{"id":591,"date":"2010-04-17T03:56:51","date_gmt":"2010-04-17T08:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/?p=591"},"modified":"2010-04-16T22:48:16","modified_gmt":"2010-04-17T03:48:16","slug":"good-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/2010\/04\/17\/good-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had talked to our friends in our village about the traditional ceremonies that happen in the cultural center for Holy Week.\u00a0 From what we gleaned, we figured Friday would be the best time to go take a look.\u00a0 As soon as our friends found out we were heading down, our vehicle started filling up!<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our friends that went with us at the "cocina"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two of our friends went with us with their kids and “took care” of us.\u00a0 When we crossed the bridge into the village, we were invited to the “cocina” to eat beans and tortillas.\u00a0 We ate and observed the rituals from the safety of the half-building.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/a>
the Town Center - 2nd cocina on the left, church on the right<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We arrived in the early afternoon.\u00a0 As we walked from the truck to the village, we saw that they people were marching around the town center.\u00a0 Our friends told us they were parading “the christ.”\u00a0 When we arrived, they had already returned “the christ” to the church.\u00a0 There were a group of about 30 men, called “the Jews” who were dancing around the town center beating drums, playing flutes, drinking, and play-fighting with carved “swords.”<\/p>\n

One of our friends had brought a few beautiful, red hibiscus flowers as an offering.\u00a0 So, before we left, she took Sarah and me with her as she went to the church to leave her offering.\u00a0 When we got over to the church, we got “stuck” outside because the “Jews” had made their way in front of the church and were “dancing” in front of the door.\u00a0 We hid off on the side until they moved enough so that we could run into the church really quick.<\/p>\n

There were two sober men guarding the entrance to the church the whole time with guns.\u00a0 (The guns are just a formality.\u00a0 I really don’t think they could do much damage.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The church door<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They let us through and we were inside the dark church.\u00a0 The light coming in through the door illuminated colorful paper flags strung across the ceiling and along the walls.\u00a0 Four rows of palm branches, two on the left and two on the right, drew your eyes half-way down the long room to the center.\u00a0 There, between rows of candles, on a raised frame sat a coffin draped in a dark cloth.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the coffin, two teenage girls attended two small bowls of coals.\u00a0 One ground incense while the other sprinkled the incense over the coals.\u00a0 Then, she left one bowl to smoke beside the coffin and took the other one farther into the church to the front wall which was draped with more colorful paper flags and moved the bowl around so the smoke covered everything.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t tell what was up front because we didn’t get close enough to see well and the flags were covering everything.\u00a0 But, it seemed by the shape that it was some kind of altar.<\/p>\n

Benches were lined up along the walls on either side.<\/p>\n

As we entered the room, we paused so our eyes could adjust to the lighting and took in what we saw.\u00a0 Sarah and I followed the cues of our friend and went forward to the middle of the room.\u00a0 As we neared the coffin, a hand reached out of nowhere toward our friend with a candle.\u00a0 She took the candle, pulled out some rolled up paper that she had grabbed in the kitchen, put it to the flame on another candle and used it to light her new candle.\u00a0 She placed in on the floor beside the coffin and motioned for us to sit.\u00a0 The three of us went over to the side of the room and sat for a few minutes.\u00a0 There wasn’t much of a view because we ended up sitting behind palm branches and couldn’t see much.<\/p>\n

We sat waiting, not knowing how long our friend would stay and wanting to see if anything else would happen.\u00a0 After a few minutes of waiting on our hostess, she looked at us and asked, “Are you ready?”\u00a0 She had been waiting on us!\u00a0 She directed us to the benches and sat down because she knew we would want to see what was happening in the church and what it looked like!<\/p>\n

We saw so many foreign things – much paganism and deception.\u00a0 But, we also saw the blessings of growing relationships with friends in our village.\u00a0 They were proactive in showing us and telling us what was happening and we were blessed to see them “take care” of us in what was for us, a new context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had talked to our friends in our village about the traditional ceremonies that happen in the cultural center for Holy Week.\u00a0 From what we gleaned, we figured Friday would be the best time to go take a look.\u00a0 As soon as our friends found out we were heading down, our vehicle started filling up! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":304,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[424],"tags":[1094,6662,443],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-culture-language","tag-language-culture-study","tag-nahuatl-people","tag-relationships","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rachel-chapman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}