Good Friday in Cholula

Today is Good Friday in the Christian religion and Mexico is a very Catholic country (generally speaking) and I was able to hang out in the centro of Cholula (San Pedro Cholula) and see all of the morning festivities. People were preparing for the procession of statues by finishing their tapetes; they are these colourful images made right in the middle of the streets. Anyways, it was interesting to observe all of this and I haven't ever really seen anything like this in the United States. The tapetes are full life and colour and were, for me, the highlight of the day. Of anything else that I have learned about the people here in Cholula, I know that they like to have parties and festivites whenever they can (there are more than four hundred parties a year- you do the math- usually more than one a day). I truly enjoyed seeing the ways in which the cholultecas celebrated Good Friday.

These are just very impressive tapetes or arrangements of different images made from stenciled paper, sand, coloured wood chips, etc. When I got into the centro, some people were still working on their particular sections before the procession started. The colours are brilliant and varied; just as I like them. This experience was fascinating and I thorougly enjoyed walking around and admiring this artwork.

So these are some of the pictures that I took of the procession. My friend Paloma and I had to go up some sidestreets to avoid all of the foot traffic and find a place to observe instead of participate. I just have never seen anything like this and even though I am not a Christian or more specifically a Catholic, religions fascinate me; ideas, beliefs, practices and the iconography of this procession, for example, is just interesting to witness.

I like these pictures because they show that there are a lot of people in this procession; also, the flowers are significant because, as I see it, they represent life. I suppose this could be quite meaningful for Catholics and other Christians alike, particularly during their celebration of this weekend and all that it means to them. Somehow I was able to find a pretty good vantage point to take these photos and not be caught up in all of this (or be trampled by all of these people).

These last few images are of the streets at the end of the procession. Some parts of the sidewalks were lined with flowers which were very pretty. Vendors were setting up their different things, getting ready to bargain and sell their products. Also, the last two pics are of the street images or at least what was left of them after the procession passed on by.