Viernes Santo- Good Friday

Good Friday is the climax of the holy week celebrations here. It is amazing the amount of work that goes into the celebration. Some of these people got up at 3am to start working on the alfombras (rugs made out of colored sawdust) in the streets. There had to be more than a miles' worth of alfombras around the main square and up the main street hill to Calvario. It's a huge celebration for a town like San Cristobal. Apparently we have one of the most extensive displays of alfombras here. The streets were crowded with townies, travelers and people from the surrounding areas. We showed up at 8am because we thought the procession would start around nine and we didn't want to miss seeing the alfombras (because they get trampled in the procession). It didn't start until 10, and then it went on for hours, with not much actually happening between the few floats except a lot of waiting. It was sweltering hot by 11am. Well, I won't write much more because I've written a lot in the photo captions.

People working on an alfombra in front of the Catholic church in the main square, on Good Friday.
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JHS stands for Jesus, Hombre, Salvador (Jesus, Man, Savior). Not Junior High School. We had to ask several people that. It was on a lot of alfombras.
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This is Hannah and Yani in front of a store. I just took this picture because there are a lot of stores like this, all over the place in our town. They're like little convenience stores, with snacks and some household items like laundry soap. Sometimes you can get fruit and eggs there too.
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Is it just me, or is that Che Guevera? What's he doing in a Good Friday celebration? The words say "Martyrs of Truth."
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The view from the top of Calvario hill. Notice how the alfombras go down the stairs and all the way down into town.
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Almost to Calvario. Calvario is the Catholic church at the top of a long steep hill that leads into the main street of town. This entire hill was carpeted with alfombras on Good Friday. I heard that this is one of the longest alfombras, if not the longest, in the country. People come from all over to see it.

Yani told me there is a saying around here, if something is really difficult, you say that it's a "calvario" (calvary). The way to Calvario is a calvario- it's about a mile uphill. I'm so glad I don't live on that hill. Although I'd probably be in pretty good shape if I did.
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There were a lot of native ladies carrying candles. Notice the traditional dress- the skirt is called a corte. It's made of about six or seven yards of fabric. The shirt is called a huipil. Someone told me that a lot of the Pokomchi ladies buy new clothes to wear for the holy week celebration. But most of these ladies probably wear traditional dress all the time. I'm not sure why they're wearing the cloth on their heads- sometimes they use these when they carry things on their heads but a lot of them were wearing them and they weren't carrying anything.
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The first float in the Good Friday procession.
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These girls were waiting for the procession and waving an incense pot. There were other houses with flowers and little altars out front along the way.
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The last supper.
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Yani and I in the square. We spent an hour or so just waiting for the procession to continue. After the first float came out, the main one took a long time to get down the hill. I think they were stopping and blessing the houses along the way or something. We saw a lot of people we knew in the square and Yani pointed out random people and told me who they were and who they were related to. Pretty much everyone is related to Irma or Henry. It made me feel like I was in Lewis County.
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I love this tree in the square. There's a lot of flowering trees here.
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John the Baptist-preparing the way. I wonder why he's dressed in fancy robes like that. Must be what he's supposed to look like in heaven.
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This is the little float that one of my students (in the next photo) was helping to carry.
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The little guy on the left is Josue. He's in my first grade class. He was helping to carry a little float.
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Waiting for the procession. These guys were singing.
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Usually the floats were carried by men but on Friday Mary Magdalene and Mary were carried by young women. I had to kind of laugh because of the way the young ladies were dressed-not exactly somber. Some of them looked like they belonged in a nightclub, not a holy day procession.
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This is where I thought I was going to get crushed. I don't like crowds, and I was totally plaster between a bunch of people. It was about 90 degrees. Not a happy moment... but I survived.
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Jueves Santo- Holy Thursday

The main festivities for Holy Week began on Thursday night. We went into town in the evening to see the alfombras and the processional. The alfombras are rugs they make in the street with colored sawdust and other materials depicting scenes that relate to holy week. The procession is a series of figures, like John the Baptist, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Christ, representing events leading up to Christ's death, burial and resurrection. The figures are set on large platforms which are carried by Catholic church members. I've been told they have to pay to have the privilege to carry these. The procession on Thursday night went all over town. They stopped at the houses where alfombras had been made to bless those houses. There were lines of people carrying candles, little boys and men in purple robes and incense. The square was filled with people waiting for the procession, long before it started. The procession goes right over the alfombras and the next morning people get up early to make new ones for the next procession, which was late Friday morning until almost one o'clock.

The main float- notice it is carried by people in purple robes. It is depicting the beating of Christ before the crucifixion. The sign on the front is the scripture from Isaiah that begins with "He was wounded for our transgressions..."
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During the processional there were lines of men and women carrying candles.
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The figure on the left is Mary Magdalene and the other is John the Baptist. The building in the background is the municipal building. They just painted all the buildings in the main square in anticipation of Holy Week.
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This is one of the best alfombras I saw both days- this picture doesn't do it justice. It was hard to get a good shot because it was dark. The colors were so brilliant.
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The corner of an alfombra
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Mary Magdalene- she gets around. (Sorry I couldn't resist...)
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Cleaning up what's left of the alfombras.
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Camping

We had vacation this week for holy week. Monday-Wednesday my roommate and I went camping at a local campground, Venecia, with three other families from the ministry here. It was a wonderfully relaxing time. We swam, played volleyball and cards. I relaxed in the shade a lot. It was fun to go camping, I haven't been in a while. And it was good to spend time with the families. Yani and I were thankful to be invited along. She has never been camping before, and she enjoyed it. I think camping isn't very big here in Central America. There weren't any other families spending the night at the campgrounds.

By the way, Meagan S. thanks for leaving a comment! I'm glad to see I've increased my readership. I hope all my readers will drop me a line.

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Happy Campers.
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Silas and Ahava.
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We said good-bye to Ms. Ruth this week (she's in the center). We'll miss you!
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This is the view from the roof of the place I stayed while we were at the conference in Antigua. I think that mountain is a volcano, but I'm not sure.
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sorry for the long pause

I've been meaning to update for a few weeks now, but things have been kind of hectic around here. I went to Intermissions, a conference for missionaries in Antigua a few weekends ago. That was actually a stressful weekend, unfortunately, but I did learn a lot from the speaker and I was still thankful that I was able to go.

This week was the end of the first quarter of the school year and we had end of quarter exams. We have vacation during holy week. I am so glad to be on vacation. This morning I went for a long walk with Deborah and then I read a book for a long time. It was nice to be able to relax.

It has been really hot and dry, but it did rain a couple times last week. We are still waiting for news about the well. They say the money is supposed to come through on Monday. We will see. Today we don't have much water left in the house because the water truck was supposed to come yesterday but it didn't, so we won't have much until Monday. Oh well. There was enough for me to bathe and for that I am grateful.

Last night we had our monthly AA (All-American) meeting. All the missionaries in our ministry from the states get together and have a potluck meal once a month. This is a lot of fun and involves really good food. It also gives us a chance to catch up on ministry news and pray together. One piece of news is that Mike and Latonya (founders of Inn Ministries) are going to travel for about a month in the States to help raise funds for the ministry. The ministry has been expanding in many ways and this requires more financial support. (For more information about Inn Ministries, check out their website.

A few of the men from our church left today to do some outreach with another ministry in the area. They flew out on a little plane this afternoon with some supplies for Greg and Elaina's ministry. They are in a remote area, which can only be reached by plane or a long hike. They have started a school there, and one of the young men from El Meson (our church) has gone to teach there.

In other news, we said good-bye to Ms. Ruth this week. She arrived at the same time as me in January and had been helping with English classes. I will miss her sense of humor. She's a great lady. This week also marked the arrival of Joni, who used to teach English here and will be picking up a few of my classes since she has returned. In the house, I have changed rooms and will be staying with Yani now, since Ms. Ruth was her roommate before and has now left. My previous roommate was gone a lot so Yani and I keep each other company a little better. And I have more space than before.

Well, this week I'm going camping for a couple days so hopefully I'll have something interesting to write about soon.