After the scant meal was served, passengers settled down for the over night flight to Cali. Sheila couldn't sleep and couldn't get interested in the movie, an action adventure movie short on character development and emotion depth.
She felt guilty. At that very moment, she was supposed to be having a special dinner with Nicholas. She wondered if "a special dinner" might have also included another proposal from him, a real proposal of marriage with someone jumping out from behind a plant to take a picture of him on one knee holding out a ring box to her. She had treated Nicholas so shabbily. Even if a real proposal wasn't in the offer, she'd ignored the special plans he'd made supposedly for some lame cruise with some girl she hardly knew. Nicholas was a wonderful man and deserved much better treatment than she'd given him lately. As soon as she had delivered the tetracycline to Tom, she'd fly home and make amends.
She dug into her purse for a mint and instead found the letter Tom had written to her not long after he'd arrived in Mateo. She opened it carefully because the paper was becoming thin in the folds. As she read the history and his description of the village, scenes appeared in her head as if they were part of a costume drama.
Three mountain ranges, known as the Cordillera de los Andes, run north/south through the western side of Colombia. The Cordillera Central is the highest and its uppermost peaks are perpetually covered with snow. Along one of the many ridges of this mountain ran a foot path that, over time, became a trail for horses and then a roadway for wagons and coaches traveling between the new towns of Medellin and Cali. Travelers were warned that heavy rains might wash out the road and that their trip could take nearly a month. The decision to make the journey wasn't to be taken lightly.
In 1875, Robert Bermudez, whose business of raising and selling coffee beans was undergoing unrepresented success, decided to expand his interests to include Medellin. He set off northward by private coach with his wife Rosemarie and their seven year old daughter Bernadette. Following behind were another coach carrying their servants and several wagons carrying household goods and supplies to set up his new business.
On the ninth day of their journey, Rosemarie said, "Bernadette has a fever." She placed her husband's hand on the girl's forehead so he could judge for himself. As they bumped along, Rosemarie doused her daughter with water from her canteen, but the fever grew worse. Bowel cramps set in. Rosemarie demanded that the coach be stopped so they could take Bernadette out from its hot con-finds into the cool air.
"I'm very worried," Rosemarie said as she placed Bernadette on the blankets the servants had brought out as a makeshift bed. She frequently took her daughter into the bushes where foul smelling stool ran from her. By afternoon, the little girl was too weak to get up.
"We have to do something," Rosemarie cried, "Or Bernadette will die!"
"What can we do without medicine?" Robert said.
"Excuse me, Sir," Rubin, driver of one of the wagons stepped forward to say, "There is a pool of cool water not far from here."
It was decided that they'd take Bernadette there in hopes that submerging her in the cool water would break her fever. The coaches and wagons travel along the road until they came to a break in the trees.
"There is no road," Rubin apologized.
The bumpy ride caused Bernadette, in a groggy state, to cry and mumble in a language her parents could not understand.
"Hurry! Hurry!" Rosemarie said. "Before it is too late!"
When they arrived at the pool, they discovered that a beautiful waterfall splashed down into it. Robert carried his daughter to the edge of the pool and then stepped into the water holding her tightly. It was cold enough to make him gasp. Bernadette shrieked and tried to break away from her father.
"Don't fight the water, Mija, it will make you well again."
"You must take her under to wet her head," Rosemarie called from the rocks.
"Hold your breath," Robert said.
"No, Papa," Bernadette screamed.
But it was too late. Her father was swimming into deeper water, letting it take them both under. He kept her down as long as he thought safe and let her come up for a breath before taking her under again and again. He tried to make a game of it. Bernadette refused to play along.
Finally she wailed, "I want to get out now!"
The strength of her cry convinced Rosemarie that her daughter was already getting better. "Bring her to me," she said. She laid her little girl on a blanket and loosened her clothes so the mountain breeze could cool her even more. After a while she put her hand on all of a fever's favorite hiding places. Bernadette's forehead, the back of her neck, and the backs of her knees were normal. "The fever is gone," Rosemarie said.
"Es un milagro," the servants and workman shouted. They clapped their hands and danced around in celebration.
"Yes," Robert said, "It's a miracle. We should all give thanks."
They knelt down and offered up a prayer of thanks to God for curing Bernadette.
Robert was so grateful that, as soon as he arrived in Medellin, he petitioned the Roman Catholic Church to declare the recovery of his daughter a true miracle. After the witnesses had given their testimony and Robert had made a huge donation to The Church, it was so declared. Robert was given permission to build a small chapel, with his own money of course, on a flat piece of land near the waterfall. He called it The Little Chapel of the Miracle of Our Lady of the Andes.
Word of the miracle and of the refreshing waters in the pool below the falls spread quickly among travelers between Cali and Medellin. They stopped there regularly to water their horses and to bathe. On their way to and from the pool, each one removed a rock or a root that made the way rough going. Soon horses hooves and wagon wheels crushed the grass into two parallel lines and then the lines became a road. A small inn was built for travelers have a meal and to rest over night. Each Sunday, after mass, a market sprang up on the green grass in front of the two buildings.
And so it went until the coming of the internal combustion engine. Cars and truck rushed by the old wooden signs that pointed the way down to the church and inn without so much as slowing down. The inn closed its doors forever in 1957, but Sunday mass and the outdoor market continued. The inn became a clinic for volunteers who brought medicine from the cities. Now and then a volunteer would come and set up a classroom in one of the sleeping chambers.
There is a little cemetery on a hill behind the tiny town of Mateo, Sheila's brother had written. Buried there are some of the priests and doctors and teachers who came here to help, fell in love with the village and villagers, and never wanted to leave.
Mateo sounded like such an idyllic place. Sheila could hardly wait to see it. She folded the letter and put it back into its envelope. She tucked it into the thin zippered compartment of her purse, where she had kept it every since it had arrived.
Very disriptive writing. Sounds like a wonderful place.
Posted by: She | August 06, 2006 at 07:32 AM