Picture by Eduardo Nieto, Sur in English

Holy Week in Andalusia: "Las Procesiones"

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Anyone walking over Seville's bridges can hear the eerie sounds of traditional dirges and drumbeats that float up from the banks of the Río Guadalquivir, where the bands who accompany the ''costaleros'' attempt to unify their sluggish marching patterns. Material stores outfit ''Sevillanos'' for the cone-topped ''túnica de Nazarenos''; their lollipop counterparts are displayed in candy store windows. Spanish women take their ''mantillas'' to be cleaned in time for the first procession and prepare their best black dresses. The scent of incense wafting from churches is overwhelming as each brotherhood cautiously adorns its ''cofradías'' millions of pesetas of flowers, candles and precious stones. Only those with either prestige or full wallets can obtain seats in Plaza San Francisco, through which every procession must pass on its way to the cathedral. Others wait in line to buy street seats from one of the numerous sidewalk ticket vendors. The best tickets are for Good Friday; during the 400-year-old procession of ''El Silencio'' and the arrival at the cathedral of ''La Esperanza Macarena'', who, in this case, is the patron Virgin of bullfighters and not the protagonists of the famous Sevillana rumba. While Semana Santa is one of the year's most solemn holidays, the preparations are not only religious ones. True to the Spanish way of life, bar proprietors busily order enough supplies to last the week of celebrations that continue after the ''cofradías'' pass by. After all, what would a Spanish holiday be without a little frivolity?

This text is part of the article by Rebecca Rosenberg published in Sur in English.
Activity by Isabel Perez Torres
Scripts from http://lang.swarthmore.edu/makers/