Easter

They don't really celebrate Easter in Central America. They have Holy Week (Semana Santa) which starts Palm Sunday and goes until Saturday. They have processions all over the place, some cities more famous for their processions than others, and sometimes there are people crawling along with the procession as a show of devotion/penance. We went and watched one close by in Escazu on Good Friday. (We waited for one would be more accurate.) It's like a parade that everyone lines the streets waiting for, but nobody knows the actual route. After an hour and a half waiting, we gave up, but saw it as we drove off and got out to take a quick look. There are people dressed up like Roman soldiers and a small band (instruments) that walk in front of a "float" with what looked like a paper mache Christ carrying a cross. It has bars to carry it, and then two smaller "statue floats" of Mary and ?Joseph? that followed. I got out of the car, anxious to get home and out of the heat (Campbelle was hot and tired and wanted to be carried a lot and she only wanted me to carry her), so I would say I had impatient curiosity--see, leave--so it was surprising to me when I was hit with a sudden wave of emotion and teared up. There is a huge crowd of people that follow along, like as if one of our parades collected people as it went instead of just passing by. As far as Easter goes, they have a word for Easter (Pascua) and recognize it as the day of Resurrection, but overall, they celebrate the crucifixion, and Easter is the day after Holy Week. It was funny, because our friend Gabi and her daughter spent the day with us on Saturday, and she asked if we celebrated Semana Santa at our church. Steve explained that we focused more on the day of Easter and the resurrection and that that was the important day to us. When we went to church Easter Sunday, we didn't hear a single reference to Easter. It's just not a latin holiday!



We did have an Easter Egg hunt, though, because that is the proper way to recognize the resurrection, right?