Semana Santa

Palabra del día: Muerta
Translation: Dead
Why such a morbid word for a post about celebrating a holiday?  Because after playing in processions three days in a row for 6-8 hours each day, I was completely muerta.  Also, if you think about it, Easter celebrates the death of Jesus, so it's really quite appropriate.

Foto del día: 

My bananagrams-style summary of my experience during Semana Santa, which I made during an end of the week celebration in which about half of the band ended up at the Party Piso.  Translation help: tuna sandwich, beer, Armilla band, muerta, Party Piso, procession, virgin

Comida del día: The Semana Santa holiday of course comes with some special treats.  I of course made sure to show Caroline my favorite bakery in my old neighborhood, and we tried torrijas while we were there.  Torrijas are the Spanish version of French toast, made  of bread dipped in eggs and milk, fried, and then drenched in honey or cinnamon sugar. ¡Que rico!

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in probably the most unique and bizarre traditions of southern Spain: the religious processions of Semana Santa.  In Southern Spain, every day of the week leading up to Easter is a holiday, celebrated with constant religious processions in every town and neighborhood, all day long and late into the night.  Before Semana Santa, people in the band warned me that: 1) I would be muerta afterwards, and 2) I would decide that Spanish people are crazy and want to leave Spain immediately.  I didn't believe them at all, but in the end, number one was 100 percent true and number two, 50 percent - I've decided that Spanish people are crazy, but that still doesn't make me want to leave!

Before I describe my own experiences with the Semana Santa processions, I'm going to do my best to explain how they work, although it's a difficult concept to understand and even after playing in three I'm still unclear on certain details.

The processions are basically parades in which the focal point are statues of Jesus and of the Virgin Mary, called pasos.  

Jesus paso

Virgin paso

The order and components of the processions vary depending on the size, but the ones I played in went something like this:

• Led by someone carrying a cross

• Followed by a penitentes, or people repenting their sins and mourning the death of Jesus.  These people wear costumes that look exactly like the costumes of the KKK (sometimes white and sometimes other colors), but the similarity is purely coincidence and has no historical relation.  The point of these outfits is to hide the identity of the penitentes, and the pointy hats represent rising toward heaven.  Although I knew that there was no historical relation between the KKK and the penitentes, I still got a bit of a shock every time I saw the outfits.  It was interesting to view something that I've always associated with a horrible part of American history in a completely different context.

• Followed by people carrying candles and incense

• The Jesus paso, weighing up to one ton, carried from beneath on beams by a group of up to 50 tough guys called costaleros, which means that they wear sacks on their heads.  The fact that the pasos are so heavy and so large (and oftentimes have to be manuevered through small streets and around narrow corners) means that the processions move slowly, stops frequently, and that the band members have very tired feet.

• A loud brass band, with lots of drums and trumpets, colorful suits, and funny hats with feathers sticking out of them

• More penitentes, candles and incense

• The Virgin paso

• And finally, the Banda Musical San Isidro de Armilla (AKA, me!)

About to start playing (especially Alberto!)  Look how many of us there are, squished by the crowds on the sidewalks, in our snazzy suits and ties.

The processions are organized by cofradías, which are organizations that devote themselves year-round to preparing for Semana Santa.  It's important to distinguish between the religious aspects of the holiday and the traditional and cultural aspects.  Although the processions are for religious reasons, the fact that they for the most part only exist in Southern Spain makes them an incredibly unique part of the culture.  That being said, participants in Semana Santa are not necessarily the most religious people.  Cofradía members might just like the culture and tradition and want to belong to a group, costaleros probably just want to show off their muscles, and band members are motivated by a love of music, some money, and of course a cerveza after the fact.  The other aspect of Semana Santa nowadays is tourism.  Granada was overrun with tourists trying to view the spectacle, and in the meantime Lisbon was overrun with Spanish people on vacation, trying to escape the tourists who had invaded their homes and the streets blocked by processions preventing them from going anywhere.  So although some Spanish people love this culture and tradition, many do their best to avoid it completely.

Ok, back to the processions.  Once all of these components are in order, what happens?  First, everyone leaves the church.  If the paso is too tall, oftentimes the costaleros have to go through the door on their knees while carrying the giant, heavy statue on their shoulders.  Once the paso makes it out of the church, the band plays the Spanish national anthem (and I pretend to play the national anthem because everyone in the band has it memorized and no one thought to give me music for it).  Then we start walking on some indirect route toward the cathedral while spectators (mostly small children, tourists, and frustrated residents who are just trying to get home and are regretting ever trying to go anywhere during Semana Santa) push each other to try to get a better view.  We stop frequently and walk very, very slowly.  Marches played by the band are interspersed with saetas, or sad, chant-like songs usually sung by one person.  Once at the cathedral, the paso goes through it and the band walks around the outside, drinks a lot of water, and continues on its way on some indirect route back to the original church, where the paso is returned to its home with another round of the national anthem.  A procession route that would take 15 minutes to walk at a normal pace takes about six hours during the procession.  The processions I played in were 6-8 hours long and ended between 1 and 3:30 am, but apparently these were on the shorter side as far as processions.  We passed one procession that left at 6 pm, went all the way to the Abadia de Sacromonte (a half-hour hike that I did with my mom), and arrives at 6 am.  I can't even imagine.

Each procession is different depending on the days of the week.  The Wednesday, Thursday and Friday processions that I played in were the longest and most important ones, and Thursday is the most important day of the week since the processions end in the very early morning of Good Friday.  The procession I played in on Thursday was called the Aurora.  In this procession, the Aurora statue of the virgin comes down from the Albeyzin neighborhood, which is hilly with narrow streets and beautiful views of the mountains and the Alhambra.  It arrives at the cathedral where she is coronated, and then starts the long journey back to the Albeyzin.   This procession was the longest that I played in: it started at 7 pm and ended at 3:30 am, but even this late at night there were still lots of spectators who followed us back up the hill.  There is a chant that goes along with this procession in which someone yells "Aurora" and everyone yells back, "guapa!" (translation: beautiful), and we had to listen to this chant for eight hours.  My roomate Nabil annoyed me for a week following the procession by yelling "guapa" constantly, bringing back memories of aching muscles and extreme exhaustion.  However, when we finally arrived at the church, rose petals rained down as the Aurora statue was returned, and even in my physical state of aching lips,  dehydration and hunger, I was still able to appreciate the beauty of the moment.  That was just one moment in eight hours though...When the procession finally ended the cofradía was nice enough to give us tuna fish sandwiches, and I think it was the best tasting tuna fish sandwich I have ever eaten.  

Here's a video of the Aurora being returned to the church at 3:30 am at the end of the procession.  Listen for the "Aurora, Guapa" chant at the beginning, see how beautiful the statue is all lit up, and get an idea of how slowly these processions move, since the band doesn't start playing until 3 am.  Also, give us a break: we sounded a lot better at the beginning of the night!  The video focuses on the Aurora statue and not the band, since obviously she's the star of the show.

Visit this page for tons more videos:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aso-Musical-San-Isidro-de-Armilla/1467886550102694
Also, give it a "like"!  I'm on a mission to bring the band some international recognition.

After the Aurora procession, I went home convinced that by body would never recover and swearing that I was never going to play in another procession, despite the fact that I had promised to play in one the next day.  However, somehow I let myself be convinced to go (helped by the fact that I live with Alberto, who was also playing, and he probably would have dragged me there if he had to.  I'm proud to say it didn't get to that point!)   Everyone in the band was impressed that I had returned for a third day in a row, although possibly also slightly confused about why a foreigner would ever want to do that.  The Friday one was only six hours long and despite my aching muscles, it felt much easier compared to the one the day before.  I also had a few groupies in this procession in the form of friends who brought me food and water, who are also the source of all of the photos in this blog, since I obviously had my hands full of French horn the entire time.

I actually managed to smile in this one, despite aching muscles!

My friend Caroline, who came back to visit Granada with me after our trip to Lisbon, won the prize for the best groupie.  She followed the entire six hour procession on Wednesday (and of course easily made friends with a few band members) and then came back to watch part of a second one on Friday. 

I'd like to share some thoughts that were going through my head during these ridiculously long period of standing, walking and playing French horn:

What song are we playing now? How do I switch my music while holding my French horn? This music stand is attached to my horn with a hair elastic and is definitely going to fall and spill my music all over the place.  Why am I wearing a tie?  This suit they lent me is three sizes too big.  We're moving soooo slowly!  Water? Food? When can I sit down?  I think I've been passively converted to Catholicism.  The paso is actually quite beautiful with all of the candles.  That small child just yelled my name but I don't know who she is.  Spanish people are crazy; how do they do this every day of the week year after year?  Thank god I'm getting paid.  I hope I get paid a lot.  I wish someone would come carry my French horn for me.  The cathedral is so beautiful all lit up!  I think I'll just pretend to play this march.  No, if I keep playing it's easier because it distracts me from my aching muscles.  Only...three hours left, ahh!  There's absolutely no way I'm going back tomorrow.  It's ok, at the end they give us sandwiches. 

So why did I devote half of my vacation week to celebrating another country's tradition that involved some serious physical labor?  The truth is, despite all of the hard work, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  The members of the band are such a great group of people, and of course joked around the entire time ("When do we get our sandwiches?" "The next time we stop, let's go into a bar to get a beer."  And of course the classic, "Do you have a Spanish boyfriend yet?  Does your friend have a boyfriend?")  They were also incredibly sympathetic about the fact that it was my first time playing in a procession, constantly asking how I was doing and giving me words of encouragement.  

I also appreciated the opportunity to be able to fully participate in this unique tradition, as crazy as it might be.  I probably would have enjoyed the beauty and emotional impact of the processions more if I had been watching rather than participating, but by playing with the band I got the chance to participate in Semana Santa like a local, and that's more that I ever thought I would get out of my study abroad experience.  I'm so grateful to the members of the band for welcoming me into their community, treating me like one of them, and giving me so many incredible opportunities.  And although I joke about how horrible certain parts of the Semana Santa experience was, my firsthand participation in this tradition is something that I will remember forever.  My band friends joke about how horrible certain parts of the week are, but they still come back and play year after year.  Despite my extreme exhaustion, I was still able to appreciate certain beautiful moments of the processions, and although I do think Spanish people are crazy, I feel like I now have an understanding of the cultural importance and devotion that so many people value in this tradition.  

Obviously I could have watched more processions on the days I wasn't playing, but I was so sick of them at that point that I did everything possible to not have to hear any more Spanish marches.  Instead, I got to show Caroline around Granada and go on a picnic and yet another secret spot that Alberto was nice enough to take us to:

View from the Albeyzin neighborhood, and Alberto surrounded by chicas, like always.

That's the real beauty of Granada.  I can be surrounded by crowds of tourists, relgious processions, and a giant cathedral, walk 10 minutes outside of the city, and find myself surrounded by nature and people who live in caves.  With only one month left here, I can't help thinking about how much I'm going to miss this city.