Travel Guatemala – Semana Santa Traditions

By Kayla Allen – Having just spent ten days in Antigua I was lucky enough to witness first hand some of the many traditional festivities preceding and culminating on Semana Santa, or the week before Easter, in Guatemala. These celebrations are varied and rich and you'll find if you travel from city to city or from pueblo to pueblo that each location will celebrate in their own unique way.
Entering Antigua on a Sunday before Semana Santa is like stepping into another world. One where the very streets you trod on are a wonder to behold. You'll see whole families working together in the street in front of their homes to create ridiculously intricate and beautiful alfombra, or rugs, made out of flowers, colored sawdust and pine needles. The family will work sometimes for 24 hours creating these masterpieces and complete them just in time for the procession to walk on them and in the process destroy them.
In the weeks preceding Semana Santa the largest local churches each take a turn hosting the vocaciones and processions. Antigua, though it is small is home to around 25 churches a good many of which are awe inspiring both inside and out. When you fill an already gorgeous church with music, song birds, colorful painted tableaus, candles and an enormous alfombra complete with bread in the shape of 3 foot crocodiles, whole fruits and vegetables and a community of people worshiping and rejoicing you can't help but be drawn into celebration.
The procession of men in their purple robes, carrying large floats depicting Jesus and other religious figures leave from their respective churches, full orchestra in tow and bring music and incense to every street they visit. The children get to be a central part in the celebration as well in the procesion de los ninos, the boys dress in purple while girls wear little white dresses. The floats are so big it seems impossible that children should be able to carry them, the boys carrying Jesus and the girls carrying Mary, with a full orchestra not far behind.
While I'm not sure of the cultural or historical significance in making the alfombras and then destroying them, they speak to me of the impermanence of things and that the beauty in life lies in the moment and the process of living and not completely in the product. In Latin America, a world where the people's fate is so subject to its environment it makes sense to me that impermanence and process would be so celebrated, in a developing country your fate is not always yours to determine.
Another thought is that there is beauty in the destruction. That nature and its forces are a sight to behold. That we are at the mercy of our environment and that is how it should be.
As is evident in my ramblings, Semana Santa is a holiday that will make you think, delight your eyes and make you revel in all the variety this world has to offer.