Holy Week

The week before Easter is called Semana Santa ( holy week). People in Guatemala celebrate this week by having parades, processions and large street celebrations. While I was in Panajachel I saw the parade with baton throwers, and the marching bands. That was the first day of Holy Week. The main celebrations, actually the biggest celebration in all of Central America are in Antigua, where hundreds of people wear dark purple robes and carry icons from their church in daily street processions in remembrance of Christ's crucifixion. Small children carry lanterns burning with incense at the beginning of the procession. The cobblestone streets are covered with (alfombras) sawdust carpets. There were also carpets made out of grass and flowers, or vegetables. I don't know if I've seen anything so beautiful! The people making the carpets are barely finished when the processions come by and walk over them, wrecking them! Right behind the procession is the clean up crew, that sweep all the sawdust into a pile, a loader picks it up and they dump it into a dump truck. They clean up the roads so that the next day a new carpet can be made, and walked over again. On the last day the people wear black robes to signify Jesus's death.