Good Friday

We have had a really good, but really busy week. We were both kind of expecting a week off, but didn´t realize how much actually happens here during Holy Week. Good Friday was busy and powerful. We started the day by going down to the Parish for breakfast and watching the cross procession leave the church, which represents Jesus carrying the cross to the Crucifixion. They go all around town with about 24 people carrying a giant float with Christ and a cross on top. Then at 10 was the Good Friday service which was very solemn. After the service we had about 30 minutes to just hang out in the church yard with everyone. Then the cross procession came back just before noon.


Procession of the Cross returning to the church


The whole churchyard and church were packed with people, and then Christ was crucified just in front of where the altar normally is. He was hung up on a 20 foot high cross and all the kids use noisemakers to make it really loud and uncomfortable and awful. Right beforehand Fr. Greg read that part of the Passion.




After that everyone goes home for a special Good Friday lunch. We went to the Hernandez family lunch. We´ve come to know their family really well and it was a really nice time. After lunch everyone hurried down to the churchyard to start working on the alfombras, which means "rug" literally, but they are these huge works of art that are put on the ground made of flowers, or fruit, or dyed sawdust.


Lois and Clara Working on Alfombras



Dan and Michelle Working on Alfombras


Finishing a Design


Alfombra in front of the Parish


We helped at first with the two right outside of the church in the churchyard. At 3pm Fr. Greg read another reading of Christ giving up His spirit.



Taking Jesus from the Cross

Then they take Christ down from the cross and put him in a glass coffin on top of a new and bigger float, and then about 50 people picked up the float and carried it outside. They march over and through the alfombras very very slowly.


The Procession leaving the Church

They left the church at about 4pm. As they walk over the alfombra it is destroyed. It seemed like the whole town was following along in front, behind, around. Kids dressed in purple and black robes continue using the noisemakers. And people walk ahead to see the beautiful alfombras that are taking shape along the route.


Lois and Clara ahead of the procession

You can´t start an alfombra too soon because the wind or the dogs might destroy it, so there is an element of working against time as the procession slowly works its way towards you. By 6pm they had gone about two blocks so we ducked out and went home to eat a little dinner. At 7:30 we came back and they had only gone another block. We walked the whole route of alfombras which is probably about a half a mile or 20 blocks or so. There were maybe 20 to 25 alfombras in total. We made it to the Hernandez family spot at about 8pm or so and they were just starting. They had asked us if we would be willing to help, so we gave Clara to Flori and worked with them until about 10:30. Theirs was maybe 120 feet long and 6 feet wide. Pure sawdust and sand. It had a representations of all 12 apostles, various faces of Jesus, and lots of flower and fish scenes. Afterwards we went over to their house to celebrate finishing it and picked up Clara. We were pretty tired, so we decided not to wait for the procession to come. We went ahead and found the Tun family working on a different one that they had just started. We turned in at about 11pm or so. We heard that they procession came and destroyed our alfombra at about 1am.

Its kind of hard to describe the atmosphere last night. It was a mix of mourning, celebration, county fair after dark, and hard hard work on your hands and knees attending to the details of your alfombra while the rest of town walks around either approving or disapproving your work. This is a place that truly acknowledges the death and suffering of Jesus in a way that we do not do in the USA. We wonder if it is because they can relate to it a little bit better. The alfombras are both a symbol of profound respect for the body of Jesus as it is being carried to its tomb as well as a symbol of our time and lives on earth, worth our very best, but ultimately to be lost and blown away in the wind. We will wait and see what Saturday and Easter day are like, but it looks to us like the Friday is the biggest day of the week.