Semana santa!!

Holy Week, or Semana Santa, is a big deal down here in the mostly Catholic El Salvador (a country literally named after Jesus, or the savior). This means: no school, lots of church, and lots of food. This year I celebrated my second semana santa in site.

Having learned my lesson last year, namely, that nothing important starts happening in the community til Thursday, I chose to escape the heat and boredom with a couple friends and headed to Playa Tunco for the first half of Semana Santa. Beach trips (or excursions) are a typical pastime for Salvadorans during most holiday periods, so, whiel Tunco is usually a hotbed of foreign travelers, this time we got a nice dose of campo Salvadorans mixed in. We passed our time doing what you do in Tunco – lying in the sun, drinking various cocktails, and eating as much seafood as possible.

enjoying sunset with styrofoam cups of wine

Wednesday afternoon I headed home to celebrate Justin’s 3^rd birthday. Last year my family had a huge party for his 2^nd bday, but this year we didn’t do much, so I purchased a cake in Gotera and we had a mini photo shoot of Justin and his baby brother, Christopher, who up until that point I had no photographic evidence of. Thursday was passed in relative boredom – mainly laundry, cleaning, and making a last minute trip to Gotera to purchase a soccer ball (more on that later).

justin & maggie investigating baby bro

Viernes Santo (Good Friday)

The real festivities kicked off on Viernes Santo. I know nil about the Catholic faith in the United States, but in El Salvador Catholics celebrate Holy Week by literally reenacting Christ’s crucifixion. Therefore, starting Thursday night, the men in my community built a mock jail and imprisoned a Jesus figurine. Then, on Good Friday, the whole community gathers for a reenactment of Jesus’ trial, then his walk with the cross, finished with his crucifixion, death, and the handing of his body to Mary. This took place all morning, with a troop of us marching from cross to cross (there were 12 crosses lined along the main road of our community leading to the church, and one family was in charge of decorating each cross station). At each station, a group of youths from the community did a dramatization of Christ’s journey, then we prayed, before continuing on to the next station. That evening, the community gathered again for the “santo entierro” (holy burial) of Christ.

jesus carrying the cross

praying at one of the cross stations

jesus on the cross

jesus' body

Sabado de Gloria (Saturday of Glory…?)

The only church related event on Sabado de Gloria is the santo entierro of Christ’s body, which I chose to skip, since it was an all-night affair and I had my religion fill on Friday. However, every Sabado de Gloria in my site there is a huge soccer tournament on the field. This year 24 teams from neighboring communities showed up for the tournament. I had the honor of being selected as “madrina” (godmother) of one of the teams from my site. What does that mean? Why on earth would a soccer team need a godmother? Well, it basically just means that I have to buy them their soccer ball. And get dressed up and prance out into the middle of the field so men in various states of inebriation can catcall me and take pictures of me. What an honor. But, I fulfilled my duties to their utmost, and got a free lunch out of it too, so all in all I can’t really complain.

That evening was the resurrection of Christ. There was also a dance in the center of the community. Again, I chose not to attend, since I am averse to leaving my house after 6 PM and had a date with my fan and How I Met Your Mother. 

walking onto the field wth the team

ceremonial first kick

with my team!

Pascua (Easter)

Much to my surprise, Easter is actually the least important day for Semana Santa celebrators down here. There is Easter mass, but since my community doesn’t have a real church with their own priest, one must travel to a nearby pueblo to attend. Therefore, pretty much no one goes. So, basically it’s a lazy recuperation day before we go back to school Monday!

FOOD

Naturally, the food is the most important part of Semana Santa, or at least it is to me. The most popular dish are tortas de pescado (fish cakes). These make my stomach turn, but I choke them down in Semana Santa knowing I’ll never have to eat them again. What they are is dried fish, which is then rehydrated in water, deep fried, and stuffed into patties of corn dough mixed with consommé, tomato juice, salt, and oil. These tortas are then deep fried, and then cooked in a broth of consommé and vegetables. They are essentially the least healthy things you can eat in the entire world, and the dried fish has a very very strong flavor (and often spines that could kill ya if you’re not careful). Luckily, the other food we have in Semana Santa is great. First, you have your typical bread products – quesadilla (see previous post), and totopostes, which are the corn cheese crackers that I rhapsodize about every chance I have. Also, in my community, people tend to make panes con pollo (bread with chicken) for Sabado de Gloria. This is a giant, crusty piece of French bread, loaded with fried chicken, lettuce, tomato, cabbage, pickled vegetables, beets, hard-boiled eggs, and all covered with tomato sauce. It’s deeeeeelicious, and one of my favorite foods in this country, so I was more than happy to gorge myself on those on Saturday. 

irma frying the fish...only pic i took of the tortas, unfortunately

I don't feel like I'm very knowledgeable about Semana Santa celebrations still, since I have no background on Catholicism in the US/English, SO here is a wikipedia link if anyone is interested that should give a better idea of "stations of the cross" (via crucis) Stations of the Cross