Holy Week in Quito

Just about every week we have an academic or cultural outing where we get to experience and learn various aspects of the culture and history of Ecuador. These are generally very interesting. The last two days certainly have been.

Holy Week or Semana Santa in Ecuador is filled with ceremonies and customs that are new to us. Yesterday, the group spent a couple of hours making a special soup that is traditional Santa Semana cuisine. It's called fanesca. Fanesca is advertised at many restaurants this time of year. It is a soup that features 12 different grains....mostly different beans. The number 12 is significant in that the different grains represent the 12 disciples. (Judas is represented by lentils, Peter by a huge and thick lima looking bean about the size of a quarter that's called "habas". Jesus is represented in the recipe by the presence of fish, which, in the case of our soup, was albacore tuna. It's a pretty rich or dense (as Darlene says) soup. We had fun making it for about 16 people....pretty labor intensive as you have to shell most everything. We roasted peanuts, then took the skin off and blended them with milk...peanut milk to go in the mix.

Now, today is Good Friday...featuring several processionals through different parts of the city. The most famous is the procession of the "cucuruchos", not to be confused with "cucarachas"(cockroaches). There are about 500 people (mostly men) selected to be cucuruchos from many more who apply. It basically is an honor to be chosen to participate in this Catholic tradition on Good Friday. Those chosen go through some educational training throughout much of the year. They are basically doing penance for their sins, and also many of them are seeking a miracle for themselves or for others.

They wear purple robes and pointed hoods that cover their faces....much like the KKK, though thankfully nothing of that sort, in terms of what they represent. Many go without footwear, and the pavement really heats up for them. Here's a sample of what we saw today in "old" colonial Quito, built some 450-500 years ago....

1. Groupings of 25 penitents (so about 20 such groups) accompanied by a Jesus in each group carrying a heavy cross, often trudging along with Roman soldiers. One of the Jesus characters wore a crown of thorns made of actual barbed wire. While other Jesus characters had fake blood, we noticed that his was real.

2. We saw some penitents wearing the head coverings but shirtless, flogging themselves on the back with a shrub/branch of some kind.

3. Every now and then a marcher would have a length of chain dragging behind him, chained to his ankles.

4. There was a penitent who was crawling the entire length of the parade/processional. He wore cardboard sign hanging from his neck that called for people to care for the poor and hungry.

5. There were a good number of children in the processional, most dressed in their own purple or pink robe with pointed hood and face covering. A few were decorated as Roman soldiers....and a couple of 8 year old Jesus characters were outfitted with a size-appropriate cross of their own.

6. Many walked barefooted on hot asphalt. When the parade would stop, many had friends or family who'd run out in the street and slip some paper under the marchers' feet to give them a break from the heat. Some marchers walked the white line in the middle of the street to keep their feet a little cooler.

7. Some of our group (Aaron, Stephanie, Alicia, Kyle, Darlene and I) voted for our choice of Penitent of the Day. We called him Cactus Jack. He was wearing the hood, but his purple shirt was pulled up in the back and strapped directly to his back was a cross about 3' in length with crossbeam of about the same length.....made completely of cactus, with the long needles/spines of both crossbeam and vertical piece embedded in his back.

8. Between the groupings of marching penitents were small marching bands. That's about all I have to say about the marching bands.

9. There were throngs of people lined 3 deep along the narrow streets of Colonial Quito in the equatorial sun at mid day when the processional began at the Church of San Franciso.

10. It was a intensely sunny day here at the equator at 9300 feet. Street vendors were having a big day selling plaid umbrellas. If you only looked at the sea of umbrellas lining the street, it would be natural to assume it was a rainy day.

The local Nazarene church about a mile from the seminary had a Good Friday service from 3-5:30..organized around the last words of Christ on the Cross.

I think that's all I have to say about Good Friday.....except that I like what the theologian Karl Barth responded when asked later in life at what point in life that he was "saved". His reply speaks to me...."one Friday afternoon in A.D. 34." Thanks be to God for His costly Gift.