The Community of Santa Apolonia is
located three hours from the city of San Ignacio, in the state of Sinaloa.
Until 10 years ago, most of the population was living there. There were around 250
people. Today, this village is nothing more than a ghost town that keeps a
great mistery around its church.
The last Sherif of Santa
Apolonia, Alfonso Chicas, points that just like the case of the village of
Ajoya, in Santa Apolonia people lived the boom and celebrations of town. This
festival happens every February 9th where there played a great
number of bands that used to follow the tracks of the village followed by
people singing and yelling and having fun. Celebrations began the 7th
and ended until the 12th of the same month.
"Between these days everything was
fun and happiness, around one thousand people joint together from other
municipalities or states just to take some of the fun or just to pay debts to Santa
Apolonia"- Sheriff said.
But everything began to decline due to violence, since many people started to emigrate.
"The last party the people lived and
was great like all the others happened in 2001"- Sherrif stated- "after that,
everything was history".
This town keeps, with no doubt at all, one of the oldest churches in the country. It happens that this church is older than the Church of San Agustin which has now more than 460 years. These two churches, according to the story, were built by jesuits. As time passed by, both churches were deteriorating and when this place was inhabited people tried to rebuild it, but never made it. Strange events prevented it.
Elders who have lots of
knowledge from Santa Apolonia stated that this church never had a roof, due to
people who tried to build it but never could. Strange fact is that these pople
who tried to build the ceiling died in the place in a tragic manner.
Lots of people asure that
the gold booms that this village lived a long time ago keeps people to believe
there´s some treasures in the surroinding areas of the church. Some of them had
dared to dig in these places, but none of them found gold or any kid of
treasure. The only thing they found was human bones. For this, it is believe
that these places were used as a graveyard some time ago. In fact, some people
believe that under the temple there is a great tunnel.
It happened ten years
ago when inhabitants asked municipal government to install the roof to the
temple, but first they had to level the walls of thick adobe.
First it came a person sent by the
department of public works, who just came once since the first day of work he
put the bricks in the walls and the next day all of them were lying in the
floor completely broken. According to this man, an old person warned him about
strange things that happened near that church.
Due to the guy never
returned, villagers made the request to Amadeo Zazueta Larafga, current
Economic Development Subsecretary, who in return hired another person to do the
job. This new person also worked only for one day because the same thing
happened to him.
The last worker who
tried to rebuild the church was Romualdo Ríos Arisqueta, also sent by the city
council. He also worked for one day because he didn’t find only bricks on the
floor, but also felt a strange force that almost threw him off the scaffold he
was on more or less 5 meters high.
Romualdo tells:
"I remember it was the year 2000,
when I was sent to this place and even I knew some of the story I didn’t
believe it, so I came and started to work and set everything up. I climbed up
the scaffold and started to put the bricks on the wall".
He also tells:
"The scaffold was high, by it was
well set in. It was tied in the way it couldn´t move to any side or direction.
But suddenly it got untied and it started to move like a swing while I was
still up. There was no place I could grab on. It seemed like someone was moving
the scaffold on purpose, but there wasn´t anybody there".
After a few moments and a long deep breath:
"As soon as it finished moving, I
got off the thing and ran to the nearest house. There I got sugared water from
the family inside so the frighten could dissapear. I also remember an old man
who told me “if tonight the wall doesn´t fall off, then that´s a gain”.
And in the same day, a
kid came over and climbed the scaffold to the top of the wall and stayed there
for a long time. Probably like 20 minutes because he couldn´t go down. It
seemed that a strange force prevented him.
He also said that the
next day he wento to continue his duty, but a big was the surprise he had when
he saw all the huge bricks down in the soil and most of them broken or cut by
the half.
"This is an unexplained thing, at
least I can´t understand how this happened"- he tells –"since the bricks of this size are almost imposible to fall down because of the proportions, but this
really happened. Like if someone ripped them off the wall on purpose".
This was the last day he
returned to the village, since he felt these events like a warning. A waring
that made him believes that next time he would find death. Something similar
happened to other people who didn’t listen to these advices. By these times
there were about 40 people living in the village. Four years ago, all of them
migrated to other municipalities.
The image of Santa
Apolonia, better known as “the protector of the dentists”, was moved to San
Ignacio were at least 13 families from this villages live. The image lies in
the church of San Juan Bosco where it has been for 4 years now. Faithfuls from
the whole state come and serve prayers to the image, just like they did when
they were living in Santa Apolonia.
Santa Apolonia has become
a ghost town now, the same as Campanillas, El Verano, Bordontita, El Chilar,
Pueblo Nuevo, Huaracha, Güillapa, Contraestaca and Tepehuajes in San Ignacio.
22 families that were living there, moved to Culiacán or to Cruz de Elota. They
ran away frightened because of the violence they lived four years ago. Even
though some people tells that the village looks like it is still inhabited
since some of them return to clean the houses and the streets believing that
someday they´ll return to live in that place again.
They also said that
inside the church there is a small room where they have some images. Sometimes
people come and clean that room and the images as weel to avoid them to
deteriorate.
They pointed that one
year ago, one person from the near community of El Espiritu has seen in several
times, one little girl running in the surrounding areas of the church. He first
thought the girl was missing since the whole town is desolated. But it wasn´t
like that. When he pursued the girl, he saw her banishing in from of him.
And these are just a few
of the stories that people tells from the church of Santa Apolonia…
Jonathan
