Cofradías y Capirotes, Santos y Vírgenes

Tempted?  It was a week of what felt like party life in a folklore land. We stayed up until 3am watching processions, wandered through the streets of Granada in search of various virgins meanwhile eating fresh coconut and ice cream, oh, and a fair amount of cañas y tapas for basic sustenance. Even though this photo was sniped some 4 days after our initiation and first exposure to Semana Santa, we were still taken aback by the swirling, fiery, red capes that came walking towards us this afternoon. I wanted to touch them and wrap myself in the silky fabric they were wearing and follow them all night long, but instead I went with Uncle Colin and the kids and bought una tarrina de yogur y trufle at Los Italianos in hopes to wane this desire. It worked, for a while.                       YES! We had our first and only family visitor this year! Hmm. Myles and Owen were thrilled to show Uncle Colin the ins and outs of Granada. It was clear that he enjoyed every minute of his stay - taking in the city, skiing in the hills, riding with the Ciclistas a go-go, and being coaxed in attending various religious processions. Although I tend to believe maybe he faked enjoying this part of his stay. We're thankful we were able to share this experience with him.

New vocabulary para esta entrada. But before this, just a couple items. Perhaps you've noticed a few additions to the blog. First and foremost I've inserted a new gadget that will translate the entire post into the language of your choice. The google translator above is for our Spanish friends who keep saying they'd love the blog even more if it were in Spanish! One of these posts will be written completely in Spanish so that the native English speakers can see how the native Spanish speakers are suffering. The translator does an ok job, but with my excessive use of colloquialisms, a fair amount of meaning is lost and readers are left with that quizzical look on their faces. Next is the addition of an Amazon widget at the bottom. I have been holding out on trying to market this blog in such a way that connects it to money. Many have suggested I work it. But I can't seem to put this idea into motion...yet. So, I'll make a joke of it, imagine that, and show you some of the items that we find immeasurable this year living Spain. What do a pogo stick and a hot water bottle have to do with living in Andalucía? I'm going to let you ponder that one for yourself. I am so thrilled to find that I can buy pig butt from Amazon for a mere $230.00! This will make our re-entry back into the land of red, white and blue so, so, so much easier.

¡SANTO VOCABULARIO!
I'm not sure if you noticed but I've thrown out the santo/a term a bit in recent posts. It's because the boys have a running joke about saints. We yell out ¡santa mierda! (holy @#$%) quite often, primarily because it's everywhere in the Albaycin, santa leche, santo pan, santa pizza, santo perro, etc. You get the point. As soon as I can get the profanity post together you'll learn a few more phrases that have helped us to express ourselves in those trying times when a simple, gosh darn, just doesn't seem to have the desired outcome. 

Vocabulary for this particular post:

capirote ~ pointy hat

cofradía ~ religious brotherhood that care for the well-being of the statue, quite a wealthy group of individuals contributing many euros each year to the gold and silver inlays on the statues and general upkeep, these guys and gals are the ones dressed up in the capirotes, they tend to be flagellants, too, carrying crosses and heavy silver staffs of all sorts, some walk barefoot if they'd made sort of "promise" to god, all take their individual procession very seriously not talking to anyone

costaleros (braceros) ~ the heroic, flagellants (usually men, although I saw two women) who carry the tronos on their shoulders, everyone applauds after they take a break usually about every 2-3 blocks or so, apparently you have to request to be a bracero and it's not a given you will be accepted into the particular cofradía 

tronos ~ plaster or wooden sculptures and structures of the Virgin Mary or different stages of the life, torture and death of Jesus Christ, weighing up to 5 metric tons

It's difficult to try to express in words what we experienced the week of Semana Santa living in Granada, Spain. Vivid images will remain in our kids' minds for life. Most images will be positive, some bad, but all extremely thought provoking, adhering to the basic requirements for this year in Spain. This past "spring break" was not spent climbing in Joshua Tree, Southern California like years past. Instead we took a step back in time, experiencing a cultural tradition that began during the Medieval Age.

Beginning stages of the bola de cera ~ Intricate verbal instructions from cute Spanish girls a must

Ok, so, first of all, you gotta let go of your first reaction as an American to the fotos in this post. Here are a couple tidbits to help you do this. The first thing I'm going to tell you is that capirotes have been worn for centuries and in many different cultures all over the world with no intention of any connection to pain and suffering...well, maybe the dunce cap induces a little bit.

These photos aren't so bad, right? We can see the faces and partial bodies of the people wearing them. It's when the entire body, head and face are covered that we begin to feel a bit uneasy about things. Unfortunately without learning the history of these hats and why they were worn, our initial reaction is that of disgust and sadness due to the connection with the US white supremacist group known as the KKK. (Which by the way still exists today not only in southern parts of our mother tierra, but all over the US. Heck, there are even a bunch of Tea Party movement activists trying to get one of the chapter's leaders to run for president in 2012...lovely. Yet another reason to become an ex-pat in Spain.)

¡Uf! Sorry! just had to get that out of my system...

The second thing I'm going to do to help channel your thoughts into a more positive direction is share the first impression our kids had of the first procession we witnessed. We had just finished a hike up above the Alhambra to check on the tadpoles and see the status of their emerging rear legs and were in route to Bar 22, to meet Sarah and Nikita, when we came upon Jesús de la sentencia y Virgen de la maravillas being carried down the Carrera del Darro. The cofradía was dressed in white gowns with red capirotes. Myles and Owen immediately agreed that they looked just like the garden gnomes we have at home. From now on, this is how I see every cofradía from Semana Santa. Can I just say here how much I simply adore the non-jaded minds of children? I wish sometimes we, as adults, could somehow erase certain bits of information we've stored in our brains.            

We're way too serious.

Here's a little clip of a few photos from Semana Santa. Enjoy! We decided that out of all the virgins (names like virgin of pain, suffering, rosary, light, revival, consolation, morning, peace, victory, incarnation, marvels, sacrament, aura, health, stars, misery, conception, more major pain, death, work, solidarity, angst, happiness, triumph...to name a few) our favorite trono was that of the huerto! Claro, que sí, we'd choose the huerto because we live by the huerto! It was a trono with an enormous living olive tree on top and resembled more of a garden scene than any sort of act of penitence...nice.

Quotes to live by...

"You runnin' with the virgins, hun?"

"Then he "vended" it." (Gotta love this one. Vended comes from "vender" meaning to sell.)

"It's the virgin of 1000 feet!"

"Tadpole road is so cool!"

"Everything is so alive."

"I guess it's not polite to pass the gnomes when they are marching?"

"That sounds so sad."  "I think it sounds heroic!" (two different kids, two different viewpoints)

"They're doing all this for their religion?"

"Those statues are HUGE!"

"I'm getting sick of seeing so many virgins."

"I don't want to see another virgin."

"¡Es muy moro aquí!"

It's 2 in the morning and there are 1000 people in the streets and they're all eating ice cream from Los Italianos!!!"

"Pero, tío, Owen.....¡VENGA!"