March 29, 2024
In Almeria: Day 5, Part 2
So are you getting sick yet of reading about how much we love our apartment here and how perfectly situated it is? In that case, maybe you’d better close the window at this point and come back tomorrow.
Still here? Okay, but don’t say you weren’t forewarned. It was such a rich experience last night, watching the whole, long procession pass beneath our window; and then witnessing the one this morning was exceptional too in a different way. We had ringside seats for two processions just twelve hours apart.
This evening was different again, and in some ways maybe the best of all. This time, the procession didn’t just pass down our street - it began here, directly across the street from us, emerging from the door of Santiago’s church!
At this point, we’ll put in a plug for this place, listed in Booking.com as KS Tiendas 8 (because its address is 8 Calle de Los Tiendas). If you’re thinking you might be in Almeria yourself next Semana Santa, you might want to reserve a place now.
All three processions (all four, including the one we had to go out in the street to find) have been distinctive and magical, but today’s was special in a new way just because of the fact that it began right in front of our eyes. For almost an hour before the doors of the church opened and started spewing out hooded penitents we enjoyed watching the crowds assemble, the children play, and the participants arrive at the church - some apparently checking their program notes, others arriving with their mothers or fathers who help the young penitents put on their hoods. With a vendor below distributing popcorn, the atmosphere reminded me of crowds lining the streets waiting for the peloton to come through on a stage of the Tour de France.
It is all quite charming and endearing, but we especially enjoyed the children: three young girls repeatedly run up to the church doors and pause there as though they’re listening for sounds of life on the other side before running back to the street again. And on either side of the door, youngsters are perched on the ledge waiting for the show, some young enough that their parents lifted them up there.
This all goes on for a long time - well over half an hour, during which the crowd in the street grows larger, and larger, and larger. To the north the street is solidly and densely packed for about two blocks, with others still streaming in. To the south though, the crowd is split in two as far as the intersection, packed against either side of the street but leaving the street itself clear. It’s obvious which way the procession will turn when it emerges from the church.
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And then, finally, the doors open. The cross bearer is first of course, and then the lead (and only, for today) musicians: a bassoon and clarinet again, but an oboe or English horn this time instead of a flute. And then the first group of penitents emerges in pairs, their candles lit and tipped together in an apex. About six rows of them are visible inside the church in front of the first Paso, but new ones keep emerging in from the wings on either side in a seemingly endless stream.
Finally the last of the penitents is out and on the street slowly walking between the two walls of spectators, and the first of the pasos starts inching toward the door. You can see the feet of the front row of bearers shuffling forward in baby steps of just a few inches at a time as they follow the instructions being barked from outside by their handler. They reach the door, and the Paso just barely fits - there can’t be more than a few inches of clearance on either side.
As the float slowly emerges, the children standing on the ledges repeatedly reach out to touch it, as do the front tier of spectators on the street. And then I stop taking shots and flip the phone to video mode so you can see for yourself how painstakingly it makes its way into the street and executes a 90 degree turn. Its a remarkable thing to watch, as the entire production is - a masterpiece of choreography, planning and engineering.
But I botched it. I didn’t get the camera into video mode after all, but burst mode. I’m so sorry. Fortunately I took a few stills of this float afterwards, but you’ll have to imagine the rest.
Fortunately though, this is a two Paso procession and there’s still time for some learning to occur before the second one mobilizes. With Rachael watching over my shoulder to make sure I don’t screw up again, I get the camera rolling and keep it going until the Paso rounds the corner and disappears from view thirteen minutes later.
Thirteen minutes is a pretty long video Rachael observes later, taking more than a gig of storage. It’s too large to export from the phone, so she spends the next hour studying manuals trying to figure out how to export it to someplace where we can work with it. She eventually figures out how to split it into thirds in secured files, export them to Google Photos and then download them to her iPad,and then together this morning we worked through all the pieces to prune it down to a manageable five minutes:
And that’s the end of the show. The procession has turned the corner and the thousands of folks in the street follow after it. Once the tail end has passed by, the folks at the church that have managed this part of it look at each other, beam smiles and exchange warm embraces, then reenter the church and close the door behind them.
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