Igreja de São Paulo

There is this fabulous gothic-style Anglican church, the Igreja de São Paulo, directly across the street from the Casa Rosa, that must be at least 80 years old. The plaster exterior of the church is crumbling away, exposing the brick structure of the walls and spires and creating a network of deep cracks in which pigeons and white doves make their nests. It is darkened with soot, and the cross on the main spire tumbled down soon after the picture below, but it is still a beautiful and mysterious building that I love having as a backdrop to the house.

Despite its neglected exterior, the Igreja de São Paulo still functions as a church, with an afternoon service on Wednesdays and morning worship on Sundays. From our varanda you can hear the Dean, a woman called Inamar, conducting sermons and leading the choir in hymns. On Christmas, there is an especially nice service complete with bells and the entire congregation singing traditional holiday carols, only in Portuguese. I was feeling somewhat homesick and out of the Christmas spirit until I woke up on the 25th to the sound of carols and decided to sing along, in English, while sitting alone in the garden in the early morning sun.

The Igreja de São Paulo is one of the main cultural and historical points in Santa Teresa. Until recently, the church had a very unique double purpose, serving not only as a place of worship but as the only movie theater in Santa Teresa. Every Sunday at 7pm, people would pay $5 reais for a ticket and a guaraná soda, sit on the wooden pews, and watch indie films from Brasil, Latin America, the US and beyond, projected onto the white altar at the front of the church. I remember watching "The Motorcycle Diaries" in the church two weeks before moving to Mozambique and having a near religious experience between the beauty of the film, the half-illuminated stained glass windows, and the excitement of an upcoming adventure.

This past Saturday, for the first time ever, I saw a wedding in the Igreja de São Paulo. It was in the late morning, the church was full of people, and cars were lined up all along the street. Rico and I had just arrived from his mom's house and were unloading a bunch of things she had given me for the Casa Rosa: boxes of silverware and dishes, throw pillows, a vacuum cleaner. Curious to see what was going on, we stopped unloading, sat on the stairs, and opened the front gate to get a good view of the church.

After a while, a man in a suit got out of one of the cars parked along the side of the church. He walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and helped his beautiful daughter out of the car. Since the church is small, there is no waiting area or side room for the bride to get ready for her entrance. It all has to be done outside! The bride was the epitome of who I imagine getting married in the Igreja de São Paulo: short, jet-black hair in a 1920's bob tied back with an ivory scarf, a simple strapless ivory silk dress with a train, and a body full of tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos that actually looked great with the dress, artsy and alternative just like Santa Teresa.

Rico and I watched the bride and her father wait outside the church, just hidden from the people inside, until the opening notes of the wedding march music came on. The bride adjusted her scarf headband, fluffed out her train, and took her father's arm to enter the church and walk down the aisle. I felt like a total sap, but I started to cry on the stairs. Rico gave me a hug and shook his head. Mulheres...Oh, you sentimental women. He joked around about how we all love a good cry at a wedding, but really I could tell he was moved by the whole thing as well.

We resumed unloading the car and then went to have some lunch. About an hour later, as we were driving back up the street to the Casa Rosa, we noticed that the wedding was over and everyone - family, friends, onlookers, and the bride and groom themselves - had moved from the church to the Bar do Mineiro next door to have drinks in the noon sun in lieu of a traditional reception. The bride, still in her ivory dress, posed for photos with a digital camera, glass of beer in hand.

It was the perfect finish to what I thought was the perfect wedding for Santa Teresa. After all, where else in the world will a total lack of zoning permit an Anglican church to share a wall with a somewhat dingy bar on one side, and an elementary school on the other?