- Easter parade that beat Moomba any day
- Volunteer work with Constru Casa
- Toasting marshmallows on steam from a volcano
We were lucky enough to be here in Antigua during Easter week which is known here as Semana Santa (Saint's week). We were intrigued by the parades which involve men dressed in purple or black robes carrying massive floats depicting Easter scenes of Jesus and women dressed in white or black carrying slightly smaller floats of Mary. Some of the floats weigh in excess of 2 tonnes and are carried by up to 90 people.
Each float is accompanied by scores of other people dressed similarly, a full band and heaps of onlookers. It was so interesting to watch and be a part of buzz around town.
Another part of this festival is the creation of beautiful carpets on the street made from either coloured sawdust or plants/seeds. We enjoyed watching groups of families or friends work together to create these gorgeous pieces of art. Often they took hours to create and the sad thing was that the paraders would come and walk all over them!
It was great to see and made us feel a little like Easter. Although, on Good Friday and Easter Saturday it felt like you couldn't turn a corner in Antigua without running into Jesus or Mary being carried by some poor souls.
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| Boys carrying a Jesus statue |
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| Girls carrying a Mary statue. The parades go on for hours and even through the night |
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| A sawdust carpet |
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| A flower/seed carpet in the making |
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| The parade walks over the carpet |
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| The biggest float we saw - the crucifixion |
Volunteering
Now I know many of you thought it was strange that I had got myself roped into volunteering at a construction site. Well, you were not let down.......after two days on site shovelling sand, gravel, dirt and concrete I flaked with a sore back and took a few days off. I returned in the second week doing half days and assisting where I could.
Mark continued on (of course) pitching in enough for the both of us. His many and varied jobs included shovelling and block work as well as assisting to put the roof on one house and cementing in the bricks on another. He got to be good buddies with the masons despite minimal language on both sides.
The house we helped build is for Flor and her family. We were lucky enough to meet them on our last day on site. It was a really emotional experience which made us reflect on how lucky we are to have all that we do. Flor is taking care of her parents and 3 children. They will live in a 3 room house.
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| Lunch with the masons |
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| Mark & I with Flor and her family who will llive in the house we helped build |
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| Preparing bricks for the masons |
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| Making cement - all manual work, no mixer here!! |
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| the chicken bus we take to/from work |
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| Building a wall of the house |
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| Mark 'working' on site |
About the project
Constru Casa is a non-government organisation which builds homes for needy families. The project requires the family to own the land on which the house is built and repay 1/4 of the cost of the house over 2 years. A family member or friend is also required to assist professional masons in the building of the house.
The houses we worked on are for families who lost their homes in the floods a few years ago. The land was given to the families by the municipal government in exchange for the land they own on the flood plain. In total there is room for 16 houses on the land.
Visiting Pacaya Volcano
Apparently no visit to Antigua is complete without hiking Pacaya volcano so we signed up for the very expensive tour ($10 each). Traffic on the way there was crazy, an accident had backed traffic all the way back up the hill. After waiting for a short time behind a ute carrying a whole family (complete with baby younger than 1 year old) our driver thought it would be more efficient to simply drive down the opposite side of the road and push into the banked up traffic when faced with a car travelling the correct way up the road! It worked, we made it to the Pacaya national park without too much delay.
The volcano last erupted 11 months ago so we weren't able to trek to the peak on account of the steam still rising from there. The trek was interesting with the volcano rock resembling a moonscape. In the area we were able to visit we toasted marshmallows over 'vents' created by small caves in the rock. Quite tasty actually and without the smokiness of marshmallows toasted on a fire.
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| Antigua with Pacaya volcano in the background |
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| At the peak of the hike (smoking summit of Pacaya in th ebackground) |
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| Toasting marshmallows. The heat from this vent was enough to ignite the sticks in the picture! |
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| Pacaya volcano |
