Semana Santa in Antigua Part IV

Dad, Me, Guillermo (my friend who lives in Guatemala City), Mom

Semana Santa in Antigua Part III

Semana Santa in Antigua Part II

Semana Santa in Antigua Part I

A family outing

Last weekend Carla, who was my spanish teacher the first two weeks I was here, invited me and Felicitas (who is living in her house) to go with her and her fmaily to a pool about an hour outside of Xela. It was an excellent family outing. I especially enjoyed playing with Angie, her daughter. Angie and I are like two peas in a pod. Seriously, from the first day we met we've gotten along perfectly. I am really going to miss that girl when I leave.

Angie

Jonathan, Carla's son

Carla

Angie

The family

Semana Santa

All the festivities leading up to Semana Santa have been really interesting. Every Friday since lent there has been a carnival in front of a different church around the city complete with rides, churros, french fires, pizza and all sorts of dulces (sweets). During the carnivals they take all the icons off the wall of the church and you can line up to touch them. I went through this line one Friday with my friend Rosario who works at the Ministry of Economics and who I have been giving informal english classes to. Yes, this means I can say, that I have actually kissed Jesus’ feet.

In addition ot the carnivals, the university students are in the midst of a lent to semana santa "social activism" campaign. I use paranthesis because their huelgas (rallies) seem to be more of an excuse to party and the money they collect most-likely does not go to the beneficieries they name. Plus their tactics for “fund-raising” seem far from the social activitism spirit. Yesterday night they sabatoged all the business that refused to give them money by covering them in paint and breaking their signs. The following day these same students held a parade that wove throughout the town. I was a little stunned at the amount of people that turned out for the parade especially since they had to wait so long for it to come (it was hours late, not actually surprising though given that this is Guatemala we’re talking about).

The oddest part to me though (although only odd because of my familiarity with U.S. history) is the KluKluxKlan type robes that they wear. When I first saw people walking around in them however many weeks back, I was definietly taken a bit off guard. The tradition of wearing these robes goes back to the civil war when the students were enganged in legitimate social activitism that the government percieved it as pro-comunisim. Thus to hide their identity, and therefore protect themselves from govenment brutality, they started to wear the robes. I finally got some pictures of the students in the robes at the parade yesterday.