| Apr 16, 2006 - Semana Santa
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 | | show all 8 | | One of the stations of the Cross | | Making an alfombra | | Making an alfombra | | |
| Holy Week is not what it used to be in this part of the world. In the free market competition for souls, Catholicism is quickly losing ground here to Protestant religions, especially the evangelical churches. As a result, the events for Holy Week are smaller and less showy than they once were. The highly anticipated evening procession on Good Friday, for example, only attracted about 300 people, even though some 30,000 people live in this region.
Even with the changes, however, this is still a very interesting time of year to visit. Here in Copán, Good Friday (Viernes Santo) is the big day. In the morning, displays for each station of the cross are set up and a morning procession makes its way to every station. In the afternoon, people get to work creating "alfombras" in the streets, literally carpets made of colored sawdust. After the Good Friday evening service, another procession wends its way through the city streets and across the carpets. The centerpiece of this procession is a figure of Jesus encased in a glass coffin that is carried around town as the procession slowly sways from side to side.
On Saturday, events became much more secular in tone. Last night, the town staged a large fiesta in the central square, complete with a re-enactment of a Mayan ceremony and a beer booth. As we were serving beer at the fiesta,...oh, did I mention that we worked the beer booth? The friend who invited us to share in her birthday celebration had the contract to sell beer at the fiesta, so we volunteered to help. As you can probably imagine, the last thing that folks at the fiesta expected to see was two gringos pouring cervezas at their fiesta.
While we were serving beer, we were able to enjoy a concert occurring just a few feet away. The band, a "music of the Andes" group of musicians from San Salvador, had been staying at the same hotel as us all week. In that time we shared a lot of conversation on the hotel balcony while they rehearsed and also had the pleasure of listening to them play several times around town. You might say that we have become groupies, sort of. We will probably have more chances to hang out with them this week, because tomorrow we are leaving Copán for San Salvador. Should be fun. |
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