This one is far too long overdue!
{you can find all of these pictures and more on facebook by clicking *here*)
{you can find all of these pictures and more on facebook by clicking *here*)
Semana Santa, or (in English), Holy Week, is an incredibly important part of Guatemalan culture. As a predominantly Catholic culture, literally everyone celebrates Semana Santa (religious or not, it's also a social event).
One of the biggest parts of this week is the creation of alfombras...these are massive, handmade carpets, made out of aserien (sawdust), pine needles, fruits, and any combination of other organic materials. People spend hours upon hours on these, frequently working through the entire night, only to have processions walk over top of them followed by garbage trucks to pick everything up. Processions wind through every part of the city and can last as long as 12 hours, sometimes passing by the same street twice (in which case people will, without fail, make two alfombras).
On Maunday Thursday, La Union (our spanish school) set up a chance for all of us to participate in making an alfombra. The dyeing took hours of work the day before (all done by hand) and the actual process of making it took over 6 hours, even with more people than were jobs to do!
One of the biggest parts of this week is the creation of alfombras...these are massive, handmade carpets, made out of aserien (sawdust), pine needles, fruits, and any combination of other organic materials. People spend hours upon hours on these, frequently working through the entire night, only to have processions walk over top of them followed by garbage trucks to pick everything up. Processions wind through every part of the city and can last as long as 12 hours, sometimes passing by the same street twice (in which case people will, without fail, make two alfombras).
On Maunday Thursday, La Union (our spanish school) set up a chance for all of us to participate in making an alfombra. The dyeing took hours of work the day before (all done by hand) and the actual process of making it took over 6 hours, even with more people than were jobs to do!
In addition to alfombras, processions are a huge deal here. Like I said, some of them will spend 12+ hours winding around the city, with changing of the float-bearers every corner or couple of blocks.
I'm naturally a fairly introverted person, but for the sake of the cultural experience, I walked across the city on Good Friday to see the procession. It's no surprise that Antigua is home to the biggest Holy Week gathering in the world...people go all out!
I'm naturally a fairly introverted person, but for the sake of the cultural experience, I walked across the city on Good Friday to see the procession. It's no surprise that Antigua is home to the biggest Holy Week gathering in the world...people go all out!
We also took advantage of having Friday off of school and a few of us went to Saturday morning mass and then the early (we're talking 7am on the opposite side of town early) Easter Sunday service at a bilingual church.