The Week Before Easter, or What Happened in the Streets 1

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Easter (or Semana Santa) is no small thing here and this week has been a lively one. After various events for Cuarismo (Lent), the Semana Santa celebrations began last Thursday with a small children's parade which I saw in passing in the Parque Central. Things got more lively on Thursday with the Huelga de Dolores. This 115-year-old event is organised by the politically minded students at San Carlos, Guatemala's public university, which has an arm in Quetzaltenango. During the many years of conflict, the students adopted full body masks to avoid repercussions (though the death toll on university students was still high), although now in Xela at least things are taken less seriously. However, the politics was not completely forgotten, as they were dancing and skipping around floats bearing megaphones and posters with many slogans, such as "Femicidio - No Más", images of the President and the Pope, and comments about 1980s President Rios Montt, who is currently on trial for genocide. The students of San Carlos are the majority of Guatemala's educated Liberals, and the Huelga de Dolores is one of their methods of spreading awareness amongst the larger population that perhaps they should not simply accept the government's word. I encountered the procession by La Democracia market, where it had acquired somewhat the air of a party, possibly because the students were generally a few steps away from being sober. t's also a good excuse for a party. I was seized by the arm by one and absolutely compelled to skip in the street, while others went up and down rattling containers for donations, half of which funds their political activities and half of which funds their after-party.

On Saturday, things took a pause, except for the fact the La Democracia was even livelier than usual, but Sunday began with the family collecting the all important Easter bread. And this was not just a matter of popping to the bakery to fetch a few loaves. The mission involved seven family members (plus myself) and a half hour drive to San Juan Ostuncalco, where we wove our way through a buzzing street market to a bakery in which rows of bakers were hand-decorating tray of bread rolls several metres long. In a large room at the back, several families were carefully organizing and wrapping their bread. We had four small crates' worth of a variety of types of bread. What most of the rolls (which are about the size of a side plate) have in common is that they are a little bit sweet, crumbly and with the occasional raisin, but the shapes and decorations are different. We wrapped the bread in plastic and cloths and put in in large, low-sided baskets to transport it. Now there is bread available all the time, and I can't imagine we're halfway through it yet.

Although there was a procession on Monday, I didn't catch it, so my next Easter activity was on Tuesday, walking back from a very enjoyable salsa class at Salsa Rosa. Walking past the Parque Central the way was blocked by a procession which I think was the image of Justo Juez, with two small floats, one of which featured a Virgen Mary in a lovely purple robe.

On Wednesday, I was at Nuevos Horizontes for the afternoon and decided to introduce them to a little English custom - chocolate nests. This went down very well. As normal milk chocolate and shredded wheat/weetabix are next to impossible to come by, we used the chocolate they have for coating 'chocobananos' (frozed bananas on sticks covered in chocolate) and cornflakes. Almost everyone at the shelter participated, women and children, though some of the younger ones possibly never reached the nest stage. Nevertheless, they sat quite quietly (well, everything is relative) for the activity, making up for it afterwards by running around madly outside. On the way back, I got the bus to El Calvario and walked back via the Parque Central. While there were no ongoing processions, there was of course the fair, which I think has been there all week. I sampled some Ponche de Leche, though it seemed a little bit more like Ponche de Agua.

Thwarted in my attempt to reach the shelter again on Thursday by a lack of buses, I went out in the afternoon with a friend from the school and we saw the children's procession from San Nicolas by Parque Benito Juarez with small images of Jesús Nazareno and the Virgen de Dolores, surrounded by young girls in white dresses of various shades and styles, reminding me unavoidably of the start of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Afterwards, we walked down to the Parque Central where the fair was still in action and they were beginning to lay down the alfombras ready for Good Friday. These are large rectangular 'rugs' of coloured sand, carefully arranged in patterns using frames and planks of wood. In the evening when we all walked into town, I slipped into the Catedral Iglesia, where the image of Christ was displayed at the entrance and people were crowding around a white shrine inside, singing.

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