April 1 - 2018 San Antonio, Texas

 

We are so grateful, that neither of us has pollen allergies. The pollen count is high in Texas right now. We were surprised to hear, that oak (eg) was the biggest problem at this time of year. We had never heard of a problem with oak pollen. It turns out, that “southern live oak”, is a very different kind of oak, than we are used to from Denmark and Minnesota. The trees grow very big, and get very old, and they have acorns (agern), as we are used to; but they look much different. And they give off A LOT of pollen in the spring. (Even people who don’t have allergies are bothered, because everything outside gets a coating of yellowish green pollen.)

The yellowish color on the trees is pollen

 

Today (April 1) is Easter Sunday (påskedag). I wanted to go to church, so we decided to go see “the missions” and go to church there.

Thousands of years ago, the area was populated (beboet) by the Tejas Indians. They were hunters and gatherers. In the 1600’s, Spanish explorers started moving in from the south, bringing with them diseases (sygdomme). The Tejas had no resistance (modstand) against these new deceases, and therefore died in big numbers. At the same time another threat appeared. The  Apache Indians came from the north. They were very aggressive, so the Tejas people decided to seek protection provided by the Spanish missionaries.

Missions were built for the purpose of converting the Indians to Christianity, and to help protect them from the Apache. Unfortunately, living at the missions increased the amount of disease among the Indians, and 70-80% of them died. The ones who did survive (overlevede), had to learn a new way of life. They were taught how to farm, and many European skills – such as building with bricks, milling, weaving, blacksmithing….

Five missions were built in the area that is now San Antonio. The Alamo was one of them (San Antonio). The other 4 are Conceptión, San Jóse, San Juan, and Espada. They were all towns, built with a church as the most important building, and walls around the town, as protection from invaders. No one lives in these mission towns now (except San Antonio, where the modern town grew up around the mission). But all of the churches still survive and are all used (except the church at the Alamo). The other buildings and outer walls, are in varying states of repair.



The Spanish taught the Tejas' how to irrigate (kunstig vandning).
Here they built an aqueduct to transport the water.

It was Easter! At this mission, they had used one of
the ruined walls, to hide Easter eggs. We guess the
kids were going to hunt for eggs after mass.

 

Living quarters for the Tejas

We ended our tour of the missions at the church of San Jóse. There was a Mexican sounding band (3 guitars, a harp and not least a trumpet), and a choir singing songs in Mexican. The service was very lively and different than any other, we have been to.

Written by Mary