Launching Lent in Leon – A little Lenten Alliteration ☺
Sunday, February 10th, 2008I arrived here on ash Wednesday to find the city’s youth, en masse (pun intended), in front of the cathedral sporting their ubiquitous catholic school uniforms and ash-smudged foreheads. Not quite like being a catholic at a public school in TX. I remember the questions I got when we still went to mass before school on ash Wednesday, but I also remember feeling sort of proud that I was different and I didn’t want to wipe off the ashes.
The Lenten activities are underway here. Already there are regular processions through town and each church has brought out at least one platform that will be decorated and hold its icons for more elaborate processions as easter approaches. This is just a taste of what I will get in Antigua, Guatemala during semana santa. It’s really very impressive. And now I have a new favorite invocation of el nino divino: fotocopias divino nino. Baby jesus rules over the kinkos of leon. and i’ve also learned nicas believe that jesus had long, brown, shirly temple curls. this is pretty much without exception here and it left me wondering who keeps these icon’s hair styled. i am not wanting to blaspheme, it is just that jesus is represented very differently here and he requires additional attention. the religious figures here are not sculpture, but more like mannequins with hair and movable joins.
onto business – I’ve had my first (and last) evening at the $12 hostel. In some cases one gets what one pays for and in some cases one gets even less. The wi-fi din’t work and I arrived during a fumigation (gasp!). It was hot as hell and I used my sleepsack to provide extra protection ☺. All part of the adventure, no?
Peggy Rehm