 |
| Peeking through the chain link fence at the Christchurch Cathedral. |
My strongest impression of any New Zealand city was my first impression of
Christchurch. In every seeping corner of New Zealand, people spoke of the
earthquake: they escaped from it, they trembled with it, they housed a refuge
of it, they lived it. They all told me it was broken, split in half by the fault
line that gorges through the center of the South island. I listened, but I didn’t
understand until I arrived there, in a bus packed with backpackers and kiwis
alike, trying to find their home again.
There is just something about a house that is split in half that has
the power to break hearts. There were chain link fences with
interwoven signs that read “For Sale!” or “For Free!” or “No squatters allowed.”.
Rust covered the chain links and grass grew through shards of broken glass windows.
It was more common to see a feral cat nursing a wound on a front porch than it
was to see a person peeking through a window. These houses lined the perimeter
of the city until they gave way to giant, spraypainted murals. Murals
covered the entirety of buildings—political statements, giant women, optical
illusions. I could only see them through the lens of a scaffolding
built in front of the wall, the subtle effort to reconstruct the foundations of
old buildings. My eyes were wide as I stared out a tinted bus window onto the
carnage.
Despite the carnage, the streets were buzzing. It was a low hum, but people
gushed from every corner, shopping, talking on their phones, checking their
watches. It was almost like they didn’t even notice the continuous drone of construction
operating a few hundred feet above them, or the bricks laying in the road from
the broken down shopping centers.
I followed them, I followed the crowds. They all led to Cathedral
Square, a square that housed the remnants of a giant church that trembled to
the ground under the earthquake. At first, I didn’t know what it was. It is a
giant building, surrounded by an enormous, wooden construction barrier, making
it impossible to see in unless you found a break in that barrier. The break happened
to be a chain link fence, which I was nervous to approach. It felt like I was
looking in on a person’s private secret.
The church was a church and it will always be a church, but this church
was a ruin. The entrance looked like a giant had crushed it to the ground, revealing a cross
section to the inside of the church. The rafters were full of spikes and
pigeons and were smeared with seven years of bird poop. They ruffled their
feathers and made nests in the ruins. The bricks were scattered across the floor,
intermixed with proliferate weeds and dirt, at the foot of an angel. This angel
held it’s arms in the air in surrender. She was tied to a stake, with blue
cord, to keep her from falling. It appeared to be facing the sky, asking for
mercy. It really should have been asking the Earth.
 |
| Angel that guards Christchurch Cathedral. |