Behind the altar a wall was missing. Or I should say it had been removed, or erupted, demolished. The structure of the church became fragile when viewed through this missing barrier. A leader singing on the altar had her back to the opening, she wore a clerical robe and when the wind moved it around we could not take her seriously. The cemetery could be seen behind the woman with the flapping robe—mausoleums, tombs, inscriptions, and the thousands spent to bury, right in front of us, money in the ground.

A bottle of wine rolled on the floor. Pigeons flew around, or walked. They shit on us. They hung around, walking in pairs. We were growing tired and it was loud. Young people spray-painted the silhouette of a man in burgundy, yellow, greens, he had no discernible features. No face. In the farthest corner the statue of a camel lay on its side, not seeming to belong but unmovable. The children rode the camel.

The things I had brought along with me for the ceremony very quickly proved to be inadequate: a tinted lip gloss, a greeting card with money folded inside and my initials signed at the bottom (R.I.), a reusable water bottle, sanitary napkins, nose tissues, reading glasses, my driver’s license and cellphone, mascara, a flower, seashells, a pack of mints.

There were mosquitoes everywhere. I scratched my legs.

The ceremony continued without interruption. Children played games in the corners; their parents didn’t pay attention. They pushed each other in the back, they took off their collared shirts and their stockings, their hair barrettes, they splashed in puddles of holy water, they pretended to baptize each other, soaking their hair in it. A grasshopper moved from my elbow to my forearm to my middle finger.

Around us there was an accumulation of objects: wallet-sized photographs, hats, loose coins, a pocket mirror. I couldn’t orient myself to this space, so I stood up.

The walls were more fuchsia than pink. We waited for something more to happen, but nothing did. A bar of spirits lined the fuchsia wall—bottles of all sizes and shapes, dark and clear, white and creamy, blue. Near my feet a train map and dry eucalyptus leaves. We tried to be patient. Even the children tried, but when the first person began to complain it affected everyone, and then everyone felt free to complain, even the children. Someone took the milky alcohol bottle and drank from it.

Later we were reprimanded. Then we were let out, so we gave it up, we left.

When we arrived for the second day of the ceremony everyone seemed tired. Most had dark circles around their eyes. No one wore their best; we wore what was available to us. We hadn’t expected a second day, we’d believed the ceremony would follow the traditional timeline, but we had been mistaken, the leaders expected our attendance.