Semana Santa, of course, means Holy Week and is the week between Palm Sunday and Easter. In addition for two days off for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, we participated in various activities at both school and church for Holy Week. This post will cover the Miguel Pro activities and the next post tomorrow will cover the church activities.
At Miguel Pro, due to the long Easter weekend, the events occurred on the weekend of Palm Sunday. That Friday evening, there was a communal reconciliation service at the school, for the students in grades 5-11 (US equivalent). After the service most of the kids went home, but a few of the kids who stayed up in town slept at the school until the next event on Saturday morning. JP and I thankfully were not chaperones for this component, so we just heard loud thuds from the movie they watched out on the patio as we went to sleep—at first we thought it was Jurassic Park (lots of thunderous footsteps, like the T-Rex), but that seemed really old. The next morning we learned it was actually Avatar in 2-D, which removes all reason for seeing the movie, but apparently it was a hit with the kids.
Saturday “morning” began at 3:30 am when everyone gathered again at the school for the Caminata de Peregrinación (Pilgrimage Walk), again for the same group of kids. We were among the ten or so school staff members to supervise the Caminata. The event is basically a walk interspersed with short prayer and reflection periods. We set out from the school grounds and walked to a clearing in our neighborhood where there was a reflection that involved planting scrawny little trees that will hopefully grow more substantial over time. We continued on the road for about a kilometer and a half and then continued north into the farming countryside near the hills that are on the other side of the coastal road. We paused every half hour or so for prayer periods, which the students led with teacher assistance. At first we felt okay but after a while it seemed like a terrible idea to be up and walking in the middle of the night. Slowly, however, it started to get lighter and by dawn we felt a lot better—the kids seemed more animated as well.
It was just about light out by the time we made it to the last prayer station, which was at the base of a large hill. The tradition at Miguel Pro is that after the last prayer period, everyone climbs the hill, so the event changed from solemn to silly quite quickly. A few teachers stayed down, but almost everyone else made the climb—you have to remember that the climate here is dry and desert-like, so the hill is basically all sand, which made the climb extra challenging.
Here is the group gathered before the last prayer service:
The climb up the hill:
Looking back from the top:
The view from the top (farmland in the foreground, the edges of Tacna proper in the background):
We made it to the top of the hill, took some pictures and had a few snacks, and then corralled the kids into returning down the hill and back to the school. Because of the sand, several of the boys started sliding downhill as fast as they could until they eventually fell down, much to the entertainment of the group below and to the exasperation of the teachers.
The return trip was faster since it was light out and there were no breaks in the walk back. We made it back to school around 8 am and were treated to tamales in the library for the teachers. It was certainly not how I plan to spend my regular Saturday pre-dawn hours, but it was a good experience and a good workout—the consensus was that we walked about 10 to 12 kms, or 6 miles, but I am not sure how trustworthy that figure is. It was an intense start to our Semana Santa regardless of the final distance.
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