Thursday, December 9, 2010

Santa Lucia

Now, I have never had any particular connection to Saint Lucy; to me, she was yet another early saint who chose torture/death (in this case, having her eyes plucked out) over losing her virtue - no offense, Santa Lucia. However, spending time in Suchitoto, I think I may have significantly increased affection for this particular saint.

Santa Lucia is the patron saint of Suchitoto; a neighborhood is named after her, the local church is named after her, and her feast day is a BIG deal. When I say a BIG deal (notice the capitalized letters), I really do mean a BIG deal. The feast day of Santa Lucia is on the twelfth of December. The entire week before this date, there are celebrations every single day. The festivities began yesterday, with a big parade full of drums, mascaras (men dressed up with masks and sometimes dressed as women, who chase children out of the way of the parade route... which would terrify me as a child, but seems to be all fun and games to the children of Suchitoto), and the queens. Each barrio in the actual city of Suchitoto and almost every community surrounding Suchitoto elects a queen to represent them; then, there is one girl elected as the Queen of Suchitoto for the year. After the parade, each queen stood up and spoke a bit about their community - as there are almost 80 communities or so in Suchitoto, one can imagine that this took awhile. After all of the queens spoke, and the mayor and other members of the alcalde's office spoke, the Celebration of the Feast of Santa Lucia was declared officially begun.

For the entire week of the celebration, each barrio has a night to host the festivities. This begins with waking up the neighborhood with cohetes - firecrackers - or polvoras - fireworks. I got used to the cohetes eventually (they go off at all hours of the day or night), but the festivities begin at 3:30 or 4 in the morning. This is followed by an oferenda, in which anyone who decides to come is given pan dulce and café. After the oferenda, there is a procession to the church from whatever barrio you happen to be in; this includes music, everyone with candles, and four people carrying the statue of Santa Lucia through the streets. The procession ends at the church, where mass is offered. During the day, there are games in the barrio hosting the festival for the day; at night, there is a parade, and then there is a dance or a concert. Phew. An entire week of this.

It is absolutely beautiful, though. Everyone shows up to celebrate together, as a community. The Centro Arte para la Paz was able to host the oferenda for the day of festivities in Barrio San José. We had over 300 people show up, more joining the procession as we made our way to the church. We processed in two lines, our candles lighting the pre-dawn darkness, walking towards the dawn. As we entered the church, the sun was only just coming up behind the church, adding rosy tones to the whitewashed walls and candlelight.

I truly think that such events as the feast day of Santa Lucia truly show off the strengths of the community of Suchitoto, truly show off many of the reasons why I have absolutely fallen in love with this country, this town, these people. My experience has shown the people of Suchitoto to be extremely generous, filled with the utmost cariñoso for neighbors and strangers alike. As a community, they exude strength, and I feel extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to spend time with them, to be invited into homes, to be given the gift of personal stories.

Tonight, I head home for San Francisco, California. Yet, as incredibly, EXTREMELY, excited I am to see my family, I find myself looking forward to returning to the community I now count as one of my own - returning to Centro Arte, my students, my friends, and, of course, Santa Lucia.

Next blog - when I return to Suchi in a month!!!

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