Easter Mexican style

WINDOW ON MEXICO. This is the journal of Julius Ocwinyo, author of Fate of the Banished among other books and an associate editor at Fountain Publishers who is on a writer-in- residence programme in Mexico.

Much as it is called the Easter Week (Semana Santa), for many Mexicans, Easter is a two-week affair. It starts on Palm Sunday (Domingo de Ramos), peaks on Easter Sunday (Domingo de Pascua) and runs on up to the end of that week. This is because most schools and a number of workplaces close for two weeks to allow the full enjoyment of the period, this being a predominantly Catholic country.

Reenacting Jesus’ passion
During this period, the wealthier families go off to tourist resorts and beaches to escape the torrid heat in the cities, for this is one of the hottest and driest months of the year. Palm Sunday is marked in many places by reenactments of Jesus’ triumphal re-entry into Jerusalem. Sheaves of woven palm fronds will be on sale too. The most important day in the Easter period, though, seems to be Good Friday (Viernes Santo), when passion plays –reenactments of Jesus’ crucifixion – are popularly staged. One of the 16 boroughs of Mexico City, Iztapalapa, has earned worldwide fame for the scale and grandeur of its annual Way of the Cross (Via Crucis), which runs for one solid week and is usually attended by no fewer than two million spectators, both Mexicans and foreigners, with more than 4,000 police minding security. The actors, including extras, number up to 1,000.

A very significant time
The principal actors, including the one who plays Jesus, are subjected to painstaking scrutiny: they must be devout Catholics, of flawless character and reputation, and must not be tattooed. The actor who plays Jesus must, in addition, not only be young but also physically fit and ready to undertake strenuous exercises in the weeks leading up to Easter to prepare himself for the run-up to his ‘crucifixion’.

His role involves carrying a 90-kilo wooden cross over a distance of 4 km to a hill named Cerro de les Estrellas, Aztapalapa’s ‘Calvary’.

The locals are very passionate about this annual event, for they relate it to an outbreak of cholera in 1837 that inflicted a very heavy death toll on the Iztapalapa community. In desperation, their leaders went on a pilgrimage to seek Jesus’ intercession to end the epidemic. The epidemic subsided, and the pilgrimage has since evolved into the world-famous annual event. In some places, on Holy Saturday (Sabado de Gloria) an effigy of Judas is publicly burnt to avenge his betrayal of Jesus, most times accompanied by fireworks. Other people, however, use this day to make a political point: they will construct a cardboard or papier mâché dummy of a political figure and set fire to that instead!

Easter alone
My own Easter began at Oaxaca on the South Pacific coast, about 500 km away from Mexico City, where I had travelled by bus as part of a team to do a video documentary on the Afro-Mexicans living in the neighbouring state of Geurrero. By the time we left on Thursday night on the return journey, I had seen at least one cross erected in front of a chapel in readiness for a ‘crucifixion’, garlands of coloured lights were twinkling away, and fireworks livened up the lethargic gloom. The following day, most of the businesses in Mexico City didn’t open. Few people hold festivities on Easter Sunday. It is considered a family day, so they spend the day at home.

In keeping with this tradition I, too, stayed ‘at home’ in my flat, intensely missing my family, even as I tried to work up the appetite to eat the pollo asado (roast chicken) I had bought from my regular supplier the day before.
The good man had asked me whether I was ‘un Cubano negro’ (a Black Cuban). I had said no and mentioned Uganda. He had shaken his head. I had added ‘Africa’. He had nodded.

jocwinyo61@yahoo.co.uk