When I visited Saint Martin. First, barefooted, later, wearing Gucci boots.

When I decided to baptise my son, the hardest part was not to find godparents, rather than finding a church where I would not be asked silly questions and certificates impossible to procure.

Following my mom’s recommendation, I went to the Cathedral, “where distinguished children are baptized”, and well, they asked me for the baptism certificate of both godparents, their marriage certificates, and of course, for the father of my son’s ID, “because every little boy has to have a father!”. I told the church representatives that the godparents weren’t married, and they replied that cohabiting godparents would simply not do, since that was to live in sin. They did not give me the chance to explain to them that the godparents were just friends, and that their only bond was to have studied in the same university and to have me as a friend in common. Also, to ask so stubbornly for the ID of the father’s was tantamount to demand gold, frankincense and myrrh from me.

I went to my neighbourhood’s parish, and they asked me to have the godparents receiving a preparation talk in their premises. I asked them if there was another way around that requirement, since the godmother lives in Michigan (far far far away from Huacho, my hometown), and if she could perhaps receive the preparation talk in a Catholic Church over there. It was a forthright refusal: the preparation talk had to be received a month before the baptism, and it had to be received in their premises. They would not let me explain, nor were they willing to take into consideration that the godmother lived in the USA, and that she had only gotten 4 days off work exclusively to attend my son’s baptism, and that she was not going to have free time to spend at her leisure, not even with her own family, since they live in a different Peruvian city. But no, they would not understand.

I let a month go by, going between being annoyed and thinking “I should probably baptise him when he’s 10 years old, perhaps the godparents will have more free time then”, but no. It wasn’t fair to have a sacrament – which I should have the right to attain due to my being a catholic – denied to my only son because of a bureaucratic maelstrom. The fact that the godparents lived afar should not be a problem; the fact that my son doesn’t have a father and only has me in her birth certificate shouldn’t be an issue either, because, after all, since the Catholic church opposes abortion, what would be the lot for a raped girl who decides to keep her baby? Is she expected to go ask her aggressor for his ID in order to be able to baptise her child? Or, what if a woman decides to divorce a violent man? Should she beg her ex-husband (let us not forget that abusive men just love to have a woman begging) for the permission to get her child baptised? It was blatantly unfair; the church should be an open place where, whenever a person asked for a sacrament, they would just say: “of course, come in, please, choose the date of your convenience, we will do our utmost to assist you with all your queries”.

Then I remembered that when I was 4 or 5 years old, I used to walk 2 or 3 kilometres, barefooted or wearing sandals, in a dusty road next to the highly busy Pan-American Highway, through which cars, buses and truck-carrying trucks sped along. I walked holding the hand of my great-aunt Francisca López Díaz, whom I called Panchita. I walked and strived to behave properly, because if I tried to start a tantrum, this woman was able to lift me to her back and, using just one hand, she would tie me with a quilt, and no force on Earth would get me back on the floor, so I would see myself forced to watch the world from between the braids of her hair. Therefore, I behaved properly to be allowed to walk freely.

Along the way I kept picking up bottle caps, empty plastic bottles, popped balloons, rubber, and broken toys if I was lucky enough to come across one. I stuffed my pockets with all the things I picked up, and if my dress happened to lack pockets, then I would find me a plastic bag in the dirt, so that I could store those scraps I called “treasures”. I remember that once I found a small rubber ball, and I felt the happiest girl in the world, as if Christmas had arrived in July.

We walked with a destination in mind: the Church of the Holy Cross, or Church of the White Cross, or – as I came to know it – the Church of Saint Martin de Porres (because it housed religious imagery of that saint). Always warily and holding our hands, we made the last effort to run across the Pan-American Highway – risking our lives – and get to the church.

How peaceful it was in there! A fresh breeze caressed everyone, it was nicely guarded from the sun and there was a place to sit. I tried hard not to get the kneeler of the prie-dieu dirty because of my sand-and-dust laden feet. Panchita walked from one saint to the next, telling me the names of each one of them, and I noticed that every single one had a box at their feet so that people would put coins into them, but we didn’t have any money. I remember thinking: “when I grow up, I’ll come here with Panchita and I will give her a lot of coins, so that she can give them to every saint”, while we made it all the way to Saint Martin de Porres, the black saint, a saint who performed many miracles, healing sick people, a saint who donated himself as a young man to perform menial tasks in the church, a saint who levitated, and managed to get a dog, a cat and a mouse eating from the same dish. For a girl who was raised among cattle and chicken pens, that was quite an achievement. My great-aunt knelt before Saint Martin and prayed and cried, I don’t know what she was saying or asking because I couldn’t understand her whispered words mixed with slight sobs, with tears running down her cheeks. So I knelt as well, closed my eyes and asked for “whatever it is that’s making Panchita cry, so that she would stop crying, and please, let me get by tomorrow not getting hit by my cousin (a bully cousin I have)”. After a while, Panchita would perform the sign of the cross, I imitated her, and then we went out to a small park next to the church where white and orange flowers abounded, and there I played with the “treasures” I had collected on my way there.

I remembered those days during which I forged my faith. My faith consisted in walking a long road, either with or without shoes, be it warm or cold weather, guided along by someone who had a stronger faith, someone who would carry you on her back if you misbehaved so as to avoid major trouble, but the walk towards the church would not be hampered.

The faith was to walk collecting treasures, and upon arrival, feel that someday you may be able to get there with “more”, and offer “more” to the saints, to that church, to the person who walked along with you. You don’t understand why, but you pray nonetheless, and you pray for the things you need at that time, the things that conform your “biggest problems” and “greatest needs”. For me, as a 3 or 5-year-old girl, my biggest problem was to have a cousin who constantly hit me, and that’s why I prayed: I had no notion of wars or couples or world economy or anything else, and still to this day I wonder what it was that Panchita prayed for.

Remembering all this, I decided to go to this church, even though it was farther away than the other two I had attempted to have my son baptised in. As soon as I entered the premises, I was flooded by so many recollections after seeing the same saints, the same colours, and a refreshed Saint Martin image. The lady whom I accosted with questions about baptising my son only asked for the IDs of the godparents’, my son’s and mine, and she reassured me by telling me that if the godparents lived far away, they could receive the preparation talk in any Catholic church of their convenience, because after all “everywhere in the world there is a Catholic church, and the preparation talk is the same in any of them. Oh, but please, could you please by a couple of tickets for a fundraiser we’re hosting in order to get our façade painted?” I wanted to hug this lady and offer to paint for the façade right away, but I decided to withhold the exhilaration (we have to be humble, after all), I bought 10 tickets, thanked her 20 times and left her office feeling happy and relieved. On my way out of the church, I glanced at the altar of Saint Martin: he knew and I knew that that was what I had prayed for every single day I went there when I was 4 or 5 years old, and now he was giving it to me.

A few weeks later I went back to the church to receive the preparation talk for the parents of the children who were going to be baptised, and as the priest was talking, I looked down at my feet. They were not dirty anymore, or bare or wearing sandals after a 2-kilometre walk. I don’t know why, but seeing my feet clad in my costly boots made me feel ashamed; I looked up at the altars and there were the saints, some refreshed, some altogether replaced, and I remembered Panchita and the love with which she taught me the Guardian Angel prayer, and whenever I asked her “what does God want?”, she would answer me “for us to love one another and for us to be kind”.

Panchita can’t see anymore, she is barely able to hear, and she does not recognise me anymore. She’s trapped in a moment in time where I am still a child, and I’m still “Enmita” (little Enma) to her, and in that world of hers, I haven’t had a child. Whenever she sees my son, she asks “whose is that child?”, or she simply says “the neighbours’ child has gotten into the house”. This bedridden woman sometimes asks for me, but every time I introduce myself saying “I’m Enmita, I’ve come to see you”, she just stares at me with vacant eyes and keeps on asking for Enmita. I’ve told her that I’m a medical doctor, that I’ve got a son who looks like me, that I’m going to baptise him, but she just looks at me as though I’m not there. There was a time she fell off and I went to tend her as a doctor, and she was quite cooperative and let me bandage her. That day, I thought how proud she would be to know that the doctor who tended her wounds and her beloved “Enmita” were the same person, but she doesn’t know it, nor will ever do.

Panchita, wherever it is that your mind is, I want to tell you that I baptised my son in the same church where you always took me and taught me to pray, I’m teaching him that God only wants for us to love one another and for us to be kind, and I sincerely hope that your mind is frozen in those days where you carried me on your back and I had to watch the world from between the braids of your hair.