Semana Santa

Hey Everyone!

Feliz Semana Santa! I am here in my site now and am learning all of the traditions of the community. Everything started on Wednesday with a group of 12 guys all dressed in red entering the community with drums and other loud noise makers to announce their arrivals. These guys represented the devil and they all had crazy masks with big tongues and some guys were dressed up as women too. Anyway, they had a devil leader and he told them all to do crazy stuff, for example leap frog, pushups, and some yelling and laughing. I think the 12 guys in red represented the 12 disciples and were the prediction that one of the disciples would betray Jesus. No one knew who at this point, so they were all possible, entonces, all in red with the potential to be influenced by the Devil. If anyone out there in cyber land has a better handle on this, please share, I think I understand it, but could use more info. Anyway, after the devil dance, we started the procession, carrying Jesus on a platform up the hill to the house of a man in the community who is sick. We didnt have a live band, so the processional music was played on a tape recorder, plugged in to a diesel generator that was pushed up the hill behind us on a hand truck. Anyway, we all made it and we entered the house and proceeded to have a chuch service in the house. We fit about 100 people in a small room and it was standing room only. The sick gentleman lay in a bed in the middle of the room and the service was about an hour long to celebrate the Last Supper.

Yesterday was the death of Jesus on the cross and the community demonstrated this with the devils all in red coming out again. They brought out a huge 40 ft.wooden telephone pole with a cross at the top and dug a hole in the ground, not very deep, in front of the school and the devils danced around it. Then Jesus came out in purple and the lead Devil had Jesus climb the pole, about 30 to 40 ft. straight up, he climbed it in flip flops,and then stood up on a tiny platform and then a devil climbed up behind him, again in flip flops, and demonstrated the act of pounding nails into Jesus hands and trying him up. I was scared they were going to fall off of the pole was going to tip over since it wasnt in the ground very deep, but all went well and no one fell off. I have never seen anything quite like it.

Last night to celebrate they had a lottery kind of like Bingo but with pictures. They crank up the music and the whole community comes out to play and win prizes. Then I was introduced on the loudspeaker in front of the whole community and was asked up front to give a speech. Luckily I was prepared for this as impromtu speeches in Guatemala are quite common so that went well. You just never know when you will be asked to speak in front of 200 people in this country. Anyway, we did some dancing to some Ranchero music and played Duck Duck Goose with all the children of the community to the music of Pitbull and Daddy Yankee...if your not familiar with these artists, think club hip hop music. Yeah, never have played childrens games set to this music before. Anyway, all was fun and we danced and played til midnight.

Ive got a soccer game to watch today as I am on the womens team. We are going to watch the boys play to try to learn some strategy. Im playing defense. These women are so good and they play in flip flops and bare feet! Hard core!

Anyway, that is all is now!
Cheers and Happy Easter!
Tara