(somehow this didn't post, due to my connection. it's from yesterday)
Semana Santa can bring grown men to tears, and today it did. I don't see that as being very macho. Jose told me the other night that sometimes he cries when he sees a particular float go by. It had something to do with time passing and nostalgia and maybe just a love for this festival (sometimes a bit gets lost in translation).
But today they cried because it rained and not a single hermandad could go out on their paso. They told me the people waiting to see a particular hermandad cried, but other people told me that the costaleros would cry - they have waited all year for this, and practiced for it. It is an experience they love - to carry the float.
For my part, I was relieved, because that meant I had an excuse not to go out. After feeling lonely and depressed at my lack of friends, I suddenly have been absorbed into an instant large group of friends who are inviting me out every day. That is because its a festival, of course, though I think I will remain friends and just not go out every single day.
But I went to meet Jose in Plaza San Lorenzo anyways. As soon as I left it started to pour. The entire Plaza was covered in umbrellas. The streets around the Plaza were almost as busy as the sunny day before. A procession that had gone out for just a short bit, had returned and there was a bit of music. Despite the weather, they had to do something. They were letting people into the churches to at least take a look at the floats.
Due to the intense rain, we all met up at a different spot and then did rounds to a couple of bars for more drinks and tapas, and TV watching. Agu or one of the Joses pointed out a beautiful charcoal drawing of a man's head on the wall. It was the head of Judas, and a drawing of a statue on one of the floats. Each hermandad has a float with a Jesus either on the cross or carrying one, or in an actual scene with other people. Then they all have a second float with Virgen Maria. But each hermandad's floats are always the same - some of them for 500 years - well the statue at least. One statue of Jesus on the cross is very old and made of some kind of paste. This paste (how one of the Joses explained it) gradually shifts over the years so Jesus has continually become more and more twisted.
People comment on how beautiful certain aspects of the floats are, or how beautiful it is to see them turn the corner. The guys every once in a while start whistling in unison along with music from the TV. Other times when we're getting close to a float and there's a band, they've done the same. They bring out their ipods and show each other their recordings of some particular float passing, and whistle along to the music. The one most completely devoted to Semana Santa is Jose (okay, Jose Luis). I expected him not to be up to going out today, but he said he wasn't tired, and he didn't look like he'd been carrying something very heavy on the back of his neck for 7 hours, and walking for 13, the day before. He is about to do the same thing over again tomorrow, in another hermandad. He knows someone who has gone out 8 days in a row, carrying floats. I've told him several time he'd better go to the chiropractor after.
Jose Luis says, "you don't understand, do you." It is a statement, not a criticism. I've already explained how strange this all is for me, and how it differs from my culture. I was talking to the girls about Noelia's upcoming wedding to one of the Joses, but Jose Luis was watching the TV all alone so I went to talk to him. The TV was showing Semana Santa processions from a previous year. I tried to explain to him my first impressions of the guys practicing under the frame, what I wrote a while ago in this blog.
It is tradition, is what he told me the other night. He carries these heavy things for hours for penitence, but not really. The real reason is for tradition.
I better not put words or thoughts into anyone's mouths, but I tried to imagine what would happen if I were to discuss tradition or doing something for tradition with Canadian males of a similar age. I believe most people I know would probably give me a well thought out answer. It might be thought out on the spot, but it would be intellectual. Possibly even quite deep. But intellectual. I cannot even imagine any Canadian men I know acting this way. These people are western, but they are not like us. They are not like those of us from English speaking countries. There is nothing intellectual going on in their connection to this. It is all corazon. They know that, and I try to tell them how different they are from North Americans. They ask me if we are more superficial. I explain that this is not the case at all - it is simply that the mind and heart are separate, and the mind rules. You can tell me I am making too big of a generalisation, you can say whatever you want, but you have to come here and experience this first. We are steeped whatever cultures we are brought up in. Even the most integrated (heart and mind) ones of us in English speaking countries operate within a society, within a structure of, within a prevailing attitude or inside a matrix of supremacy of intellect over heart.
North Americans are cynical. Our culture is cynical, our general way of thinking is cynical. I am not criticising it entirely - there is a huge amount of good in thinking about what is going wrong and changing it. If I could point to the biggest difference between men in Andalucia and men at home, it would be that at home they try not to care very much about anything. This is a big generalisation and a lot of men I know are not like this. But overall I think it's considered cooler or important for men to act this way - to look this way on the surface at least.
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