Monchique,the convent and the clock

The convent and the clock

Uphill from the village, there is a convent, an old cloister, built on a slope covered with pine and eucalyptus trees. Still in the village, signs on the wall of houses show the way how to reach it. Before leaving the village, on the left hand you will see a small statue of a Holy Mary. She guards the hikers, the would-be pilgrims. When was it built, the convent? Maybe five hundred years maybe a thousand years ago. I don’t know. It is a ruin now, overgrown by plants and ivy, walls partly fallen down. When you arrive at the convent, a man will call you and show you the backside of the ruin, his little garden and the sign of private property. He is the ghost of history. Why is the convent a ruin? The people don’t have money for a restoration of the historical building? Sure, it will cost a lot of money. They prefer to spend it on the maintenance of the little church in the village? That’s where they go every Sunday, not to the convent. They would have to climb even higher; and at Sunday, they wear their Sunday dress and shouldn’t sweat as much as during the days of the week. Moreover, the priest of the church might be too old and unable to climb all the way up to the convent. For sure he is old, if he is the man who tolls the bells of the church. It is done by hand. I can hear it and count the strokes. At times the bells run fast at times they are slow. Sometimes, it seems as if the man forgets what he is doing. The tolling stops and resumes. Counting the strokes makes no sense. So, the hours pass, the months, the years. That’s how gradually a ruin comes into being. I just hear the chimes of the past, the call of the local ghost.