Procesión de Los Niños

Breakfast around the corner at Fernando's again. Walked to la Catedral de San Jose on Parque Central to watch the Procesión de los Niños. While waiting for the procession to begin, we watched the creation of one of the beautiful alfombras (made of colored sawdust and sand) on one section of the floor of the church. Fascinating to watch this piece of art come together as stencil after stencil was used to apply different colors. We came across a freelance guide, Don Oscar, who showed us through the churches & ruins at Catedral San Jose as well as Iglesia San Francisco. Both left a huge impression on us, realizing the destructive force of the earthquakes which, along with other disasters, both "natural" and man-made, have left such huge scars on this country. We plan to return to spend more time at these sites.
After our guided tour, we returned to the Catedral as the niños (young people) prepared to lift the huge floats (with their statues) onto their shoulders to carry them out of the church and through the streets of the town. You're going to hear a lot more about these processions, how they are done, how many people participate, etc as I learn more about it over the next week. For now let me say that the girls were so fun to watch. While the boys wore traditional purple robes and head coverings, the girls were dressed in black skirts and white blouses. They wore head coverings and white gloves. It was clear that they took their jobs seriously and some were quite nervous. The boys' float, carrying the sculpture of Jesús Nazareno del Desamparo (made by the Guatemalan artist Salvador Posadas in 1913) is carried on the shoulders of 40 young boys. The float with the sculpture of the Virgin de Dolores is carried by 24 young girls. We watched the procession depart the Catedral through the huge front doors. Followed by the bands and hundreds of onlookers, they descended the massive stone steps and continued down the steet, swaying to the music under the weight of their heavy loads. None of my schedules and books told me how long this procesión was, but it passed our apartment 2 1/2 hours later, so it had to be at least 4 hours total.