Delicious ambiguity at Semana Santa de Sevilla

Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity... Gilda Radner

I decided to take a break from Africa for Easter and head to Semana Santa in Sevilla...not the usual thing for a volunteer working in Africa but necessary I thought.The original arrangement was to meet a friend in Santa Justa train station at 5.30pm but as by bags didn't arrive on the London-Madrid flight, I spent most of Holy Thursday in Madrid airport rather than enjoying the festivities in Semana Santa de Sevilla.

Anyway, not the end of the world, I thought. Draw on your newly learned patience from Africa where nothing works according to plan and you are expected to wait and wait. I'll be a few hours late and rejoin celebrations later that night. I waited from 1.30pm to 5.30pm that day, sipping cups of cafe con leche, eating Jamon Serrano sandwiches and trying to relax..not easy. Tranquillo, I murmured to myself..the bags will arrive soon and then I'll be on my way.

Eventually the bags arrived and I headed straight to Atocha train station, Madrid, to grab the AVE high speed train to Seville. Only 2 hours 20 minutes from Madrid to Seville, a little different from African trains (pole pole) and the Irish rail service which promises improvement with the slogan "getting there"..

I luckily met up with 2 American girls on the train. Deanna was living in Seville for 6 months, and spoke Spanish with a Sevillian accent. Her friend was visiting from Chicago. As I was 5 hours late for my meeting with my friend, my only option was to stay on the girls couch for the night and make contact with him in the morning. Thank you Deanna for your kindness. I would have had to sleep in Santa Justa train station if I didn't happen to bump into you on the train

I emailed my friend that night to let him know where I was and luckily, he was online so we made contact. He came and picked me up... straight to Semana Santa festivities. Despite my fatigue, I joined the festivities on the streets, my nervous energy keeping me going.

The streets were thronged with people, all admiring the procession of pasos, floats of lifelike wooden sculptures of individual scenes of the Passion and images of the Virgin Mary. Some of the sculptures are considered artistic masterpieces, as well as being culturally and spiritually important to the local Catholic population.

The processions are organised by Hermandades and Cofradías, religious brotherhoods. During the processions, members precede the pasos, dressed in penitential hoods, accompanied by brass bands.

The standard structure of a procession is:
A great cross (Cruz de Guía - Guiding Cross) is carried at the beginning of each procession. A number of people dressed in the distinctive pointed hood (Capirote), and holding long wax candles, marching in silence. These are the Nazarenos. Moving between the lines are diputados de tramo, guardians who keep the formations organized. A group of altar boys, acolytes,march behind, with chandeliers and incense, and other servants. Then The Paso follows.

There are 3 pasos, the first one is a sculpted scene of the Passion ; the second is an image of Christ; and the third an image of the suffering Blessed Virgin Mary, known as a dolorosa.
The structure of the paso is richly carved and decorated with fabric, flowers and candles. Many of the structures carrying the image of Christ are gilded, and those carrying the image of the virgin are silver-plated.

A distinctive feature of Semana Santa in Seville is the style of marching of the pasos. A team of men, the Costaleros (literally "sack men", for their distinctive headdress), supporting the beams upon their shoulders and necks, lift, move and lower the paso. As they are all inside the structure and hidden from the external view by a curtain, the paso seems to move by itself. On the outside an overseer (Capataz), guides the team by voice

The crowd behaves relatively normally while Nazarenos are marching, though one man actually pushed me out of the way..I responded with "tranquillo" (relax) to the fanatic. This turns to respectful silence when the images pass. Small children beg for sweets, from the Nazarenos.

So as religious as it sounded, it was a lot of fun. The ambience was intoxicating...crowds on the streets, dressed in traditional dress, men in black suits and the rest of us.. We spent nights eating in terraces, eating gambas con ajo, marinated olives, choco balls with white wine followed by coffee with Baileys. Que delicioso, a big contrast to the fried chicken, greasy chapatis and beans I have grown accustomed to in Nairobi. I made mming noises after every morsel of food I tasted..so When Harry met Sally scene in restaurant..mmmmmmmmm

So next trip, Il Ngwesi, near Mount Kenya next weekend

Stay tuned for more adventures.

.and for those of you not living in Kenya...come visit

Slaintate(slainte + ate)- a blend of Irish & Spanish, meaning cheers to you

Absence from blog

Just returned from one month's holidays in Spain..will update blog v soon with details and some photos. Stressed already and only back in Nairobi one week..

TRUE IRISH GHOST STORY..in honour of St. Patrick

..forwarded by a friend... This happened a while ago, and even though it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock story, it's true.

John Bradford, a 20 yr old UCD student, was on the side of the road hitchhiking on a very dark night and in the midst of a storm. No cars were traveling that night. The storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him. Suddenly, he saw a car slowly coming towards him and stop. John, desperate for shelter and without thinking about it, got into the car and closed the door.... only to realize there was nobody behind the wheel and the engine wasn't on!! The car started moving slowly. John looked at the road ahead and saw a curve approaching. Scared, he started to pray, begging for his life.

Then, just before the car hit the curve, a hand appeared through the window and turned the wheel. John, paralyzed with terror, watched as the hand repeatedly came through the window, but never touched or harmed him.

Shortly thereafter John saw the lights of a pub appear down the road. So, gathering strength, he jumped out of the car and ran to the pub. Wet and out of breath, he rushed inside and started telling everybody about the horrible experience he had just had. A silence enveloped the pub when everybody realized he was crying and....wasn't drunk.

Suddenly the door opened and two other people walked in from the stormy night. They, like John, were also soaked and out of breath. Looking around, and seeing John Bradford sobbing at the bar, one said to the other...'Look Paddy...there's that idiot that got in the car while we were pushin' it.'

Hell's Gate photos

Just returned from a weekend trip at Hell's Gate, Naivasha. Sounds more stunning than the name suggests. Trixie and I decided to meet in a central location on Friday afternoon, to get a matatu to Naivasha. I navigated my way down Ronald Ongala street, past the hellish noise of shouting matatu touts, through the markets pumping out music from the eighties to compete against background noise. How more people don't suffer from sensori-neural hearing loss, I don't know. I had to cover my ears just to survive the noise pollution. Everyone else looked perfectly at home with the 80 decibel noise.

Just as my nerves were about to give way, I sought peace and tranquillity at a petrol station. Only people with cars can enter, so the majority are pedestrians, I perched myself between two petrol pumps and waited for Trixita to arrive. A guard- even the petrol pumps have guards- approached and asked me to move, unaccustomed as he was to Muzungus standing between petrol pumps. Luckily Trixie arrived and we shoved ourselves past the crowd, towards the ticket stand, yelling to get heard. We chose our seats in front, so as to save our sanity.

I chose the paralysis seat, half seat with a bar across, near certain death if there is a road accident, a step up from the seats behind...
The views were spectacular once we pulled out of Nairobbery. Lush rolling hills, large plateaus and green green life. The matatu driver took the usual risks- driving on the wrong side of the road, overtaking on bends. They must give out free Driver's Licences here as they did in Ireland in the old days, as people here drive dodgily. Not that I'm an expert or anything, but overtaking with no view of the road in front is nearly certain to cause an accident

I did mention to the driver more than once
"Oh is that wise. You can't see around that bend"
or
"pole pole, whats the rush?"

He ignored me, of course, or pretended he didn't understand. I will have to alter my accent here as very few people see to understand what I am on about

Then soon after arrival, we change matatus for round two- another back breaking experience from Naivasha town to the Lake. A man approached carrying everything he could possibly sell that day. We wore about 6 hats, several necklaces, odds and ends, all around his neck. He was not impressed when I took a photo of him. But what a sight all the same. A one man shop.

We past several flower farms along the way. Employers no doubt from Europe, in trouble recently for contributing to the Lake pollution. Several fish were found floating dead on the surface of the lake. We past the miserable huts of the lowly paid workers- one room huts, with sheet coverings for doors, a vast difference from the wealthy entrepreneurs who drive in Lland rovers, milking the profits afforded from meagre wages paid to the backbreaking work of local flower pickers

When we finally arrived at the camp. I had to bargain for my bed, something I always like to do after a long matatu trip. We did land on our feet however, managing to sleep in the wing of the owner's cottage as all beds were sold out...to Swedish students. It suited me, a colonial room for two with bathtub ...nice

That night as I sipped my beer, two volunteers joined me at the restaurant overlooking the Lake. An Indian volunteer spoke of his homeland at the foot of the Himalayas and seemed stuck on the idea that Muslim Indians had more interest in Pakistan than India.

As he put it " it's as if they come to my father's house, eat our food, sleep in our beds..they even die in India and still they cheer for Pakistan in the cricket

He repeated this analogy several times in case i didn't get it the first time.

I decided to divert to another subject- travelling in Afghanistan. We were lost in stories of travels past when suddenly in the corner of my eye, I spotted a huge black insect crawling up my knee- a cross between a spider and a giant hairy spiky sea urchin. I flicked it and it wouldn't budge. Then I started to scream, and lept to a nearby chair.

Other travellers were just shaking the stress of Nairobi from their shoulders when I went leaping across them, diving into to one of the nearby chairs. What a sight! I don't know which is scarier; a giant African insect or a screaming leaping Irish woman raving about the insect. You make up your own minds..but it was huge and not a incy wincy spider or caterpillar

Anyway, my heart raced for one hour, so I decided to head back to the cottage to calm my nerves. I'm in Africa now. Massive insects are all part of this wonderful continent.

The following day, five of us headed off in bikes around Hells Gate National Park..a beautiful track lead the way past zebras, war hogs and gazelle. We stopped briefly for photos and then off to Hell- the gears or brakes didn't work but what to do except keep peddling. We hired a guide at the entrance to the gorge, and hiked past lower and upper gorges, lifting ourselves up and down rocks, sliding down ridges, with beautifully coloured craggy edges on the rock

A wonderful sunny day, great to feel part of nature. We past a boy herding his goats, a Masai warrior, dressed in a brightly coloured kanga. By the time we made our way back to the bikes, I was exhausted and had little energy for the 8 km journey.

That night we rested at the restaurant, swapping travellers tales and sipping red wine..no insects this time, except Hippo who had made their way to the edge of the camp, on the other side of the electric fence

Next trip- Lake Baringo for more wild life spotting- hopefully this time, from a distance....

Where's the outrage?

Recently, while reading the daily soap opera paper devoted to rival politicians, The Daily Nation, I came across an article which held a particular resonance for me. The title was "No, it's not easy to write about magical Kenya" by Rasna Warah.

She wrote "it is difficult for many Kenyans to experience the magic of Kenya simply because they are too hungry, too desperate, and too downtrodden to marvel at the beauty of a scarlet sunset dipping into the Indian Ocean or a herd of gazelle dancing across a savannah".

How is it possible for a writer to write about the magic of Kenya when the world around her is crumbling? If Kenya burns, we will all feel the heat, regardless of income or social status. I am finding that all my blogs mention the rotten state of Kenya rather than the beautiful people or sunsets. Every week, another scandal erupts, reminding me of corruption, impunity and total disregard of the political elite for the welfare of their citizens. Already several scandals involving theft of free primary education money, the profit from stolen maize and the pocketing of money allocated for the building of infrastructure, have depressed both Kenyans and foreigners.

But where is the outrage? Why the complacency?Are people so scarred and oppressed that they cannot take a stand?

I have found myself in recent weeks, erupting in uncontrolable rage at the pole pole rate of change here. I realise this is a developing country and that I am not here to impose change on anyone. But day after day, reform seems to creep along at a snail's pace. There is no public outcry at the state of politics or anything else for that matter. Rather a fatalistic notion that this is Kenya and this is the way it will always be.

On a return trip from Uganda, I asked the bus conductor to put on the chick flick "The Notebook" on the dvd player to relieve us from the constant monotony and freakish films they had chosen- a film about Nigerian dwarves pinching women's arses and bribing officials followed by Kenny Rogers Live and then to top it all off, Gospel music. I suggested a change of scene- some Hollywood romance to ease the nerves. After ten minutes, a harmless love scene involving the two main characters (they kissed at the beach), jerked the conductor into action. He quickly changed the film, opting for The tragic South African film "Sarafina" which explicitly shows the violence in Soweto during the aparteid regime.

When challenged about the appropriatenss of this film, one man retorted "we are used to this violence". Hollywood romance does not translate here. Kissing is strictly taboo, reserved for tourists and honeymooners.

I recently imploded when a manager in the organisation suggested that I was doing too much and that we should scale down activities. Scale down to what- nothing?

I am reactive. I have always known that. When I am angry, my eyes bulge, my face reddens and my hands fling about. Its a scarry sight but somehow people find my facial changes funny here. As a taxi driver said to me last night; " you look funny when you are angry". Kenyans seem more controlled in their anger. The stoney faces remain stoney faced. There are no explosions, or drama or raised voices..in front of me anyway. Such repressed anger..even in children. How do they not burst with emotion with all they carry inside?

Cultural differences I suppose- fascinating and unfamiliar but frustrating as hell.

The paper seller on the corner of my road replied "God help us" when I asked him what was in the paper that day. Divine intervention may not be enough to rescue this state. Its up to the people of Kenya to save this place- not the volunteers or the aid workers. A little bit of Kenya protest is needed in regular doses