EASTER WEEK

The town was packed for the entire week of Easter.  You are thinking "Spring Break" where hundreds of college kids descend upon a town, get drunk and raise havoc.  No, in Mexico it is mainly family week.  Tens of thousands of families pile into pick up trucks packed with baskets and coolers (and lots of Mexicans) and drive to the beach.  This is one reason  that pick up trucks are called Mexican SUVs.  Every hotel is full (some sleep in their trucks) and the beaches are wall to wall people.

Besides the families enjoying the beach, there are some drunk young kids hanging out of car doors or out of the bed of a pick up and riding through the streets screaming and singing.  Some of the car radios are so loud the noise shakes the building.  (As I said Mexicans love noise).  But there is the religious part of Easter week as well.  Mexico is the most catholic of any country I have ever visited.  But here the religion is mixed with superstitions and strange symbolism (like the skeletons so evident in Mexican art).  When I arrived in December there were twelve days of festivities and parades in the streets.  It had nothing to do with the birth of Christ, but instead it was a celebration of the sighting of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  First each school had their kids marching in their school colors singing and banging on drums.  Most schools also had a pick up truck with a sort of back drop and a kid dressed either as the Virgin Mary or Juan Diego (the peasant who saw her).  Then all the kids marched and sang and all the boys were dressed as peasants and the girls as virgins.  Then the kids dressed like Indians and danced through the streets (not sure where the Indians came from)  It was a hoot.

I had heard about the reenactment of the Passion of Christ, but never could find any kind of schedule in English.  On Palm Sunday there were palm fronds everywhere (we have lots of them here) and people selling little woven crosses made of dried palm fronds, but I never saw Jesus entering town on an ass.

I was lucky enough to have been down by the Malecon when here came a bloodied Jesus dragging a cross down the street.  There were Roman soldiers with whips yelling something and pushing back all the sobbing Mary's.  The procession was backed up by a flank of black robed rabbis (not sure if they were for or against him)  Drums beat, trumpet blared.  It was quite a spectacle.  Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me.

I heard that they also did the Crucifixion where they tied Christ to a cross (I assume no nails) but Roman soldiers did poke at him while he hung there.  With no schedule or knowledge of where to be or when, I had about given up on seeing any more.  Then one day I was sipping my latte at my new coffee shop by Cadenzas Plaza near my apartment..  There is a sort of amphitheater at one end where there was a large crowd and I heard someone screaming something in Spanish, but I had just seen a dance club putting on a performance there (led by a drag queen, I might add)  so I didn't even bother to look up from my latte.  I might have missed the crudifixtion. 

Suddenly Romans on horse back emerged followed by six roman soldiers carrying the body of Christ.  Then more sobbing Marys and the black robed rabbis, but this time they added angels.  Young boys and girls in scant white costumes and huge five foot wings strapped to their back.  The processions march right through the streets so all traffic stops, but not even the cabby's seem to mind.  I think they went from plaza to plaza but I did not follow them. I must get into the habit of carrying my camera every day (I know my phone takes photos, but I don't know how to move them to a computer). 

The town is suddenly quiet now.  The Mexican families are not only gone, but the "snow birds' have gone back to their real homes (even my favorite martini swilling drinking buddies are gone).  It is getting warmer so I have the air conditioning on at night.  Summer is coming, we will see how I handle it.