La Virgen de Guadalupe

     This last Sunday, the 12th of December brought the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe to Esquipulas.  Although, as a few people I've talked to have mentioned, the Virgin of Guadalupe is a Mexican icon, she is still very celebrated in Guatemala.  This is actually a decently unique celebration n Esquipulas because, so I'm told, not many pilgrims come for this celebration, making it one of the only celebrations attended mostly by Esquipultecos.  The celebrations started at around 1:00 and were marked, as always, by hundreds of people lighting off hundreds of fireworks.  The Virgin of Guadalupe is celebrated by some 20-30 people hoisting what looked like an unbelievably heavy statue onto their shoulders and parading her all throughout town.

     One of the more interesting parts of the day was the costumes that people dressed their children in.

 They say they dress the little boys up like this to represent Juan Diego, but I think the real motive might be "Let's see what you'll look like in 20 years"

     This is Carmencita, the daughter of one of the men I work with.  The native dress on the girls doesn't represent anything.  Just a chance to make your kids look really cute.

And what would a celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe be without an army of boys who have painted their whole body with black oil paint?  While everyone I asked seemed to have a different answer, the most reliable seemed to be that these boys represent the slaves and that the Virgen of Guadalupe came for the indigenous and the slaves.

     The procession kicked off around 1:00 with great fanfare.   Fireworks, prayer, chants:  "Se siente se siente, Maria esta presente!" and one of my personal favorites "Denme un M... M. Denme un A... A. Denme un R... R. Denme un I... I.  Denme un A... A, what's that spell?  MARIA MARIA MARIA."  It was a very jovial atmosphere and it was pretty easy to get swept up in the excitement up everything, and before I knew it I was marching right along with everyone!

 (I always wondered why everyone is able to pick me out of a crowd so easily)

     The procession was fun in that the streets of Eqsuipulas were completely packed with all sorts of people all there for the Virgen of Guadalupe.  However, a problem came when the procession (including the immense statue) needed to make a 90 degree turn down the main street, which was also packed full of people.  At first the police came through and tried to clear people out.  Maybe 3-4 people moved.  Then the boys in black paint came through.  To avoid being stained black, enough people cleared to let them through.  Then the police realized that if they worked with the black boys, they could move more people, and a fragile alliance was born.

An alliance which lasted only until someone gave the boys some drinking water, which they though would be best used by spitting it on the police officer.

     This technique moved quite a few people, but not nearly enough to fit the statue through.  It looked as though the procession was at a standstill until some enterprising person through an entire box of firecrackers into the crowd.  That did the trick.

     They say that necessity is the mother of invention.  Well, I'd like to contribute evidence to support that claim.  I mentioned earlier that people were avoiding the painted boys because their paint was nowhere near colorfast.  This was a nearly impossible task due to the sheer number of people and the fact that the boys seemed to make it their goal to stain as many people as possible.  And thus was born the paper towel salesman.  This man never left the side of this mass of black paint and flesh, and sold paper towels for a mere 1 Quetzal each.

He's the man on the right of the picture, holding his paper towels, open for business.

     When the procession finally reached the destination, La Parroquia, and ended with a mass, I was able to reflect a little on this awesome tradition.  It was truly amazing that they were able to get all of Esquipulas together for this religious gathering, and a true testament to the power of faith and tradition in this small Guatemalan town.  Aside from the faith of the people involved, the sheer number of people who came out for this event was really amazing.

 Notice that in the picture above all the people are turned away from the camera, and are facing the camera in the picture below.  The crowd stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions.