Semana Santa in Malaga

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Hey Everyone!

So, these pictures are from Semana Santa in Malaga. I took these on Palm Sunday before we left for Italy. In Malaga, Semana Santa (Holy Week) is a really big thing and they have these huge processions in the streets. They take out these huge statues from inside all the churches in Malaga and they process through the streets. The statues are of Jesus and Mary and they are enormous. They are carried like paul-bearers carry a casket, but they are a lot bigger. Some require over 200 people to carry them. They go out and go through the streets usually for about 5 or 6 hours and then return to the church where they came from. There are usually about 8 or 9 per day during Semana Santa. The processions have bands playing music and lots of people carrying candles. A lot of the people in the processions dress up in these costumes that look just like the KKK, but they are colorful. They are not the KKK, obviously, but it is a tradition to wear these because the people feel that they are unworthy to show their face when they are so close to Jesus. Some of the people don't wear shoes either and walk through the streets for 6 or more hours with bare feet. Someone here told me that some of them when they are done carrying the statue have a huge bruise on their shoulder from the statue and their feet are all bloody from walking through the streets for hours. It is like a sacrifice for them to do this just like how Jesus sacraficed himself for us. The processions are really long and are different every day, depending on which day of Holy Week it is. The biggest day for the processions is Holy Thursday. Good Friday, there is a procession that goes out at midnight and lasts until 6 or 7 in the morning and they turn off all the street lights where the procession goes through, and all the people in it wear all black for mourning. I didn't see any of those, but we did see the Palm Sunday processions. There is a video that I took of one of the processions. It was really amazing to see and it is amazing how many people come to see them. Sevilla and Malaga are the 2 biggest cities to go to for semana santa and people come for all over the world, especially from all over Europe to see the processions. It is really amazing to see. Sorry, I do not have a lot of pictures, but we only saw 2 processions on Sunday so I don't have tons of pictures. And one of them was at night so i had a hard time trying to take night pictures and having them turn out clear, so the pictures are not the greatest, but they are still really cool to see. I hope you like them!! We also hung out with Pepe and his family on Sunday, so there are a couple pictures that we took when we were with them.

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Photos

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Palm procession

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The same palm procession down the main street downtown

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procession at night

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the streets are packed for the processions

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The statue of this procession. See all the blue hooded people underneath? There was probably about 80 of them for this statue.

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This is a Mary statue, but it was part of the same procession as the Jesus statue

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Pretty, isn't it?

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There are tons of candles

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These things are enormous!

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Pepe's brother, Pablo, me, Aunt DeAnna, and Pepe!

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The bull ring in Malaga