…a sticky situation

“So you’re not a Catholic, you’re not married and you live in England. Pray, please explain to me how you will be a Godparent to this child.”

I have come to the central church in Tena with a friend Maria and her husband, they want me to be godmother to their son. The priest is dressed in surf shorts and a very moth-eaten T-shirt, wearing glasses and around his neck hangs a large cross complete with wooden beads. My very presence, let alone my interrogation appear to be causing him to sweat profusely.

I am the only one seated sitting in an oversized wooden chair. It is raised from the ground on a platform and has huge arms making me appear like a small girl with legs dangling awkwardly. The priest has taken to arguing, or rather heatedly discussing with Maria. “Senora, read the requirements”, he waves his hand in the direction of a rather typographically gaudy sign that to me looks more like a menu in a takeaway.

He’s got a point, I’m not Catholic, although Maria swears blind that I am. Nor have I been confirmed. The situation is becoming rather uncomfortable. I can think of many things that I’d rather pretend to be…

However it appears the matter is finished as the priest folds his hands and two lines of perspiration run down his forehead. I breathe a secret sigh of relief. I have been let off the hook. As we leave the church I give Maria a look as if to say ‘well what can you do?!’.

On to church number two. This was not the answer to my rhetorical question that I was hoping for. We arrive and the priest is busy marrying some people. We wait. And wait. And wait some more and an hour passes. Finally after kicking dirt around with my feet for an hour and a half, a walk to the shop, some spying on the wedding through a crack on the church doors, the procession finally exits from the church. We dash round the side and enter the door on which a sign reads ‘ baptisms – third Saturday of every month’. I prepare for another interrogation. My palms are particularly moist as I desperately try to remember things that he might ask me… spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch. Bingo. I’m safe.. he’ll never guess. But on which side do you keep your wallet and which side your watch. Oh crumbs…I hear footsteps…!

But someone is looking down on me. Before I can so much as open my mouth a very short but matronly nun enters. “Baptisms”, she says, “third Saturday of every month. Classes for the parents Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday for the God parents. Will that be all?.

Clearly I look more Catholic than I sound.