10/2-4
Bahia Blanca
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| Dinner with friends from Bahia Blanca1. The church |
We arrive in time for a cafe cortado and media luna before heading to the Waldensian church in Bahia Blanca. The city feels more like my memories of Latin American cities than Buenos Aires. It's smells. A certain feel to a place. As we approach the church, we see someone has graffitied a conocer dios tendras que sufrir--to know God, you have to be able to suffer. Wonder where that came from....?
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| inspired graffiti |
We're in the manse attached to the church. Maria gives us a true docent's tour as the church's origins as a Scots Presbyterian church show through. The stained glass windows, atypical of the Waldensians, are from Edinburgh.
A Magen David in the window reveals a Masonic symbol and she tells us of the former prominence of the Masons in the city's political history. In the church house, much original furniture remains including a wonderful old piano with attached candelabra.
The old Scots legacy remains .
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| from Edinburgh |
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| the old piano |
Thee are stories of the saints of he church. The last pastor raised hopes when he started a youth group and young people came to the church again. His leaving was a blow to the sense of forward movement. They continue to be burdened by building issues and questions about future pastoral leadership. But much remains:
1. They have in their number lay people with a high capacity for theological discourse and pastoral commitment.
2. New parents have been attracted and continue to come.
3. A solid core of the teenagers who had come to the youth group continue to come and can bring friends.
4. They have added to their number new people from outside the Waldensian tradition, even choosing one to represent them in the weekend work shop.
5. They are actively engaged in their community, serving on the council called into being by the municipality to bring representatives of a wide variety of faiths together. They are about to propose to the council that Bahia Blanca declare itself to be a city of interfaith engagement and dialogue. ( This council did not hesitate to remove a member who used a public prayer as an opportunity for proselytization
6. The part time pastoral work of Yanni keeps people focused and involved until her next visit.
Despite all the challenges, Bahia Blanca has reason to have hope for the future.
2. The city
I am intrigued to find a city off over 300000 people. Almost the size of my hometown Pittsburgh To me it feels much more like a traditional Latin American city. We’re lucky to have a history teacher/student and a professional driver as our guides.
We see:
- The train station.
Where the city began. Gateway to the south. The train station is being restored but much of Argentina’’s train system is unusable
the train station - The beautiful performing arts theatre with it statue honoring Italian independence leader Giuseppe Mazzini. A poster about urban renewal in Bahia Blanca has been invaded with an image of Santiago Maldonado, whose story I will learn and whose face is becoming ubiquitous as I experience Argentina.
Santiago Maldonado - The University the South. Silhouettes of women on the sidewalk give witness to the issue of femicida, the murder of women because they are women,.
Argentina is the first place I am aware of to name this lethal phenomenon of domestic violence in a t culture of machismo that feels itself threatened.
for victims of femicide - We learn here about the reality of the junta outside of Buenos Aires. The fountain by a Peronist woman artist removed during the junta.
Discovered hidden way and reinstalled. The mosaic portrait of David “Watu” Cillercielo, assassinated student leader.
the fountain
Apparently the rector of the University had given over a list of professors and students who were ‘subversive.”
David "Watu" Cillercielo - We visit the location of the clandestine army detention center known as “la escuelita”: the little school.
Special roads led directly from the city to here. A silhouette of a blindfolded pregnant woman recalls the number of pregnant detainees who had their babies snatched from them and delivered to wives of military officers, Handmaid style. The reuniting of children and families over the years has been a complex and painful process. A tree marks the spot near where a torture dungeon stood.
remembering "la escuelita"
Volunteers spent weeks in an archeological discovery process verifying the stories the had been told. Our guide was one of those volunteers.
site of the excavation - We visit a Malvinas War memorial.
Regardless of political ideology, Argentines felt united in this conflict. And the quick and humiiating loss was the beginning of the end for the junta.
Malvinas War memorial - We visit the port, the major agricultural export center of the country. See the power transfer station, built in Gothic style. By the British, with a carved relief of St. George along the roof line. Large silos for grains, increasingly mono crop soy.
Gothic electric transfer center - A museum honoring generations of workers.
workers museum - La casa del espia where a dispatcher reportedly informed Nazi submarines off shore as to what ships were headed where
Casa Espia - We stand at the end of the pier looking at the harbor. There are still fishing boats though changes in the harbor have pushed the fishers further and further out to sea, their work increasingly vulnerable.
patron saint of fishers 
from the pier - Back at the city plaza, the monument honoring the contribution of the Jewish community to the city on its centenary in 1928, On has to admire the courage and tenacity of the Jewish community to remain all these years through various periods of antisemitic reaction, juntas, nazi immigrants, etc.
honoring the Jewish community - We visit a traveling Bible exhibit honoring the Luther quincentennial with a comprehensive lecture by Dr. Renee Kreuger, author and professor at the late lemsented Theology School. Its closing was especially painful to Waldensians as it was a place that both trained young passports and provided continuing theological education for lay people. A group of Jewish young people has come tonight with their teacher. Even though the Waldensians preceded Luther by centuries, they saw in his movement a place for solidarity so they celebrate fully th beginning of his revolution.
Dr. Rene Kreuger
The Waldensian church has an impact in the city way beyond its numbers. It is engaged and visible and despite its challenges can clearly claim a future.
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