pascua

It's Holy Week, the eight-day culmination of Lent and one of the most important of the multitude of annual Spanish festivals. Every morning and evening from Palm Sunday to the day of the Resurrection, lavish, melancholy processions march down the streets. Somber-faced marching bands led by wailing horns and funereal snares are followed by groups of white-robed men in conic hats (who bear an unfortunate but meaningless likeness to an infamous group of American paraders). Children in hooded robes carry long candles, their partially-obscured faces eerily illuminated by the flickering orange light.

But when the procession pauses for a breather, the masks, hoods, and trumpets are lowered and the sinister effect vanishes. Mothers and fathers come forward to adjust robes while grandparents snap photos. Children in the crowd seek out their candle-bearing friends to add a layer or two to the balls of wax they've been creating for years. The atmosphere is noisy and festive for a few minutes until a whistle blows and everyone scrambles back into place. 

As they slowly tread forward, a float appears in the door of the church, at the tail of the procession. The base is about eight feet high and draped in a white cloth, under which shuffle the feet of twenty pallbearers. Atop the base is the image of a day of the story. On Palm Sunday, the carved wooden man of honor rides in on his painted donkey, followed by tiny Jerusalemites, who occasionally wander off course and are redirected by a nearby parent. On Monday, Mary floats above the crowd, surrounded by dozens of tea candles, trailing a fifteen-foot crimson robe, and crying enamel tears from her painted eyes. On Friday they bear Jesus through the streets bleeding from his cross, and on Easter Sunday he's triumphant, his crown of thorns replaced with silver. 

To be honest, the whole thing strikes me as pretty morbid. The pageantry is impressive and there's a certain emotional power in the mournful Mediterranean tunes, but the whole affair could do with less blood and fewer tears. Some of our Spanish friends love it, but others have described it as an annual annoyance that serves only to clog up the bars with tourists. One friend characterizes it as an opportunity for the hypocritical to express their faith in a public show of ostentatious and affected mourning. Having only been through it twice, my feelings on the matter aren't nearly so strong. But since we're all just celebrating nature's annual rebirth anyway, I think it's much more cheerful to do it with painted eggs and marshmallow peeps. 

But after the procession passes the plaza, the crowd disperses and the incense-laden air clears. The devout will follow for the duration of the four-hour procession through the town, but most scurry back to the cafe tables they've saved with scarves and purses, agreeing with enthusiastic nods that the spectacle was beautiful. Children splash up water at the fountain and chase each other around the palms. Little girls run among the tables, their white shoes flashing as they fly, hair ribbons trailing behind brown curls. Somewhere east, the procession is alive again, its tragic trumpets carrying on the evening breeze and mingling with the plaza laughter.