Holy Week 2008

As you already know, two weeks ago we were off celebrating the national holiday week of Semana Santa. It was a welcome break from work and provided us the opportunity to enjoy the summer weather here in Guatemala. Here's a little recap of what we did during the week.

For the first part of the week we relaxed a bit at our house and took advantage of lying out in the sun on our rooftop terrace. On Monday we had dinner with our friends Dr. Heidi and Matt, and their volunteer Dr. Charlie. Although Matt doesn't like games too much, we were able to invite Charlie and Heidi into the wonderful world of Pounce. As expected, it was a hit with them!

It also happened that we were able to meet up with Matt, Heidi, and Charlie once again during the week, but in Antigua. Charlie was only volunteering for a month and wanted to get down to Antigua to experience the festivities. So, we all met up on Wednesday of Holy Week after Toby and I checked in with our host family and got Toby registered for carrying in the procession. Between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon our activities entailed eating at Café Flor for dinner, hanging out at their hotel, eating breakfast at Fernando's Kaffee, and helping Charlie shop in the artisan market for a gift for his fiancée.

On Thursday evening we were invited to eat tamales with our old host family from when Toby studied Spanish in Antigua. We got to fill up on delicious vegetarian tamales, and homemade banana bread while visiting with other Spanish students and the family. One couple in particular was really great to chat with that evening. We met Patty and Doug from Alberta, Canada, a retired couple traveling and studying in Central America. During the next few days we had the pleasure of telling stories and sharing wisdom about places in Central America as we built an alfombra and ate dinner at Kafka with them.

Since carpet making at PROBIGUA (the Spanish school) was set to begin around 10 pm Thursday and go through the night, Toby and I decided to take a little nap. We slept from around 9pm-midnight before heading over to the school and diving into the creative process. This year the alfombra was mainly made with colored saw dust and not flowers, so this was a much more time consuming process. We had a very committed team of about 10 that consisted of the Canadian couple, a couple Norwegian guys, a German, some PROBIGUA staff, and us. Diligently, we smoothed, patted, and filled stencils with sawdust and then cleaned up our mistakes. What started off as a bit questionable and disorderly soon became a very beautiful piece of artwork in the street. It was all complete and ready by around 4:45am, just in time for us to watch the La Merced procession.

Before walking around to view all the carpets, Toby and I stopped into the YWAM coffee shop Higher Grounds (which had been open all night long) to get a few latte pick-me-ups. Then, we proceeded to walk along the procession route, but just ahead of it, so we could see all of the beautiful carpets that had been constructed. Some of our favorites included one block long alfombra on Alameda Santa Lucía, a butterfly made of flower petals, and the family team alfombra that marked 50 years making carpets in 2007. Halfway through our touring and before the sun fully rose we stopped into Bagel Barn to get a quick breakfast and rest our bodies. Afterwards, we meandered around a bit more to look at carpets before settling back by ours to watch the procession pass over our hard earned work. Unfortunately, while we were waiting for the anda two different dogs went running through our carpet making footprints and messing up the sawdust pattern details.

At this point we were pretty exhausted from 3 hours of sleep so we went back to the house to have another nap from around 10am-noon. When we awoke we were completely disoriented and confused as to what day it was and the time since we were keeping such and odd schedule. Nevertheless, we continued on our marathon Good Friday by eating lunch at an Indian restaurant and hiking back up to the San Felipe church and Jocotenango in search of Toby’s procession turn badge. Along the way we admired quite a few more carpets made for Toby’s procession (starting at 3pm), then got ready for his turn. They base the groups on height, and since Toby is quite tall compared to most Guatemalan me, he was in turno 6.

For the majority of the rest of the day we tried to sit down and rest because we had done SO much walking all around the city. In the evening we did enjoy watching the Escuela de Cristo procession pass around the central park and the cathedral. Usually the crowds of people are enormous and involve a candle vigil as the floats pass by.

Afterwards we really needed some caffeine and energy to keep going through the night. Toby still had one more turn to carry, and our prediction was that it would occur around midnight on the far side of town from where we were staying. We managed to find the procession route around 11 or 11:30, but during all the walking my flip flops gave out and the strap totally broke. Being on the other side of town, I opted to use masking tape to secure the sandal to my foot so that I could continue walking around. (Luckily, I happened to have tape in my purse since we had been hanging “volunteers needed” posters around the city.) We were so far away from the house and our legs were aching, so I didn’t want to make an extra lap to get a new pair of shoes.

After mending my sandals, Toby joined the fila, the line of float carriers that walk on the sides of the road ahead of the procession. At around 12:30 or so he finally had his turn to carry; it turned out to be a tricky one. The anda that he carries needs 100 men to keep it afloat, bearing around 80-100lbs each man. The small colonial streets barely can accommodate the size of the floats, often involving some maneuvering to turn corners. And, that’s exactly what Toby’s group had to do. Upon turning the block the anda couldn’t make it through and was bumping up against the buildings. Toby said that they even hit the eaves of the roof at one point and everyone felt the vibrations. In order to make it through the men had to lower the structure onto their forearms (standing parallel instead of perpendicular to the float) and then further onto their hands and shuffle around the corner. Then, at once, all 100 men hoist the structure back onto their shoulders. I must say that as a bystander, it is very nerve racking to see the men move it around in this way, wondering if they may drop it. But alas, this did not happen and we were able to finally retire around 1ish in the morning after running on so little steam.

We did stay in Antigua until Sunday afternoon to enjoy the restaurants and beauty of the city. However, a lot of the festivities had died down and the streets were much clearer since all the Guatemalans had fled to the beach. Even though we attended the celebrations in 2007, it was just as enjoyable this year for different reasons than the last. Antigua, Guatemala during Semana Santa is a MUST SEE.