Stairs to the Enfermaria
Let the sign speak for itself. I love the tile
I decided to roam about my little village to get to know the area a bit and also to get out of the house/compound – compound I like to call it because it is a walled property and you really don’t have to leave it if you don’t need anything. In any case, before Marjolein and Koen left they had shown me this abandoned building at the top of the hill. It used to be the hospital or infirmary for the sick or elderly, from what I understand.
The doors remaining permanently open ...
And who had once slept in these beds ...
I guess one of the village couples, Senhor Jose Julio de Brito Paes Falcao and Senhora D. Maria Engracia S.J. de Brito Paes Falcao ( I love the length of their names!) that had money, if I remember the story correctly, had built this infirmary, wash house and little church for the village. If the plaques that remain on the building are correct, it looks like it was built in the 1950s. It appears that the building was built by the wife in memory of her parents, and the land was donated by the husband. I guess through lack of support or funding or perhaps business, it was abandoned sometime in the 1970s.
... the halls remain quiet ...
I always find abandoned buildings fascinating. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is because of the stories that they allude to but cannot tell. Perhaps it is because of what has happened to them in the time they have been abandoned.
There is a sadness about them and yet a persistence since they are still there. The way that nature chooses to reclaim and how. What has been left behind in various states of disrepair and what vandals have done to leave their mark. It doesn’t matter what country I have been in, I find such structures such an interesting statement on humankind.
... and to an abandoned yard ... silence ...
No one uses the wash house now
A fireplace that would have heated the wash house
In the case of this hospital and church it seems sad to let something just degrade. But such is the way of change. The village here is not in a boom time anymore. It is quiet with many buildings for sale. And every building wants to tell its story. It just needs someone to put it into words.
No one goes to this church anymore