This post is long! If you have little interest in this topic, skip to the bottom where there is just a little more news & photos, or just hit the delete key…..
We’ve been in Spain in years past during Holy Week and have always been very moved by the Semana Santa activities during that week before Easter. The music is especially compelling and watching the people in the processions is just a remarkable experience.
This time, Susan was determined to get to see the “inside” story and we did! We set aside the whole week for this; we booked Sunday through Wednesday in Seville, and because we knew that Seville would get very crowded toward the end of the week, we went to Jerez de la Frontera, a small town in extreme Southwest Spain, for Thursday through Sunday. Jerez is most known as the capital of the sherry business, but the area also produces some of Spain’s finest bulls, and it has a strong Semana Santa tradition.
The Holy Week processions reportedly began in the 1500s, and there are forms of them in other Mediterranean countries (and in New Mexico and Mexico we’re told). In Spain, the men in the churches take the life-sized statues of Christ and Mary into the streets of their neighborhoods, working their way to the Cathedrals and then returning. Because of the size and weight of the statues, they built platforms for the statues to ride upon - these platforms are made of wood mostly covered in gold or silver (the real stuff), it takes dozens of men, under these pasos, to carry them.
Over the years – centuries in many cases – fraternities have formed (called cofradias) associated with one church or another, and they arrange processions for usually two statues, plus bands (following the Christ paso is a drum and bugle corps, following the Mary paso is a full band – some of the processions also have a band in the lead).
The cofradia members also walk as robed penitentes, some barefoot, and you may see some all dressed up and purposefully walking through town to their assembly point,
and military-like honor guards.
In larger cities like Seville, there are as many as 7 or 8 processions a day, all week, most lasting about 12 hours. Since some do not leave their churches until late afternoon they continue into the wee hours of the morning.
We had the smallest hotel room we’ve ever seen, in the old Jewish quarter on the route of some processions and about a 10 minute walk to the cathedral where all the processions pass through and where most people believe Columbus’ remains lie(but Santo Domingo disputes that).
At about 11:00 PM on Monday equipped with a bottle of wine and camera we took our places on the 4th floor roof of the hotel. It was a treat to see the cofradia and its pasos plus relatives, etc. coming down the street from our vantage point. Often they stop for extended times, as they did below us.
By custom most of the hooded penitents do not talk during the procession. But, the younger ones especially would talk with family and others walking along with them.
The Spanish handle the crowds graciously and it seems you can always move around and through the processions even in the very narrow neighborhood streets.
When the entire procession had passed, we went to the street and manuevered our way up to where the band following the Mary paso was stopped, and we were just blown away by the haunting beauty of the music and being in the middle of it.
We had gotten into one of the nearby churches on a rainy afternoon to see the pasos all completely decorated with tons of flowers, multitudes of candles and the statues, all ready to go. Parishioners had been bringing flower offerings (red for Christ, white for Mary) and were stacking them in front of the pasos.
Unfortunately that night the rain forced the cancellation of the processions and there were many tears from everyone...for example, the men hold a lottery to determine who will carry the paso - everyone wants a chance.
But, the next day, Susan saw a man carrying a big white floral arrangement together with two women, all walking quickly down the street in the drizzle – “We’re going to follow them!”
And we did, through the old quarter, across main streets, through the commercial meat packing district, into an unremarkable neighborhood (imagine David’s nervousness) – the drizzle turned to rain (it’s probably how I got this nasty cold I have been nursing). They finally turned into a building next to a church where men were building ramps in front of the main door – “Eureka!”. Another man came out, saw us trying to figure out what to do and motioned for us to come in…..he led us into the church were people were working on decorating the 2 pasos (tons of fresh flowers are used on all the pasos during the week) for their procession the next day and he gave us a million dollar tour!
The next day, we kept crossing that procession as it moved through the streets feeling very much a part of it.
Then, off to Jerez de la Frontera by train…rain was forecast and rain it did. Many processions were cancelled but on Easter Sunday things changed…the one procession originating and returning to the cathedral was held,
AND the Tio Pepe bodega was open for tours and sherry tastings.
On Monday we took the train to Malaga (on the way we were supposed to connect with Shirley Freriks - from Mendocino - but for health reasons she had to cancel her trip :-(, we rented a car and drove to the apartment in Sitio de Calahonda, Mijas Costa, (on the Costa del Sol) where we will be until the end of the month. As we look out the huge windows in the living room we see mountains, white buildings and the Mediterranean – it is just beautiful.
One of the first things I did was to start washing dirty clothes, I remembered most things from the apartment we owned here for so many years, but for some reason the washing machine presented quite the challenge. There was 1 bottle of what looked at first glance like washing liquid – 3 places to put stuff in the washer….so, I put some “stuff” in the left side and ran about 4 or 5 loads (it’s a really small machine). No dryer, so hung them out on the terrace on a rack. They smelled wonderful on the surface, but if you put your nose in them – not so great. Turns out I was washing them with softener….so much for efficiency!
Please let us hear from you – we do get carried away with Samana Santa, but it is – and always has been – very close to our souls….something about the music, the silence, the ancient and narrow streets, the obvious overwhelming faith of so many people…..
Hugs to you all!
