Encarnacion Exploration, Part 2

Shortly after arriving, I got a hotel close to the bus terminal and splurged an extra five dollars for a room with air conditioning and cable (the first of both luxuries, I can proudly say, I had had in six months). I wasn’t disappointed by the extra commodities, either, as the air conditioning ran at a constant and frigid rate throughout the night and the cable had CNN in Spanish along with some of my favorite American cartoons translated.

In the morning I boarded a bus which, on its way to another big city, would pass directly by the ruins. My ride, as one of those extra passengers without a seat that I disliked so much from the day before, was a quick forty five minutes before I got off at a deserted stop with signs pointing to the ruins of two different Jesuit missions at Jesus and Trinidad. Although at first glance the stop looked empty, a second bus waited beyond one corner to take me the extra ten miles to the town of Jesus. This bus line, leaving when it was full, passed its entire trip on an unpaved road a maximum of once every two hours. After passing through the quiet but dusty Paraguayan village called Jesus’ town, the conductor let me off at the end of its route where a fence for the Jesuit ruins marked the boundary of the historical site. I walked an extra two blocks to the entrance, where for a dollar fee I was granted admission and, upon request for a tour brochure explaining the site, was given a pamphlet on the broader industry of Paraguayan tourism.

Although information on the Jesuit ruins was unimpressive, the architecture that remained of the mission town was anything but. The main attraction was the huge earthy basilica, three stories high and partially reconstructed from the deep-rust colored stones originally cut and carried from miles around, which stood firmly planted on a plateau like some medieval fortress. Outside the church walls, the stone architecture still bore Christian imagery carved by people converted from distinctly unchristian ways of life. Inside the church, the emerald-green grass spread like a fine carpet over the sanctuary, and the now-truncated pillars that originally supported the rafters seemed to be like so many well-ordered altars. At the head of the church stood the artificially-supported stone of the original altar, which undoubtedly witnessed so many thousands of masses and so many thousands more of natives coming to share at the table of Christian Truth and Faith.

I was able to pass all over the sight without any boundaries and without the company of any other tourists. The place was completely quiet and empty, as if the spirits of the Jesuits and natives long passed on still guarded and protected the town as a sacred and secret space. The only other people I saw, except for all those ghosts that I easily imagined were still worshipping, learning, selling, and socializing in the ruins of the church, school, marketplace, and plaza, were some living Paraguayans cutting the massive fields of grass with tiny gas lawnmowers. With their broad hats and Paraguayan style of clothing, though, it wasn’t too difficult for me to imagine them as some of the original inhabitants. I explored and imagined with great reverence and delight, even climbing the thirty-foot bell tower to see all the ruins together with the Paraguayan countryside spread out before me like so many panoramic photos in National Geographic. There, all I could hear was the wind, which seemed to whisper in my ear of forgotten times and histories and peoples and faiths.

After my two hours of imagination and exploration ended, I caught the bus’s next round out of the village and, after it let me off, walked a bit further to the other ruins at Trinidad. There, I spoke with the gal in charge of the site who I imagined was an idealistic and eccentric student of Paraguayan history, but who was in reality an unassuming college-age youth sipping terreré with her two friends on a hot country day. I asked her about the Jesuit missions, and what her opinion of them was. In Lamabaré, I had talked with many people—both Protestants and Catholics—who told me that the Jesuits organized the missions to exploit natives and steal gold to send to Rome. I wanted to know the truth, which I was willing to equate with her own opinion of the Jesuits, because I figured that the gatekeeper of the missions would be the best person to know.

I was surprised and pleased when the history she told me was much different than what I had heard. These huge and productive missions were no exploitative slave plantations as some imagine and slander, she recounted, but instead self-governing and self-supporting communities of natives under the guidance of only a couple Jesuits. These missions really did help the Indians and actually brought the indigenous peoples many good things. Although when I watched The Mission with some of my future-Jesuit friends at Georgetown I thought the Hollywood production idealized too much of the Jesuit-organized native communities, this gal told me that the movie was pretty accurate and that the towns really did work well for everyone’s benefit.

Many of these social goods that the villages provided, manifested in the architecture of a well-to-do culture and the adornments of a Christian lifestyle, could still clearly be seen in the ruins of both Jesuit towns. Although I thought the first ruins I saw were mighty impressive, the ruins in Trinidad were even more extensive and long-standing than those in Jesus. European-style sculptures in the church adorned everything from the statues and baptistery in back to the altar and preaching-stand up front. The bell tower, a complete structure separate from the church, still stood tall and proud watching over all the many Roman-style arches and porticoes of ruins surrounding it.

I left Trinidad in the middle of the afternoon as the sun began to burn through my two applications of sun screen and my lowly hat lost all its good function in the brightness of the blinding light. After buying a souvenir hand-cut stone representation of the Bell tower pencil-holder for only two dollars, I boarded a bus back to Ecarnación where I once again left for Asunción. After a long day of sight-seeing, learning, and imagining, I was tired to the bone and ready to rest. As the bus’s gentle swaying rocked me into a steady and sound sleep, though, I had one more opportunity to pass through the extraordinary Jesuit villages. This time in my dreams, however, I was actually able to see and hear and to touch and smell the bustling eighteenth-century society; to meet and converse with so many dedicated priests whose Holy-Spirit inspired work brought the teachings of the church to a new continent; and to marvel first-hand at the wonder of an entire native people group recently and miraculously converted to Christ.