The Holy Week

In Honduras and pretty much all of Latin America, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter makeup the what is called Semana Santa, or the holy week. In addition to wed, thurs, and Fri being a national holiday, there are endless celebrations all week that often result in most people, incuding students and teachers, taking the entire week off. Generally, people spend the week in celebrating and praying or taking a family vacation to the North Coast, or any of the beautiful locations in Honduras. Regardless, there are millions of people traveling all over the country throughout the week.
One of the most famous traditions of the Holy week are the alfombras (rugs) that are made of sand. The rugs are prepared the night before good friday and ready for display by the time the morning procession begins. My fellow Yarumelans and I decided to take a ride to Comayagua (20 min away) to take a look at these rugs and hang out for the procession. The rugs were absolutely beautiful. It was amazing that so many intricate designs were made with just different colored sand. The procession itself was also impressive. Leading the way was JC himself wearing the crown of thorns and bearing the cross on his back. It was pretty amazing, but what really impressed me was that not only was there a grown man playing the role of Jesus, but several children, some as you as 4 years old carrying the cross down street ahead of the procession.
Another holy week tradition that not many people know about is amazingly similar to the running of the Jew scene in the movie BORAT. On Wed, Thurs, and Fri of the Holy week men in every town of Honduras dress in rags and put on scary masks and start chasing the people in the streets in an attempt to beg for money. If you resist, they pull on your clothes and won´t leave you alone. I honestly couldnt believe what I was seeing or hearing, it was amazing. Some actually yelled ¨The Jews are coming!¨followed by children running and screaming with terror through the streets. Some of you might think that this is offensice, but in reality it isn´t. Im pretty sure that most people arent aware where the tradition comes from, and have simply kept it going out of custom. None of it is meant to be offensive, and is pretty awesome to say the least. Some floating theories on its derivation are the spanish conquest and the Jewish-Roman conflict during the time of JC. Anyway, if anyone is interested in what a Jew looks like in Honduras, check out the pictures below. Ive also attached some pictures of the rugs in comayagua and the gang.