VIBRANT TAPESTRIES SIGNAL CEREMONY
Nicaragua marks Good Friday with unique sawdust paintings that date to 19th century
It was about the time the Green Clown clambered aboard the crowded bus, that we wondered, “What were we thinking?”
We had left the tranquilo waters of Lake Nicaragua and the quiet, solitude of Ometepe Island several days earlier to jump into the Easter week, Semana Santa, holiday craziness that has the whole country on the move to somewhere else; and getting there on repurposed North American school buses.
The bus was filled with close to 125 people.
Some were sitting, some were standing; bags on laps, bags on floors, bags squished over doors and even more bags stored on the roof rack.
We were heading north to Leon, to find the mysterious Sawdust Carpet Painting celebrations that take place in the Sutiava Barrio, located in one of the original Indigenous neighbourhoods of the city.
It was then, somewhere between Granada and Leon; or more accurately, somewhere in between the Beatles, It's Been a Hard Day's Night and the Bee Gees' hit, Stayin' Alive, that the clown came on board.
Jolted out of our stupor we looked at each other and just laughed.
Vendors come and go on the buses with regularity. They sell everything from food to health aids. But a scary-looking clown was a first for us. Children in the front seats hugged mothers, some started to cry.
Painted green, looking like a Stephen King version of the iconic fast-food mascot, the clown proceeded to tell a few jokes; we think, because a few passengers dared to laugh.
The clown did some magic tricks, then asked for donations for his show.
With a wave, and an “Adios!” he was gone before the bus had even rolled to a stop at the next pickup point.
Welcome to Semana Santa; where it seems even green clowns and sawdust paintings are celebrated during Easter Week.
IN SEARCH OF MYSTERY
In the disappearing coolness of the Good Friday morning, we head to the Sutiava Barrio, in search of the mysterious sawdust carpet paintings that this Indigenous community is famous for.
While the rest of Leon still sleeps from the nightly religious processions, church events and fireworks of the Easter week traditions, in the Sutiava neighbourhood, people are busy hosing the streets, building wood frames and spreading bags of sawdust.
It will be watered and packed down as the base for the painted sawdust to come.
There seems so little time to finish everything by sunset. Teams of family and friends are well on their way to painting; while others are still building wood frames to hold the sawdust.
We meet Marvin almost as soon as we walk into the Sutiava neighbourhood. He calls out a welcoming, “Hola,” as it seems there are few tourists wandering his neighbourhood so early. Looking for a beverage to quench our thirst in the rising heat that shimmers off the paved streets, we ask where he got the beer he's holding.
“Un momento,” he responds with a smile. Reaching into the cooler tucked in beside him, he hands us two cold beers.
He welcomes us to his barrio, and becomes our tour guide for the day and evening festivities.
He introduces us to family members: one son soon will be off to Quebec on a three-year contract as a welder.
His ironworks shop commands a central position along the main street of the neighbourhood and makes the perfect viewing spot to watch the colourful tapestries unfolding around us.
My wife Yvonne is put to work with Marvin's uncle removing seeds from a stalk. The seeds are part of the palm family, and along with other organic materials like flowers, pine needles, rice or ash are used as accents with the coloured sawdust.
The Sutiava Barrio started the sawdust carpet paintings in the 19th century when one Indigenous family decided to adorn the street they lived on.
The paintings trace their origins back to Europe and the Middle Ages. They were created as a sanctified pathway for Holy Week church processions.
The celebration stretches blocks long, and is filled with dozens of sawdust creations displaying religious motifs from the stations of the cross to images evoking world peace. As the setting sun spreads its rays over the barrio, most sawdust carpet paintings are complete. A few still have bits of accent to finish.
SERVICE OF DARKNESS
After the chaos and uncertainty of the morning work fades, the beauty of it all stretches down streets in every direction. It's like a miracle.
The food vendors are out, busy cooking everything from chicken and chips, to sausage and pork over charcoal/wood grills.
Smoke from the streetside barbecues hangs low against the rays of the deepening sky. Shadows stretch across the sawdust paintings like fingers in prayer.
Corner-stand vendors selling cotton candy and ice cream are doing brisk business with children, families and teenagers.
Music and laughter fill the air amid the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd.family and friends, the spiritual and the curious have descended in the growing darkness to view the finished works and to witness the ceremony known as the Service of Darkness.
After making our way back through the crowds, we return to Marvin and his family. They have saved us two chairs to watch the procession that recreates the death and burial of Jesus Christ.
In the inky night a drum from the church signals that the solemn ceremony is about to begin. The crowd stands quietly and gives way to either side of the sawdust paintings.
Worshippers carry a casket with a statue of Jesus Christ, while others follow behind silently with candles and torches. Walking over these anointed sawdust paintings, the procession winds its way through the barrio.
The slow march is accompanied by drums and other instruments. Those that are gathered alongside the paintings join in behind the procession as it returns to the church. While the extraordinary artistry of the sawdust carpets is destroyed by footsteps, it is also a meditative, spiritual act that honours this creativity.
The celebrations continue until the late hours.
In the taxi ride back to our room, the words of Anais Nin linger: “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”