04.01.10 - Zamora, Spain - "To process or not to process" would have indeed been the question posed by Hamlet in his most vulnerable moment if the play had taken place in Zamora during Semana Santa. He most certainly would have been half dressed holding his hood outstretched in his hand, while standing barefoot in the cold rain in Zamora as the other brothers put the 300 year-old Jesus statue in a clear plastic garbage bag to prevent the rain from causing the paint to run.
I spent our Semana Santa holiday in Zamora visiting Eunice and taking in some of the most famous Easter processions in all of Spain. The weather left much to be desired, but at least it was raining in everywhere else in Spain, too. The photos were numerous and in the next couple blogs I'll add the outtakes. To start, I've got some general photos of the processions.
What is a procession?
Good question. Basically, the brotherhoods of the various churches (think your local Rotary or Kiwanis) has one procession during the week. They go to the church and get dressed in long robes and hods (yes, they look like klansmen) and start to pray or chant or be really quiet (most of the processions are silent) and then they walk out two by two along the streets of the city. At the end of the procession is a particular statue, generally of Jesus on a crucifix or on his way to be crucified or after crucifixion. Sometimes there is a band with the statue. Afterwards, everyone goes to a bar.
-Will
This was the children's procession on Sunday afternoon. Best weather all week. I like this photo because Jesus bears a striking resemblance to a Bee-Gee (thanks Cormac) crowd surfing.
Give a child a palm, and they will destroy it.
This is one of my favorites.
This was a silent midnight procession where the men wore all brown and carried lanterns. It was also about 30 degrees outside and we had been waiting for almost an hour for it to arrive at that point. I would have paid a lot of money for a souvenir cloak or at least a hot chocolate.
This is the other view of the first photo from this procession. They had to lower the statue to fit it through the old city wall.
We came upon this procession earlier that night.
The children's procession with the Ayuntamiento in the background. Notice the different flags of the brotherhoods draped below the windows.
Many people walk barefoot in the processions either as a sacrifice or because they lost a bet a year before (I was told this by more than one Spanish person).
Most though, wear shoes. This is a group carry a large statue on their shoulders. This procession lasted 7-8 hours.
There were drums.
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