at night,” a man leaned over a pew to tell us. “The Internacionalistas come at night.”
“Why do you come in the morning?”
“The Internacionalistas are asleep,” he said. “A church is not a place for dancing and making fun.”
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