Wednesday March 19 - Semana Santa

Wednesday we flew out of Brussels airport and back to Seville. Processions were already underway for Semana Santa – Holy Week, which is an incredibly HUGE deal in Seville. Semana Santa is celebrated with a vengeance all over Spain, but nowhere are the festivities more colorful, more beautiful or louder than in Seville. It is truly something to behold. There were some problems with rain (giant pasos, or float-like structures, bearing statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary cannot get wet, so whole processions get cancelled or delayed, or if they are already underway and then it starts to rain again, they have to seek refuge in a nearby church, which is all a big mess), so not many were in action on Wednesday. To get an idea of what a procession is like, here are some basics:

- Each hermandad, or brotherhood, has a procession, usually featuring two pasos (the first of Christ and the second of Mary)

- Many of the processions have bands that play blasting music throughout the entire procession

- From Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, there are between eight and twelve processions per day. Many take over 14 hours between the time they leave their church and when they return to it

- Each procession must follow a specific route in the city, which makes extremely detailed scheduling a must. There is a book issued each year, called the llamador, in which you can find all the info about each hermandad (how many people, its traditions, when it leaves, the exact route and every single street it follows, how long the procession lasts, the artists who did the pasos, etc etc etc.)

- Approx. 40 men carry the pasos on their necks/shoulders. For up to 14 hours. Not joking. They move the pasos little by little, always very very slowly, and sometimes they change their movements in time with the music from the band. These changes in rhythm, called simply cambios (changes) are very popular among spectators.

- Nazarenos, hooded figures who represent self-penitence, comprise a huge part of each procession. The robes and pointed cap have very negative connotations for Americans, but their origin is in the Inquisition and wearing the Sambenito (an outfit of robes much like that of the nazarenos in order to express penitence and thus escape death at the hands of the Inquisition). Some processions have over 2,500 nazarenos in them, which partly explains why the processions take soooo long. Everyone walks extremely slowly.

- On the night of Holy Thursday, there are processions all night long. These are, for the most part, considered the best and most beautiful of all the processions. They begin around midnight or later, and many do not stop until 10 am the next day. It’s very popular to stay out all night watching various processions and admiring their pasos.

- Despite the obvious heavily religious sentiment and the sadness of celebrating a holy holiday like Easter, the celebrations of Sevilla are decidedly happy, with spectators often screaming “Guapa!” (beautiful!) when they see a paso of the Virgen, and singing songs about how proud they are that the paso is from their hermandad.

Since it was raining on and off today, many processions were cancelled. Seeing the nazarenos take off their hoods and cry as they walk down the street (they get upset because if their procession is cancelled they have to wait an entire year before they get the chance to go again, and some have been delayed three or four years in a row due to the rain) is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. I couldn't bring myself to take a photo of one.

More to come…parents are arriving tomorrow.