Semana Santa - Huaraz, 2015 (Part III)

The highpoint of the Semana Santa procession and celebration is the carrying of the statues of the Virgin Mary and of Jesus carrying the cross through the streets, over the alfombras, and back to the Church from which they originated. We share a few photos of this part of the celebration. But first, some interesting spectators.

The ladies wear the hats down here.

Double duty - a big baby on her back and a load of popcorn and nuts to sell.  The man in yellow has an ice cream cone in his hand.  There are many people who sell ice cream everyday.  They load their little wheeled carts at the factory and then push them to town.  We always see several on our way to work.

One way to get a better view of the parade.

Jeans, a colorful hat and shawl and a wheelchair. The wheelchair is not very common here given the uneven streets and narrow sidewalks.  That is not the usual type of hat worn here so she must be from somewhere out of town.

Sunglasses anyone?  Another mobile store.

This is the culmination of the procession and celebration. This "float" (not sure what to call it) has the Virgin Mary and is carried on the shoulders of men and women which you cannot see due to the crowd. You can see the smoke from the incense that is burned in front of the float as it moves along the street. 

The floats are proceeded by brass bands, partially visible here.  Some of the floats were also preceded by groups of children, mostly dressed in white and holding onto the ribbons that are visible behind the band.  You can see traces of the "alfombras" the people are walking on.

Another float with a lady statue, not sure who she represents. Notice the fellow climbing up on the float with a bouquet of flowers to add to the many that were already there. He is doing this while the float is still on the shoulders of the people carrying it.  Apparently it is a privilege to carry the floats and I think this is the one that was carried by women only.  Someone told us that they paid  money for this privilege but not sure about that.  You could tell that they are heavy by the way the "porters" were sweating.

This is the main float. All of the figures are mannequins. Christ is bowed down with the cross on his back and not very visible in this photo. But this gives an idea of the size of the crowd that walks along with the floats.

Unfortunately, I could not get a good picture of Christ. You can see the top of his head by the cross. When the parade starts he is standing but they mechanically lower him as the parade progresses. The other mannequins on the float are very realistic.

A better view of the Roman soldiers and the women on the float.

The fire department, emergency personnel and police bring up the rear of the procession. Check out the lady with the hat in the foreground and another one in the middle of the picture.  The women from the campo (the indiginous ladies) are not completely dressed unless they have a square of that brightly colored cloth wrapped around them.  Sometimes there is nothing in the cloth, but often they carry bags, children, produce, etc. etc.  And when it rains, they cover their shoulders, tie the cloth in front and that is their raincoat. Very versatile piece of cloth--and colorful as well!  They also cover their hats with plastic bags.

This was an interesting experience.  We noticed that most of the people were quite somber, even the children seem pretty quiet.  Apparently the parade continued to one of large churches and then there was to be a service held.  It started to rain as we left to go home so don't know how that all worked out.

This type of experience helps us appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the gospel and how grateful we are for our understanding of the life and mission, and the death and resurrection of our Savior.