The holy week experience

I love experiencing how another culture lives everyday and on special days. So spending Semana Santa here (the week leadig up to Easter, holy week) was exciting. As 75% of Costa Ricans are Catholic, in some ways it's a bigger thing here than in Australia. Most people have the whole week off and the shops close on Wednesday afternoon. Even buying alcohol is banned for part of the week. The television was full of movies portraying the life of Christ and the lives of various popes. Town was quite as alot of people headed to other parts of the country to be with family. The neighbours visited with gifts of sweet breads and pastries. My own host family had various relatives coming to stay and cook . They asked me about traditional Easter foods in Australia, and all I could think of was hot cross buns! So they asked me to make some, which turned out quite well. After all the lead up I was expecting things to just get bigger and bigger until Sunday, but everything stopped on Friday night. The shops opened up again on Saturday and people came home. Apparently the focus is more on the crucifixion than the resurrection. Sunday church for us was a bit of a non-event, apparently most protestants down play Easter because the Catholic church plays it up so much. To make up for this, all the staff families had lunch together, exchanging "He is risen!" "He is risen indeed!" and hard boiled coloured eggs. I ended up socialising til about 8pm (considering this is bed time normally, that was a big deal!). I learnt more about how North Americans celebrate Easter too!

The week was filled with a few unexpected, pleasant surprises, involving other cultures.

Some of you will be aware I'm slightly obsessed with Jewish culture and traditions. Before I came to Costa Rica I thought it would be really cool to meet some Jews in Costa Rica, but I didn't think the chance of this happening was very high. I considered asking God to send some my way, but decided I should perhaps focus on Latin culture for these 6 months. Well Thursday night I went to a Seder at the home of a Messianic Brooklyn Jew and his Cuban wife! Turns out they actually know someone I know in Melbourne, which was exciting! The Seder was a very intimate affair, with just eight of us. I only got to go because my boss got sick and thus his family couldn't attend. An absolute bonus for me was that I was the youngest present so I got to ask all the cool questions. Plus James and I were the kids (well we were at least 25 years younger than everyone else there) so we got to search for the afikomen. To hear again how passover points to Christ was wonderful, and to know we were celebrating with millions of people around the world was something really special.

The next surprise was a concert taking place in Vienna. I spent holy week in Vienna 6 years ago and visited lots of sights which were shown throughout the concert. The conductor spoke in German, which to my delight I understood. I got a bit of a "I love Vienna moment" and sort of home sick for it all even though I'd only spent 7 days there.

He is risen! Hallelujah!