Last week was Semana Santa, Holy Week, a very important event throughout all of Latin America and particularly here in Guatemala since it is a very Catholic country, probably the most religious country I've ever been in. I was invited to participate in the activities as a Roman soldier in the “cuadro viviente”, the dramatization of Jesus's last days. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a really wonderful experience, a lot of fun, exhausting, and most importantly a huge boost in my community integration.

We've been rehearsing the last several Sundays, but since the rehearsals were mostly in K'iche, and kind of disorganized to begin with, I wasn't exactly sure what was going on most of the time. Nonetheless I was able to wing it pretty well just by following what the others were doing. We started off last Sunday, Palm Sunday (domingo de ramas) with a procession through town to the church, with everyone carrying branches. On thursday morning my host family invited me for traditional breakfast of “sheka”, a flat, pancake shaped bread served with sweet molasses, a traditional food eaten during semana santa in this area. That afternoon the dramatization began in earnest. All of the other soldiers and I went around town from house to house asking for “Pan para Judas”, “Bread for Judas”, kind of trick-or-treat style, and people gave us more shekas. Afterwords we re-enacted the last supper in the town square in front of the church. I could sort of follow what was going on, but pretty much just did what the other soldiers did.

After Jesus was betrayed by Judas (who was egged on by "demons") and captured, he was put into “jail”, a small wooden cage in front of the church parish building, where he held a basket asking for donations from the people to cover the week's expenses. Each soldier had to take turns guarding him for an hour throughout the night, but the poor guy playing Jesus had to sit out until midnight, then go back the following morning at 5am!







After finishing my guard duty at 7pm I walked around town a bit, which was way livelier than normal. Lots of people originally from the area, who now work in the capital or other parts of the country, travel home for semana santa, so I saw lots of new faces I didn't recognize. I went and watched some of my friends begin work on their “alfombras”, enormous carpets made of dyed sawdust. Community groups from the different villages in the area spend the entire night before good friday constructing the alfombras, commonly with elaborate and intricate designs of various colors. I was already pretty exhausted from the days activities, so I went home to sleep after watching only the first layers of sawdust being layed out.


The following morning, good friday, was the big day. I left my house in full soldier atire—Shirt, skirt, cape, sandals with strings tied up to my calves, sword, lance, and of course the big metal helmet with the red stripe on the top (we got lots of jokes that it looked like a broom on our head!) En route to the church I stopped to admire the finished alfombras and chat with their proud but exhausted builders.




We began the activities with a procession around the town, stopping at each of the 14 alfombras to read from the bible and say prayers. The procession passed right over the sawdust alfombras, which were of course pretty much destroyed in the process.

The hardest part for me was that we had to kneel down on the hard street for about 5 minutes each time. I was not used to kneeling down like that, and it was even harder since my knees were bare. It was also getting pretty hot as the sun climbed higher in the sky. I did my best to tough it out without complaining—if the old women could do it without any apparent problems I had no excuse! Nonetheless, about half way through I was in a lot of pain and wondering if I'd be able to make it the whole way, when to my relief the captain of the soldiers called us to duck out and rest a bit. Little did I know, however, this was only because the hardest part was yet to come. After the procession we re-enacted the lead up to the crucifixion and the crucifixion itself. Jesus was judged, made to carry the cross, whipped (they even used fake blood to make it look more real), and eventually hoisted up onto an actual cross along with the 2 thieves. It was a very moving experience to see this powerful demonstration of the devotion and faith of the people in my community. Nonetheless, afterwords I was completely spent and went home to rest.









Saturday was a day of rest and relaxation for most of the community, with lots of people out and about in town. I watched some soccer games in the stadium in the afternoon, and one of the teams invited me to sit and hang out with them in the stands for a while after their game. I often find that the most memorable experiences I have are completely spontaneous and unplanned, and that's exactly what happened later that night when I was taking a walk through town. I ran into my friend Aníbel, who invited me to go help out with the Mass, which was just starting. We walked in through the back of the church, passed in front of everyone who were all taking their seats, and passed by the alter to the back off-stage area. I helped place some flowers in the stage during one part of the service, and also helped take the collection afterwords using a velvet bag on a stick. It was a surreal experience, again rather powerful, walking through the pews, overflowing with people in the aisles and out the enormous doors into the street; seeing old women reaching into their traditional huipil and finding a coin or two, giving it a kiss in blessing or crossing themselves before putting it into the bag; or a parent handing a coin to their small child and pointing to give it to me.

The following morning, Easter sunday, we had another early morning procession, beginning in the cemetery, to re-enact the resurrection. Jesus was back, this time in a triumphant white robe, and we again made stops at 14 stations en route to the church for Easter mass. This time we were celebrating, which meant two things were different: First, lots and lots of firecrackers and tremendously loud bombs going off ever few minutes. The second, more pleasant difference: we didn't have to kneel down like the previous processions. Nonetheless, I was still completely exhausted by the time we reached the doors of the church.

I reflected quite a bit throughout the week on all the new experiences I observed. I was here last year for semana santa as well, but this time I had a far better understanding of the activities and their cultural importance. It was amazing to see the time and effort put into the planning and execution of the various activities. Of course, I couldn't help but be a bit skeptical about priorities at times, thinking to myself “if only they spent half the time, effort and money on improving their schools as they spend on festivals...” It definitely makes me cringe a bit to think of the contrast between all the elaborate decorations for semana santa and the embarrassingly underfunded public schools. Nonetheless, the week certainly gave me a new respect for the community's ability to organize itself and take incredible action towards a common purpose.

More than anything, though, I think the week was very helpful for my integration into the community. Lots of people saw me during the various activities and I think they appreciated my participation and respect for their traditions. Lots of people even said that I should be Jesus next year... I think because I let my beard grow out a bit and it's the thickest of anyone in town, so they say I look like Jesus! The problem, however, is that they do the dramatization in K'iche, which would make it difficult for me to say the least.

In any case, last week I marked exactly one year since swearing in as an official Peace Corps volunteer (March, 27). I hope so strongly that semana santa will mark the beginning of a happy and successful second year of service.