New Mexico -- Taos (3)

July 8th, 2005

In front of St. Jerome Chapel


The present San Geronimo, or St. Jerome, Chapel was completed in 1850 to replace the original church which was destroyed in the War with Mexico by the U.S. Army in 1847. That church, the ruins still evident on the west side of the village, was first built in 1619. It was then destroyed in the Spanish Revolt of 1680 but soon rebuilt on the same site. St. Jerome is the patron saint of Taos Pueblo.

Ruins from the original church


During the war, the army locked hundreds of local Indians in the church and burned the church. All the people who died in the fire were buried next to the church. The church ruin then became the grave yard for local Indians.

Graveyard


The grave yard is still used today. If a local Indian dies, he/she will still be buried here with his/her ancestors. But the grave yard size is limited, so locals will take out some crosses and bury the new body in the same spot. You can see the crosses piling up by the corner of the wall in the "Ruins from the original church" picture, those are all the crosses which are taken out from the grave yard.

Waiting ...


How can people treat life like dirt? How can they just burn so many people to death? People's lives are precious. We should always cherish our lives. But some people seem not to care about a life at all. I read some news online about current college students in China. Some students just suicide because they cannot get used to the college life, because they have never lived on their own before. I feel like our education system is a big failure. They teach students how to get a high score to go to college, but don't teach any student how to be a successful human being, how to live a real life. Life doesn't just belong to ourselves, we also carry responsibilities. Life doesn't just compose of studying either, there are so many things we need to do. We need to be responsible to the people who give our lives, to the people who love and care about us. Things are always easy for the dead people, but hard for the people who need to deal with it. How can a person just be so selfish, discarding all the responsibility he/she carries on and leaving the world, leaving the people who care about him/her?

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