The night of Good Friday, my host family took me to see the processionals. For those of you who've never seen one, it's basically a giant funeral for Jesus. All the participants are dressed in fancy clothes, and the participants include musicians, Mary Magdalene and the women at the tomb (women dressed in elaborate mourning outfits, holding spices for the body), angels (usually small children in costume), Jesus' body (dead, with blood, in a see-through coffin, covered with flowers) who is carried by 8-16 men, depending on the size of the procession, followed by Mary (the virgin, mother of Jesus), and John and Peter (the disciples). The procession can take hours, and as it passes, viewers on the side of the road join in and walk with Jesus to the church, it's actually kind of cool. We ended up going to three different processions, each from different neighborhoods, and each one was a little bit different. It was pretty powerful to watch my host brother carry Jesus' body up a hill, and the whole experience was reverent, sad and joyful all at the same time.
Saturday night is apparently one of the most dangerous nights of the year to leave the house. All over town people take to the streets to burn the body of Judas, and it kind of turns into mini-riots...this I don't really understand, and it kind of frightens me, I saw a few of the fires myself, and it was really easy for things to get out of control. I'm also not really sure how this contributes to the spirit of Easter, since not even Jesus tried to kill Judas, but I guess our traditions of easter eggs and bunnies don't make much more sense either.
Speaking of which, there are no bunnies or eggs on Sunday morning, there's no pastel candies or animal shaped chocolate, no egg hunt, and definitely no Peeps (how I missed them). In fact, it's just kind of a normal day...a lot of people don't even go to church...but it is one day that no one has to work.
We celebrated Easter morning with a family trip to the mountains. About ten minutes north of where I live are some beautiful, open, green mountains, with lakes for fishing, so my family brought a picnic (with a grill, folding chairs, and a coffee maker), and we spent the morning and afternoon lounging by the lake, fishing, and eating together. My WHOLE family went, host parents, brothers, sisters, brother's girlfriends, cousins, aunts, children of cousins, and it turned out to be quite the party.
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| The lake and fields where we were |
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| My host brother, Joshua, with his first catch of the day! |
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| My "Gringa sister", Danica, and our host cousin, José, eating watermelon |
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| Sisters!!! Me, my host sister, Natalia, and Danica, the other student who lives in our house (aka my "gringa sister") |
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| My host family! Danica, Natalia, my host mom-Ana, me, my host dad-Ronald, and in the back my host brothers Juan Pablo (left) and Joshua (right). |
We ended the day as all good Easters should end, with the Heredia/Alajuela soccer game (it's the semi-finals, and my family is split between the two teams) Heredia, the team that Juan Pablo and I like, and the city where we live, won, so next Sunday is the final game! Juan set off fireworks to celebrate and we ate some chinese food (since apparently that's still open on Easter). So not exactly your typical Easter celebration, but still filled with the family and love that I was missing back home (the fishing and fireworks added a little bit more familiarity to the day as well).
So, a day late, Happy Easter, or ¡Feliz Pascua! from Costa Rica!
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