I should add, at this point, that I can think of far worse fates than spending the rest of my years in Cuapa. One of my childhood ambitions was to be a cowboy, and Cuapa is definitely a cowboy town. Some of them still wear the traditional Nicaraguan cowboy hats, made of straw, some of them wear baseball caps. Some ride horses, some ride mules, and some ride donkeys. But whatever they are riding, and however they are dressed, one cannot but be impressed by the ability of the Cuapeños to stay on horseback, drunk or sober. My admiration for the horse-riding skills of Cuapeños is genuine, by the way. On my first visit, I was lucky enough to witness the local Hipaca, or horse-show. The riders paraded past on their best horses, in all their finery, and then assembled in the middle of a wooden stadium. Up on the second story, we set the whole structure shaking as we stamped our feet to the sound of the band, and, I cannot help but say, my fancy footwork was much admired. On my second visit, I actually had the chance to go riding myself. Jesus de Maria, our local guide, chose a pregnant mare for me, the most docile animal possible, sensing perhaps that I was slightly nervous about the whole business. Indeed, something of my fear must have been visible to everyone, judging from the way my friends kept on assuring me that I was perfectly safe, and there was nothing to be afraid of. I would have liked more protection than my straw hat though, because the path was very rocky, and it was a long way down. 

Furthermore, we rode over a few steep slopes along the way, and I was in danger of losing my balance a few times until Silvio’s wife, Erinn, pointed out that when going down hill you should lean backward, and when going up hill you should lean forward, advice that my have saved me from a broken spine. Despite my initial fear, I enjoyed the thrill, the sense of freedom as we made our way off the beaten path, through the tall grass, to the foot of that giant rock. Jesus de Maria wanted to take us up, but I refused. I don’t know whether I was scared of the height, or whether I just didn’t feel ready to commit myself to marrying a Cuapeña, no matter how beautiful. 

On our return, we treated ourselves and our guide to a bowl of Sopa de Huevos de Toro. Literally, that means Bull’s Eggs Soup. Of course, bulls don’t have eggs, but there is one part of their anatomy that is remarkably similar in shape, and plays its own part in the process of reproduction. The first time I had this soup, I chose it because it was, to me at least, an exotic dish. Perhaps too, I had some primeval desire to prove my manhood – women I have spoken to, even native born Nicaraguans, tell me that it’s a dish best left to men. But whatever my reasons for choosing it the first time, I chose it again because of the taste. It would, so the parish priest told me, raise the sheets at night. That is hardly typical clerical banter, but then Fr. Raya is hardly a typical cleric. He tells his parishioners that in the Church he’s a priest, but on the streets, he’s a man. He invited Silvio and me on one of his hunting trips. We drove over the hills, then walked a little way through the forest to the edge of a stream, where he motioned us to crouch silently. With his rifle in hand, he scanned the water, whistling softly, and then fired a shot. In triumph, he waded into the water, and pulled out the body of a fish, which he left lying next to us on the ground. Then he asked us to stay quiet again, while he waited for another one to come along. As we crouched there, I heard a thrashing next to us. The fish was coming back to life! The impact of the bullet on the water had only stunned it. Fr. Raya shot another, then decided that was enough hunting for one day. As we returned to the vehicle, I said to him, “Father, I know you’re a fisher of men, but I hope you don’t use the same technique with them.”

We returned to the priory, and, as we ate the fish, Silvio asked him about the apparitions, as part of the research for a book on the subject. The story does, indeed, involve a tailor called Bernardo who saw a glowing statue, but his relationship with the statue started long before that. In Nicaragua, statues of the saints tend to be very life-like. Not only are they painted, they wear real clothes, and life-like wigs. When he was a boy, Bernardo fell in love with one particular statue of the Virgin Mary in the Church at Juigalpa, and dreamed of one day marrying her. His grandmother set him right about that, but his love for this particular statue remained. When he was a teenager, he learned that the statue was to be replaced by a new one, and he was determined to buy it for the people of Cuapa. He organised a collection, paid for the statue, and transported it from Juigalpa to Cuapa on the back of a donkey – the same bumpy road that I travelled by bus. It was years later, when he was sacristan, that he saw the statue light up, illuminating the darkness in the empty church one evening. Later, in his walks through the fields around the edges of  Cuapa, he had a vision of the Virgin, and it was there she told him “If you want peace, you must make peace.” 

Bernardo did want peace, peace in Cuapa, a town torn apart, at that time, by gossip and intrigue. Nor was it only Cuapa that was torn apart: these were the years of the civil war between the Sandinistas and the Contras, when the whole country was torn apart by violence. On the way to Cuapa, we passed through a valley where an ambush took place. Hundreds of young men, who had been drafted into the Sandinista army, were fired on and killed by the Contras. Nicaragua is a country that still bears the scars of those years of war: people who lost loved ones, people who lost limbs, poverty where once there was plenty and ruins where once there were beautiful buildings. 

Yet, somehow, Nicaragua did manage to make peace. It may not be a nation of saints, and I am sure that there are still plenty of people with grudges left over from the years of fighting. After the war, a monument to peace was built in Managua, a sort of light-house, to serve as a beacon of hope. When I visited it, it was dirty, empty and neglected. But, for all its troubles, Nicaragua is a land that is at peace, and, after living there two years, it is a land that gives me hope that peace can be achieved, that enemies can be reconciled. Under a tree in a grove, a couple of kilometres from Cuapa, is a statue of the Virgin Mary, who stands there as a reminder that we can make peace if we want to.

When people ask why Catholics make such a fuss about statues and paintings, I reply that images and symbols are sometimes a good way to keep us in touch with realities that lie at the edge of our understanding. It may be childish to fall in love with a statue, but what’s so bad about trying to shape reality so that it fits the visions of perfection we had in childhood, however dimly we understood them at the time? And perhaps it is not only Catholics who understand these images. Many villages in India , so I understand, have statues to the goddess who is the Mother of the village, and is, at a deeper level, the Mother Goddess. Before Christianity came along, there were people who worshipped Isis, the Mother Goddess with her child in her arms. For myself though, the image of Mary and her child is always associated with the message of the Christian Gospel. I can almost picture her in front of me now, a woman holding out to me her new born child, so fragile and so precious, and saying “Take him in your arms, this is truth, this is peace, this is God. Don’t let go of him and let him fall, but don’t hold him too tight either, or you’ll crush the life from him. This is my son, do whatever he tells you.”

Making peace is hard. When I returned to San Marcos, the firings at Ave Maria College continued, and I decided to leave Nicaragua behind me. The peace that I prayed for may have come to the campus, but I’m not around to see it. But I did bring some things from Nicaragua with me to my new home in Panama, including a statue of Nuestra Señora de Cuapa. Her hand was broken along the way, but her smile is as serene as ever.