Viernes Santo - Good Friday

After a brief couple of hours of very uncomfortable "sleep," we awoke with a start at 3 in the morning, just before the Roman Soldiers paraded down our street, elaborately costumed and on horseback. What a show as they were announced by trumpet and stopped at each corner to read the sentencing of Jesus. The electricity had come on and the neighborhoods were alive with alfombra makers. We agreed that we were "awake." Half a pot of coffee later, we were ready to go out into the dark streets again to watch as the alfombras grew on every street around us.
I said that the "informal" alfombras in the streets on Palm Sunday were works of art and that is true. Today's street art was worthy of one of the world's great art museums! Every street was alive with neighbors working on their alfombras. Each was totally different. At each site there were buckets of materials: supplies of sawdust or sand in various colors, multi-colored chrysanthemum buds, all sorts of flowers, and other items as needed. The street is first sprayed with water to keep the sawdust from blowing around. A base of sawdust (or sand) is laid to create a flat surface on the cobblestones. Then the formas (stensils) are used to meticulously create these beautiful multi-colored masterpieces. What an amazing experience to wander through the streets for the remainder of the night, watching these creations come to life! By about five in the morning, the alformbras closest to the church had been completed in time to welcome the procession. The atmosphere that exists in Antigua as the entire town is involved throughout the night and then all day is indescribable. Some of the active participants in the procession are Roman centurions, trumpeters, and cohorts, drums and flutes, Pontius Pilot, the thieves, banners with the Sentencing, incense carriers, children processioners, bands playing funeral marches and numerous floats carrying images including the Prayer at the Garden, the Seizure of Christ, Saint Peter, Christ at the Column, Christ Falling, María Magdalena, San Juan, Marta, María Solomé, María Cleofás, and the large floats with the sculpture of Jesús Nazareno, the sculpture of the Virgin of Dolores.
After a couple hours of watching the procession pass through our area, we wandered around the town through the streets that were still workiing on their alfombras in preparation for when the procession would get to their street later in the day. At some point, we stopped long enough to have a good breakfast at our neighborhood cafe, and then continued walking and admiring the art work until noon, when it was time to walk to the Cathedral in the middle of town to observe the Crucifixion Ceremony. No, they didn't crucify real people, although I had observed that particular custom many years ago in the Philippines. There were 3 more processions which started out around 3 o'clock from various churches (about the time that the one that had started at 5 am returned to Iglesia La Merced and ended). Thus throughout the day and night these amazing events wound through this unbelievable town, eliminating all that beautiful art work as they went! Sometime between midnight and 2 am we went back into the street to watch one of them make its way through our neighborhood. I heard one passing through the area around 4 am, but decided not to get up and go back into the street to see it again. Earlier in the evening (believe me this all runs together after the fact!) we had come out of a restaurant on the corner and stupidly started to make our way to our apartment through the crowd. We eventually figured out that something had gone wrong with one of the processions and two of them had come together at the same time, from opposite directions, at our corner. There was total gridlock for a couple of hours as neither could move through the intersection until the other did so - and there were thousands of people in the streets who couldn't move either. There was a man directly behind me with a huge basket of something on his head who kept saying "Permiso por favor!" I finally turned around to him, which was vertually impossible, and told him I could not move! He told me that yes, I could; that I just had to keep saying "Permiso!" and pushing my way through! Amazingly, we eventually made it down the half a block to our apartment and stood outside for another couple of hours with our landlords watching the processions as the gridlock somehow eventually got untangled.
This is a day that I will remember the rest of my life, in spite of the fact that it is all running together in my mind already. This week is something that I will return to Antigua for every year that I get the chance. It is totally amazing and trying to describe it is futile.
By the way, have I mentioned lately that I could live here?