Semana Santa

The Masatepe Cathedral

Easter  is a huge deal in Nicaragua, even bigger than Christmas. It falls on the hottest month and most of the population has vacation from work and hits the beach the week before Easter Sunday. 

The beach isn't so pretty this time of year!

Last year, we were new here and a little afraid of all the craziness this week brings with it. This year, we ventured out a bit and experienced some of the strange traditions for ourselves. We even introduced some of our country's traditions to the people here and realized our customs are just as crazy as theirs. We had our good friends, the Vogel family from Florida, here with us for all the celebrations.

We began Good Friday by visiting a celebration in the park in our little town of Masatepe. It is called "The Chained One" and apparently, it is unique to our small town. There are men in skirts with colorful ski masks and Dr. Suess looking hats. They run through the streets yelling and dragging chains. It is suppose to signify the anguish Judas Iscariot went through after he betrayed Jesus. There are also Catholic processionals carrying life-size statues of Jesus on the cross. The chained ones ran circles around these processionals. It showed a clear picture of the pagan influences on Catholicism in this country. 

We enlisted the help of our visiting family, the Vogels, and some girls from the a nearby girls' home to color 350 eggs (all donated by a local farmer) Friday night. We were preparing for an Easter party at the church on Saturday afternoon. We invited over 100 children from the community to come and hunt for eggs, play games, hit the piñatas, sing, and most importantly, hear the Easter story.

The kids were nervous about eating the funny-colored eggs. 

Every party needs a piñata or two.

Ella brought our new bunny to show the kids.

Gavin and Jake played for the kids.

Stacy is explaining that the egg is a symbol of new life.

On Easter Sunday, we did the lesson for Sunday School and told the story of the resurrection eggs. The kids also enjoyed making foam crosses to hang in their houses. We wrote "Jesus died for (name)" on each one.

We were invited to the girls' home to have Easter lunch. The kids from the orphanage came over and joined us and a few neighbors from the community. We still had about 100 eggs left, so we hid them for the kids. Of course, we had a couple more piñatas too. 

Sadie helped teach them how to hunt for eggs

Liviana is almost blind, so Stacy assisted her with egg hunting.

We planned some extra special things for preschool the week following Easter. The Vogel family brought along some finger paints and the kids painted pictures of the empty tomb.

Finger painting was another first for these guys.

The next day, we split the class into two groups and took the boys outside for a rowdy game of soccer.

The girls stayed inside and had a princess day. We told the story of Queen Esther and then we painted their nails, curled and glittered their hair, and let them play dress-up. When the boys came back inside, they wanted to play dress-up too. I don't know how the kids could stand to wear costumes when it was so hot, but they were excited and didn't even seem to mind. 

It was a fun and meaningful Easter celebration as two cultures shared their traditions and learned from each other. No matter where we come from, we all can agree that the Easter message of resurrection is the most important and the same. 

Thank you, Vogel family, for sharing Easter with us this year.