Palm Sunday

My training town is very Catholic. There are two Catholic Churches in my small town. And all the families that have PC aspirantes in this town are Catholic.  My family is religious and goes to church every Sunday and Palm Sunday I joined them.  They told me that mass would start at 7am but it took everyone quite a while to get ready so we ended up leaving the house at 7:20am. We all piled into the pickup truck and drove to the old church. Everyone was already outside getting ready for the procession to the new church. As we were turning around to drive to the new church, a group of guys approached the truck with stacks of palms and threw them in the truck and we drove them to the new church. As a result, we had great seats in the third row.  The procession arrived at the new church around 7:45am and it seemed like the whole town was there. It was very crowded.

The priest and altar boys & girls were wearing red and white. They processed into the church with a group of men in white with white caps carrying a mannequin. I had to ask who he represented; my host family told me he represented Jesus. I had seen the same statue in Masaya the day before and also in Niquinohomo while driving through on the bus. Everyone must buy them from the same manufacturer. They are all wearing a pretty flashy outfit and have a red hat on, like a short top hat. It was a typical mass except for the procession and the different clothes. The priest said an emotion filled sermon about how Semana Santa is starting and it’s a chance for everyone to reaffirm their faith and that the palms help to do that.

After mass we checked out the food that was available for purchase outside the church and my family didn’t find anything they wanted so we drove to the next town, Niquinohomo to buy some snacks. They bought me a piece of cake, which had icing with a strange consistency, a sprinkling of cinnamon and some raisins. It was pretty tasty. One of my host sisters bought something that resembled a quesadilla, with tortilla and cheese.