Semana Santa 2013: Passion and light-heartedness in the Andaluz streets

 

 Hooded penitents march in a Semana Santa processions outside the cathedral in Jerez de la Frontera

After experiencing it last year in Palencia, I thought I knew from Semana Santa. Castilla y Leon (the Spanish state that contains Palencia) is known as an area with amazing Easter festivities. It's true: the processions, in which enormous pasos (statues of bible scenes, sometimes hundreds of years old) roll through town, followed by penitants in eerie hooded costumes and accompanied by complete silence, are affecting and impressive. People come from all over to see Easter in Salamanca, Burgos, and Leon, and I understand why. Something powerful and unique is at play there.When I moved south, people kept telling me: “Semana Santa in Andalucia is different.” They insisted it was both more passionate and less serious, which was a hard combination for me to imagine. In the end, though, that is exactly what I found.

The biggest difference is immediately obvious in any Andaluz Semana Santa parade: the costaleros. Andaluz pasos are similar to their northern brethren in that they are enormous platforms topped with statues, although these tend to be images of saints and Jesus’ last days and beautiful renderings of Mary (well, Maria) on top. Instead of being rolled by the penitents, they are carried by teams of “costaleros” (the ones who carry), between 15 and 40 people depending on the size and weight of their burden. For the weeks leading up to Easter, the costaleros practiced in my neighborhood, training like marathon runners--and it’s a good thing, too, the pasos can weigh more than 1000 kilos.

I would come upon them suddenly, rounding a corner to find them moving slowly, almost silently, along the street. The clues to their presence were the soft thud-thud of their sneakers moving in under an enormous but as yet empty platform, a borrowed police light on top warning drivers to stay away, the ding of a triangle keeping rhythm. A week before Semana Santa, they added weight, building the metal skeletons of their saints on top to simulate the distribution of weight. Later, though, in the processions themselves, the costaleros were almost invisible behind a curtain of cloth, only their sneakers visible, always moving in unison. They'd move a hundred meters, then stop to rest and put the paso down. Then, with grunts and yells from hidden places, they'd jump up, suddenly, landing dramatically with knees bent and the paso on their backs again.

In the course of a few days, I saw processions in Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz, and here in Linares, and it’s true that by and large the atmosphere was light, funny, social. People chatted with neighbors, penitants texted on their phones as they marched, mobile stands sold snacks and plastic trumpets for the young ones-- all behavior that would never be permitted up north. It felt like a big street party, crowds of people dressed up in their best dresses and slacks, bows in the kids’ hair, gossip and salty snacks on everyone’s lips. There was never a moment of silence, even as the costaleros shuffled by.... but it all stopped for the saetas. These long, intense, deeply-felt and often improvised flamenco songs are sung for the saints as they are paraded through the streets, and they are unique to southern Spain. I heard three saetas during Andaluz semana santa, and each time I was struck by their vocal acrobatics,  pure emotion, and the silence and stillness that would sweep over the scene for just a moment.

That’s where the passion comes in, I think—no, Easter may not be a silent, serious time here in the south, but people certainly feel very intensely about it. Some hate it ("A bunch of hypocrites, they don’t go to church the rest of the year," one friend commented to me); others look forward to it all year with mounting excitement. The costaleros go through enormous pain and suffering in the name of the holiday and their savior. The saeta singers pour their hearts out in front of crowds who turn out from all over town and at all hours (more on that next entry.) And when it rains and the pasos can’t go out (most are considered priceless works of art due to their age and provenance), the people hold each other and cry—real tears.

It was a rainy Semana Santa all over Spain, especially in Andalucia, and ESPECIALLY in Linares (I read in an article today that up to 4 times the normal amount of rain fell in March. In some places up to 6 times!) so there was a lot of crying this year. But one particular, particularly impressive procession took place at 4 am on Thursday night, and I was there to witness it. Stay tuned for my next blog entry to read all about it.

 A late-night procession, bringing a paso home to its church in Jerez de la Frontera

Southern Crossing: Nashville-Birmingham-Atlanta

Another leg, another early morning. Emma, John, and I got up at dawn for an epic day: south from Nashville to Birmingham, then across Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia. Our dance card was quite full, as well, as we were planning to stop at a roadside archeology museum in rural Tennessee and to spend several hours in Birmingham.

John slept in the back as we sped down the highway toward Cornersville, TN. The idea to visit the Wyatt Archaeological Museum came from the same road-side attraction website that had been the source of our trips so far, and, as usual, we were not disappointed. Cornersville was a quiet town of rolling, green hills sheltering a patchwork of small farms, the kind with wagon wheels resting against the shed and a smattering of cows in the paddock.

A few wrong turns finally brought us to the museum, which focuses on the life and work of an archaeologist who spent his life trying to scientifically prove biblical events. The museum was shuttered, and we were concerned that it had closed until we heard a door slam in the trailer parked next door. A tall, bearded man strode across the gravel driveway, unlocking the tiny two-room building just for us.

He introduced himself as Wyatt's protege and successor, pointing out a few highlights as we made our way to a drafty cinder block room at the back of the building. The room, which was covered in posters and a large mural depicting Noah's ark, was bare except for a big screen TV on an AV cart, the sort your teacher would wheel in to the classroom to show you NOVA in middle school. He pressed play and left the room

What followed was a homemade documentary about Wyatt's work. According to the video, the man's calling began in Turkey when he became convinced he had found the remains of Noah's Ark near Mt. Ararat. He went on to claim he had found the ruins of Sodom and Gommorrah in southern Israel, the point of Exodus out of Egypt on the Gulf of Aqaba, and the tomb where the Ark of the Covenant was buried. The video, edited sloppily, followed his rise to semi-fame with a mixture of awe and adoration. Emma's head was on my shoulder, as we were both tired from the early start, but neither of us could take our eyes away from the screen.

Some of the displays at the museum at the Wyatt Archaeological Museum

The caption says "Crystalline Capsules around the Sulfur Balls-- From Gommorrah"

As it turned out, the video was actually most of the museum. Once we were finished, there was only another small room to look at. We walked around looking at a model of how the pyramids were made, trying not to mutter the snide comments we were dying to make too loudly (scholars have been theorizing for hundreds of years, but this guy just so happened to get it right)

How the pyramids were built

There were several other objects presented as evidence-- a cast of a chariot wheel from the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba, a piece of petrified wood said to be from Noah's Ark, crystallized sulfur from the fiery rain God brought upon Gomorrah. I found it all very silly. Let me clarify, although my religious beliefs are generally pretty secular it wasn't the Christian undertones that the Wyatt Institute was built upon that bothered me. It was really the enormous leaps of logic that got my goat. As Emma and I discussed after we returned to the car, finding a chariot wheel in the ocean in a place where chariots were very common for a long time does not an Exodus make. Neither do some rock formations in the Negev desert automatically scream "mythic center of sin and hedonism." I appreciate that Wyatt and his followers found some pretty interesting artifacts, as just-plain-artifacts go. But as for applying those artifacts to bolster a history based on religious events, well, I wasn't buying it quite yet. Doesn't make the museum any less fascinating, though! In fact, that anthropologist in me finds it all the more intriguing.

It was my turn to drive through Tennessee to Birmingham, Alabama. It was early afternoon and both of my compatriots were asleep. This was perhaps my favorite part of the whole trip, drivingwise. The afternoon sun slanted on the highway, and I twiddled the radio to find something to listen to. What I found was some sort of rural radio Craigslist. People were calling in saying things like "I have four chickens to sell, and I'd like to buy a sack of grain." The announcer would give a number for interested parties to call, and sometimes a few minutes later would say that the lot had been sold. While I was listening to this program, I suddenly realized we were driving over a vast swamp, the kind I've never seen before, miles of water thick with weeds and mangroves, the way I imagine a bayou looks. There was something divine about driving on this vast bridge over a swamp in Alabama, listening to the farmers drawl about their chickens and corn in the slanting light. A perfect moment.

We arrived in Birmingham shortly afterward. Emma had spent a little time there after Hurricane Katrina, doing clean up, and she had such positive impressions that she pushed hard for us to go back. Specifically, we came to see the Civil Rights Institute, which was highly recommended, and to explore the Birmingham Museum of Art.

As we disembarked from our car, we were greeted by a tall, gangly black man in over-alls, who introduced himself to us as "Bond, James Bond." After this quirky greeting we were a little wary of him, but his brand of crazy seemed to be fairly benign. He correctly deduced that we were tourists (the Massachusetts license plate might have given us away) and started giving us a brief history of civil rights in Alabama, pointing to the memorial park across the street -- which we would visit later -- and speaking in a fairly poignant way about how the city has progressed in his time living there.

We spent almost two and a half hours exploring the Institute, which is one of the best museums I've ever visited. The exhibits were thorough and informative, but they also retained interesting interactive elements including life-size models, video, and fine art, and they never let you forget the intense humanity behind all of the words. I was alternately moved, saddened, and infuriated--all emotions I would hope to feel when learning about civil rights history.

One of the most interesting parts of the Institute visit for me was the opportunity to see, for the first time in my life, black people teaching other black people about their history. As a white upper-middle class suburban kid, that was just not part of my experience growing up. But we were at the Institute in the middle of the week, and the only other visitors were local kids on field trips. Their teacher guided them kindly from exhibit to exhibit and I tried not to be too obtrusive as I traveled through the museum, looking with them, and to some extent at them. Their eyes were as round as they took it all in, and I heard one little boy ask his teacher, "Does that mean that my dad and uncle were a part of this? Does that mean they were treated this way?" His voice wavered. It was a powerful, deeply sad moment.

The Civil Rights Institute, Birmingham

We spent more time than expected at the Institute, but had time to briefly explore the Museum of Art before it closed. I opted to wander the museum's lovely Asian collection (mostly ancient Thai and Japanese; no photography allowed) before dropping in on a rotating modern art exhibit on the first floor. There, I found myself entranced and disturbed by a video piece depicting the artist and her partner immersing themselves in water repeatedly, the bubbles and ripples playing endlessly over their faces, shot from below the surface. As the video progressed, the images blurred gradually, almost unnoticeably, until a gray mass not recognizable as a face and the buzz of white noise filled the screen. I was joined by a man about my age as I watched. He introduced himself as a student at a local community college, and we watched the video together in silence.

Inside (and outside) the Birmingham Museum of Art

By late afternoon we made our way to the memorial park across from the Civil Rights Institute. This park was set up in memory of four little girls who were killed in a famous bombing of a church across the street during the Civil Rights era. It is part sculpture garden, part memorial and is very affecting, featuring images of violence and wrongdoing from throughout the struggle. In one corner, a metal cast of the high-powered hoses used on marchers confronts the viewer. In another, the visitor walks a claustrophobic, frightening path through a sculpture out of whose walls slavering dogs jump. It is a very visceral memorial, balanced out by four pool/waterfalls in the middle of the park, representing the four little girls at peace. There, a sculpture of Martin Luther King rises over a plaque reading "place of revolution and reconciliation." After experiencing the symbolic pain of the civil rights era, the park reminds visitors of its ultimate goal.

Images from the memorial park

Replicas of the high-power hoses
The inscription reads, "I ain't afraid to go to jail"

Before we left Birmingham, there was one more stop to make: Mrs. B's Kitchen, a legendary soul food restaurant. For not very much money at all, we were each able to buy a multi-course soul food feast of ribs, spaghetti and meatballs, black-eyed peas, candied yams, and the best banana pudding I have ever had (and I don't even really like banana pudding.) All of us ate like it was our last meal, left the restaurant hearing our seams creaking, and it was totally worth it.

It was my turn to drive as we headed east from Birmingham to Atlanta. We passed the to-scale model of the Statue of Liberty, and as we got on the highway, "Sweet Home Alabama" by Thin Lizzy came on the radio. We got really excited, turned the radio way up, and then shortly after were ashamed of ourselves for singing along loudly and turned it back down. It was a silly moment.

Around twilight we drove through Anniston, Alabama, home of the world's largest office chair as of 1983.) We managed to find it after a few false starts.

Sadly unfocused pictures of the world's largest office chair, as of 1983, in Anniston, Alabama

From Anniston it was a straight shot through the evening to Atlanta, where we stayed with John's parents. It was very late when we arrived, so John introduced us to the dual delights of Steak & Shake (which is a late-night joint serving its name) and Korean karaoke-- a great way to end a long, lovely day.

Southern Crossing: Nashville

We arrived in Nashville early afternoon, the sky iron gray and the wind kicking up. We met my friend John, who long time readers of this blog will know from my time abroad in Kunming, on the Vanderbilt campus, where we would be staying with him and his girlfriend Lisa, who was a senior there at the time. Lisa and her housemates were planning a barbecue for later that night, so we took a few hours that afternoon to go to one of Nashville's coolest /oddest landmarks, a full-scale model of the Parthenon in Greece. I'm told that even the statues inside are perfectly replicated. But you had to pay to get in, so we settled for frolicking in the parkland around the building and buying postcards at the tiny gift shop.


Shots of the Parthe-Non (geddit?)


We returned to the Vanderbilt campus in time for the beginning of the barbecue, which featured at least three or four different sauces from around the region. The food was delicious, and it felt lovely and freeing to meet people going to a school so far from mine, to see how their lives as students were both different and the same as what I was used to.

Vanderbilt campus, early Spring


The next morning we met Lisa after her class and took her and John out for breakfast at a local breakfast joint called the Pancake Pantry, which was insanely delicious. Emma tried out a traditional savory southern pancake style, while I opted for the decadent pancakes with cinnamon creme. Which: oh, man, party in my mouth. Pancake Pantry was a lovely, quirky restaurant with a huge dining room and interesting decorations. This one in particular:

Really, guys? Really?

We spent the rest of the day wandering from landmark to landmark around Nashville. We tried on cowboy hats downtown:


Made a visit to the Grand Ole Opry (sadly you can't go inside the hall without a ticket):


And finished with a historic tour of a cotton plantation. This was new territory for both Emma and me. Growing up in the northeast we had our share of American Revolution education, trips to Plymouth Plantation, Walden Pond, Boston's Freedom Trail, and whatnot. And of course we had read textbooks aplenty about the Civil War and the slavery era. But seeing it up close is, of course, profoundly different. So we drove out to Belle Meade plantation, which is now a museum, outside Nashville. It was late enough in the day that we were able to enter without buying tickets (good for our wallets; admission was a bit pricey) and spend a good hour and a half exploring the several-acre site. The museum has preserved the buildings beautifully and includes lots of information about conditions, as well as a few surprising elements like a great collection of old-style carriages and buggies.


Talk about a contrast in amenities: The main house...

...versus slave quarters

It was actually ideal to come to Bell Meade so late in the day. We had a lot of freedom to walk in the quiet and didn't have to deal with a lot of other visitors. It was a perfect atmosphere for serious reflection, and coming to site of former slavery induces that in a person. We didn't talk much as we made the rounds, but had a contentious discussion on the drive back. Coming face to face with your country's ugly past can be hard and scary but it's also necessary.

We found a lighter way to spend the night in downtown Nashville, putting the rigors of the afternoon behind us. We reveled in the tacky souvenir shops selling "You know you're a redneck if..." t-shirts and confederate flags on bumper stickers, wallets, shot glasses.

Emma communes with Elvis in front of a souvenir shop:
Nashville downtown had a great atmosphere. Homey, exciting, and completely unpretentious. We walked up and down the strip, enjoying ice cream and passing up a bar awesomely called "Cotton-Eyed Joe" in favor of another bar, Lila's Bluegrass Inn. The floor was sticky with beer and we settled in to a table halfway back in the half-filled room, watching a country band play, the singer stomping her high-heeled boots and whooping between verses. Neither of us can be called country music lovers at home, but more and more we found we could enjoy it in its cultural context. It just seemed right.

Outside Lila's Bluegrass Inn


Next stop: Birmingham

Southern Crossing: Asheville-Knoxville

Asheville, North Carolina marks the beginning of the Great Smoky Mountains, which means that the terrain changes enormously in a small area, a landscape filled with the unexpected. Similarly unexpected: Asheville is a bastion of hippy liberalism in the Appalachians which (until this election!) tended to be thoroughly in the conservative camp. Asheville is a very walkable, pleasant city filled to the brim with art-deco architecture, touches of environmentalism, and lots of art and culture. And yet, right outside the city limits are the foothills of the Great Smokies and all of the Appalachian charm (and poverty) a person could ever want to see.

That Sunday Emma and I got up and left Bon Paul and Sharky's, heading to an adorable breakfast restaurant down the street, where they made their own granola and the coffee was strong and sweet. We then undertook a walking tour of downtown Asheville.

Art deco architecture in the heart of Appalachia

I was keeping count of Priuses (Priuii?) during the trip, and never did I see so many in one place as in Asheville. In the picture below, I didn't even mean to shoot the Prius. It just happened to be driving by.



You've got to be pretty liberal to fund a zero-emissions vehicle program for your city police force

We spent the morning and early afternoon exploring. There were art galleries to see, vintage shops to browse through. We were tempted by an upscale southern food restaurant (the first we'd seen) but saved our money. Instead, we opted to spend some time in a fantastic craft center where we learned about traditional Appalachian crafts like basket weaving. Then we made our way to Sandy Bottom, a tiny town about 20 minutes outside Asheville in the Great Smoky Foothills. We had seen a brochure for horseback rides and decided that this idea, while a bit out of our price range, was just too good to pass up.

The drive out to Sandy Bottom was almost worth the money we spent on the horseback ride. The road wound through green hills, cows grazing, ramshackle cottages and disintegrating barns picturesque against the blue sky. We were the only visitors on the 4 PM ride.

Horses graze in Sandy Bottom

We went out, just the two of us with a grizzled old farmhand who had lived in Sandy Bottom all his life-- in fact when we reached a particularly high ridge he pointed out the small white house in which he had grown up. Throughout our 45 minute ride we rode up and down steep cliffs and rolling hills with fantastic views of the Smokies, and he kept up a friendly patter in his fantastic West North Carlonian accent. He told us about the strangest rides he had guided, about growing up near Asheville and his love for horses. He explained the presence of old school buses on the farm's extensive property (the awesome answer: the owner buys them and puts them out so that the goats have somewhere to go when it rains.) He asked about our lives, teased me because my stirrups were too long and kept coming loose, teased Emma for not talking much. And yet when we left we realized we had never asked his name.

The beautiful view from a Sandy Bottom ridge



We arrived back at the barn sore and for some reason--the authentic, comfortable feel of the ride, the refreshing warm air, or the scenery-- wonderfully fulfilled. And so the next question presented itself: what to do for dinner? And, more importantly, what about St. Patricks' Day?

We had forgotten during the reide that the holiday had arrived. Some of the guests at Bon Paul and Sharky's had mentioned that an Irish Pub downtown called The Green Man would be hosting a party with live traditional Irish music, an event that sounded right up our alley. So after dinner at a tasty, reasonable restaurant with an amphibious name (I can't seem to remember it now... something like The Dancing Frog?) we moved the night to The Green Man. It was an ideal setting for St. Patrick's Day festivities (besides, say, Dublin). The crowd was raucous and excited, the beer (brewed in several varieties in the pub basement) flowed freely, and music was fantastic. A few enthusiastic souls got up to do some approximation of Irish step dance. Emma and I struck up a conversation with the group of twenty-somethings next to us: they were incredibly friendly and toward the end of the evening were laughing and joking with us as if we had known them a long time. And I tried my hand at a game of darts, stopping to show our new friends the route I took during my brief trip to Ireland in 2007.

Enjoying the music at the Green Man


We couldn't stay out too late, as the next day was to be a long and spectacular one. We hoped to get all the way from Asheville to Nashville (Tennessee) the next day, stopping along the way in Great Smokey Mountains National Park and Knoxville, TN. So we got up quite early to make the initial trek, planning to hit the park just as dawn broke. As we did, we drove through the only remaining Cherokee reservation in North Carolina after the trail of tears. Cherokee, NC is a little blip of a town. We stopped at Tribal Grounds coffee house (har har) for morning fuel, and I took the opportunity to pick up a set of promotional postcards for a local art show featuring portraits of local Cherokee people. I still have a few of them up in my room. Those are the kinds of interesting tidbits I like to serve as souvenirs.


We hit the Park just about exactly at sunrise, which made for stunning views as we wound through the thick woods, full of towering rhododendron bushes. For now they were prickly with green buds-- in a few weeks the woods would be in full, astonishing bloom.



The most lovely thing about driving through the Smokies at dawn was that we experienced sunrise several times over. We would crest a peak and see the sun coming mellow over the horizon, then dip down again and descend into twilight, and over and over, until we came to an overlook over the whole park. There, Emma set off to do a little hiking while I (with my lame ankle) enjoyed the view.

Smoky Mountain Scenery





After a few hours we drove out of the park, through several low-season tourist towns like Pigeon Forge and Sevierville, TN. Given enough time I would have loved to explore these towns: they are basically all road-side attractions, filled with wacky museums and off-kilter monuments. Unfortunately we only had time to stop at a delicious pancake house in Sevierville. We felt that if we didn't we would be missing out on some sort of essential cultural experience: we counted more than 15 pancake houses in one small downtown area!

Sated, we set off. Destination: Nashville.

One of the oddest monuments in the US: the Sunsphere, built for a world's fair in Knoxville. There's not much else to see in the city, although it was nice enough when we drove through.