Las Alfombras

Use your imagination if you will and travel back with us to Semana Santa (Holy Week, post surf board smackdown!) Easter week is huge in Comayagua. Semana Santa’s festivities here are really what put our city on the map. Good Friday is the culmination of the events. On Thursday night beginning in the evening, some are even started as late as midnight, construction of the “Alfombras” begins. What is an ‘alfombra’ you ask, well, in English it means carpet - that word does no justice to the beautiful landscapes created on the alfombras during Holy Week. These carpets are very unique as they are typically made of sawdust, rice, beans, eggs, leaves, hay, bark, and other natural materials. Some of the supplies used are dyed in bright colors to create picturesque biblical scenes and murals in the carpets. Each carpet is sponsored (for lack of a better term) by a family, organization, business, or institute (Hogar de Nazareth – the orphanage even had one!) Each group is given a designated area on a specific street surrounding the town’s square. All of the roads are blocked off on Thursday evening and the work begins! The images are often chalked on the street before hand then string and cardboard cut outs are used to help separate the different colored materials when filling in the design. People work for hours on the carpets, many staying up all night and barely finishing before 9:00am when the ‘Station’s of the Cross’ parade begins. (Here is a click from the parade.)

Ultimately, the carpets are made only to be trampled over, so people get up early to walk around and admire the amazing vivid images that were so delicately fashioned. The Good Friday procession that lasts for several hours and marches slowly around the town’s center, is filled with symbolic scenes and traditions from the different Station’s of the Cross all representing the events that lead to the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The march begins at the designated first carpet, then ends after it has slowly crossed over each one. In addition, there were many stationary sites along the path too, mainly with children acting out the different scenes. There were also a number of males, ranging in age from about 18 months to grown men dressed in robes, sandals, and a crown of thorns baring a cross and marching through the streets. It was a pretty moving experience, different than anything we had ever seen before, that is for sure.

From what we’ve heard the tradition of creating alfombras, or sawdust carpets, in the street started many years ago in Guatemala. Comayagua adapted the custom about a decade ago and it has been a huge hit here ever since. In fact, people travel from all over the world to Comayagua to view the beautifully designed carpets. We have never seen so many people on the streets here - especially of so many different nationalities. The Good Friday traditions here were a pretty amazing occurrence, and we were very glad to have had the opportunity to experience it