A story for Semana Santa - Holy Week

Daybreak. Sevilla.

The noise of a door slamming woke me. I had fallen into a deep sleep having tossed and turned all night. I am leaving to walk the Camino to Santiago today and every time my eyes had closed either anxiety or excitement prodded me awake. My rucksack stood against the wall. I looked at it wondering if I should unpack and repack it again to see if there was anything I had missed or anything that could be left out. I laughed to myself. I’d done that a dozen times already. As I reached into the wardrobe to get the clothes I would wear I caught sight of the black robe hanging there. Memories.

This was what I wore as a Nazareno in one of the many processions in Seville during Holy Week. I had worn it proudly even although some of my friends taunted me that the tall hat made me look like a member of the Klu Klux Klan. I was proud to belong to the Hermandad de la Macarena, the brotherhood or confraternity which each year prepares and then carries the statue of the Virgin Mary called the Macarena through the crowded streets of Seville. There are 55 brotherhoods in the city and they carry over 100 pasos which are platforms with statues or scenes from Holy Week. This is the week when the Church remembers the events of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. Some of the brotherhoods date as far back as the 13th Century. The processions of Holy Week are a long held tradition. It starts today.  Excited as I am about my Camino I have also felt the build up in the town over the last few days. Over 1 million visitors occupy every available bed and cram the streets. Every day there are processions leading up to Holy Thursday when La Madrugá begins. This is 24 hours of continuous processions to mark Good Friday the day of Christ’s death.

I was born into the Hermandad de la Macarena. It is the most important of all of them. The image of the Macarena is famous throughout Spain. My father, his father and grandfather before him were all involved in the brotherhood. People looked up to them. My dad had been the Capataz, the one who directs the paso and gives orders to the costaleros, the dozens of fit young men who carry the float on their shoulders. Often they are hidden underneath. I also performed various roles myself as I was growing up. When I was learning the trumpet in school I was in the band which plays la marcha procesiónal as the paso moves on. I have also been a monaguillo, an altar boy, and also a penitente. Penitentes wear somber robes to symbolize that they are atoning for their sins. In some brotherhoods they walk with their feet bare. Some others wear chains and manacles on their ankles.

The brotherhood meets during the year. The membership is only men. From time to time girls, usually students, have tried to join or even start their own sisterhood. They got nowhere. People just laughed.
Belonging to a brotherhood means learning the traditions. How things are done. There is a pecking order and families like ours who have been involved for generations are the most senior. Members of the brotherhoods each have a heavily embossed metal keyring which they hook over their trouser pockets. It is like a membership badge. Members drink together after meetings when the selection of who will do what next year is planned in meticulous detail.

The churches with pasos have a brotherhood and the local priest is the chaplain. I remember when I was very young the priest came to speak to us about our responsibility to keep the tradition of the brotherhood going. He said we were especially blessed to be brothers together and that what we did was important to God. My chest swelled with pride that year when I was chosen to carry one of the incensarios which sent billows of incense into the air. There were magical moments. We were processing through the narrow streets of the barrio when there was a strange whispering through the crowd. Then they fell to complete silence. From a balcony a man started singing a saeta, a soulful ballad about the Vigin Mary’s suffering as she saw her son put to death. Everyone was transfixed as his voice soared through the narrow streets. As we set off again the capataz whispered in my ear that one day I would be the Presidente of the Hermandad. I was happier than I ever remembered.

I don’t know when the change started to happen. I began to find brotherhood meetings boring. The arguments were petty. Debates about the colour of the ropes holding the canopy over the statue went on for weeks. The election of a new Presidente was like a general election. People took sides. There were rumours about the private lives of the likely candidates. Three of the older and most senior members approached me and asked if I would stand for election. I was flattered and I thought about it seriously. So seriously I decided to speak to a priest.

I hadn’t been to confession for many years. In fact apart from the one or two occasions when the Brotherhood went as a group I didn’t even go to church. In truth I wasn’t sure whether I even believed in God anymore and there were certainly things about the church I didn’t accept. As I waited at the door of the Cathedral for it to open a figure approached wearing a hat, a rucksack and carrying a stick. This was one of the pilgrims we see in Seville from time to time. He looked at the ground and I followed his gaze. There was an arrow inset into to pavement. It pointed across the road. I looked and there on the wall opposite was another arrow pointing right. I watched as the pilgrim followed the arrows until he was out of sight. I decided what to do there and then.
I told everyone that before I agreed to stand for election I would make the pilgrimage to Santiago. To a man they said they thought I was crazy. But I set out.

36 days later I sat in the Cathedral of Santiago surrounded by other people I had met on the way. With some I had formed life long bonds. These were my fellow pilgrims. Along the way I had realized that I wouldn’t find the God I had lost in a theatrical tourist attraction carried through the streets of Seville but in the kindness of strangers and the tenderness of new friendships.

I never did stand for election. When I got back everything seemed different and I felt I wanted other things, including walking another Camino. You see I’ve joined another fellowship now. I have no idea who the other members are that I have yet to meet but I know they will be there along the way.

This morning as the drum sounds and the processions start I wish them well. I have to go by a different road.

A story - The benefit of the doubt

The benefit of the doubt

As the pilgrims filed into the albergue they were too busy finding their place for the night to notice the scruffy man sitting on one of the beds. His head was down, seemingly minding his own business.

This was Paco. 53 years of age. Originally from Valencia, he had fallen on hard times and like all Spaniards, he knew about the Camino to Santiago and the “free” accommodation for pilgrims. Over the years when times were tough he got a credencial and took to the Way. He knew he could wash and sleep and often the rucksacks of the pilgrims made rich pickings.

In truth Paco hated pilgrims. They were too good to be true. All fresh faced and full of the milk of human kindness, their enthusiastic camaraderie and public displays of friendship were just too much.

He felt the same tonight as he sat on his bed. He could see them in the kitchen preparing a meal, smiling, being nice to each other. He watched them sit down to eat with his resentment kindling. A pilgrim asked them to hold hands and say grace together and Paco’s bitterness rose like bile.

However when one of the women began to serve the food an image of another woman, his wife Anna, serving the family at table, flashed through his mind.

Then Paco heard them talking together. It was like Babel, many different languages, and yet somehow they were communicating. At the end of the meal they went upstairs. As Paco heard them begin to sing he was drawn to the sound. The room was lit with candles and a fire burned in the hearth. Their faces glowed. He hung back in the shadows.

Memories flooded Paco’s mind. Anna, the most beautiful girl in the neighborhood marrying Paco the most eligible boy. The boy with prospects. Setting up home, being promoted to manager of the factory. His two daughters. The loves of his life. The bittersweet memory of reading them bedtime stories. Tear pricked his eyes as he could almost smell the scent of soap and freshly laundered pyjamas when he kissed them goodnight.

As the pilgrims sang their songs scenes from Paco’s life appeared before his eyes like a fast moving film. Work pressures, money worries, his sick mother. Having a few beers after work which soon became many. Fights with Anna then spending more time in the bar than at home. Anna’s ultimatum – clean up your act. He tried so hard. To go straight home. To stop drinking altogether. He even joined a gym.

But soon he was drinking more than ever. Everything got worse. Paco shuddered as he remembered the lost nights, the infidelities, the borrowed money. The debts mounted. The bank sent an eviction notice which he ignored. Then another.

His colleagues at work had been saving up to send one of their terminally ill children to Disney World. A final gift. The cash collected over months was in the safe in the factory.
Paco told himself he would borrow the money to pay a few months’ mortgage and replace it before it was needed.

To celebrate the solution he went for a drink. He awoke next morning in a bed in a seedy hostel. He had only vague memories of who he had been with. The money was gone.

Public disgrace. House repossessed, his wife filed for a divorce, unemployed and charged with theft he could almost have coped with the derision. He couldn’t cope with the look in his daughters’ eyes.

Reviled and rejected Paco took to the road. He hated himself and other people in equal measure.

He was brought from these thoughts when the pilgrims started to sing again. He knew enough to make out some of the words, “Amazing Grace, saved a wretch like me, lost and found, blind but now I see.” Then as the pilgrims held hands and began to say together, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” the long forgotten prayer came to Paco’s lips. He mouthed the words to himself.

There in the candlelight an idea slowly emerged in his mind…then it came with a rush. He would do the pilgrimage himself. Start tomorrow. Atone for his sins. Make a fresh start. He wouldn’t steal in albergues and he’d stay sober. He would do it for Anna, for the children, for the dead boy whose money he stole. He would do it for himself. He would walk with these pilgrims. Talk to them even. Maybe their enthusiasm for life would rub off on him. He planned to clean his clothes and smarten himself up for the morning.

The official with the stamp turned up later than usual and he joined the queue to get the sello on his Credencial, with a new resolve. He was now a real pilgrim. He handed over his Credencial with confidence.

“This last stamp is for an albergue on another route two days ago.” The official then proceeded to examine every previous stamp muttering the different dates in disapproval. "This albergue is only for real pilgrims," he said.

Paco was aware of the restless queue of tired pilgrims behind him. He tried to explain, " I wasn't a real pilgrim before but I want to be one now," he blurted. With a weary look the man handed him back his credencial and looking past him said "next please, this man is just leaving."

Via Serrana final days

These final days have almost been washed from the memory by the prodigious rain which has fallen in Andalucía. There is a friendly rivalry between Galicians and "Los sureños", the Southerners. The Galicians think that the people of the south are too loud, dramatic, over the top. They disparage their way of speaking where words are diminutised routinely. So a beer becomes una cervecita and a plate becomes un platito. Actually this sits rather well with we Scots where we use the word "wee" with several meanings, so "After I'd been out for a wee drink I had a wee fight with the wife" means just the opposite!

But at the heart of the North/South tension is the weather. The southerners think that northerners are as cold as their weather and Galicians are just jealous of the weather in the south. Until now.

My friends in Málaga say that when it rains they can count the drops on one hand. Not in the last week or so.

Over a substantial breakfast in the Hostal Bobi (we had to tell them to stop bringing food) we looked again at the weather forecast. It hadn't changed and rain was forecast for the next few days. The streets were wet but the promised downpour didn't materialise which was just as well because the arrows were not clear at the exit of the town and we took some time to find and record how best to join the route. It is worth saying though that in general the route is very well waymarked and many of the yellow arrows were fresh.

We decided quickly that the route couldn't possibly be 12 kms along the side of a busy road and after some backtracking and searching we found the way through disused farm buildings and as we walked along a path through the olive grove an arrow appeared. All was well.

There followed an unremarkable 4 kms by the side of a busy road before walking through fields and entering El Coronil. The Hostal Don Juan is one of the options and was very pilgrim friendly with a place to hang washing and clean boots. The woman said that there are many pilgrims in better weather.

Next morning we were up and out to walk the 20 kms to Utrera. The great plain surrounding Sevilla stretched before us as far as the eye could see. This is the meseta. The dark clouds which had been glowering at us passed over and shafts of sunlight lit up the ploughed fields. From far off we saw the dust rising as a horse drawn carriage approached. This was like a scene from a Western. As it drew close we saw 6 mules pulling a cart with father and son delivering sacks to a local farm. They stopped to chat and the father explained to his son that we were pilgrims walking to Santiago. He pointed North with a gesture that it might be as far away as the moon. Then they were off.

We continued to enjoy the monotony of walking the meseta. I think that there is a particular beauty in the rhythm of walking these straight paths the destination in the distance growing closer at a glacial pace.

Much later in the day as we entered Utrera the son of the horse drawn pair we met earlier passed us on a homemade contraption comprising a sledge pulled by a mule with a kitchen chair for a seat. He shouted encouragement and also some surprise that we had got this far.

We checked into the Hotel Vera Cruz which was the most expensive of this Camino. We ate well locally and breakfasted well. However the weather was breaking and our luck with the weather did not hold. There are some 33 kms from Utrera to Sevilla on flat roads and paths. Many would do this in one stretch. We decided to stop in the cummuter town of Dos Hermanas. The rain was heavy and icy. I could have coped with that but I found much of the way amongst the ugliest I have ever encountered including 8 kms straight along the side of a railway line where we had to pick our way through mountains of litter, rubbish which had been dumped illegally and at one point an open sewer. This section has little historic authenticity and let's hope that the Amigos and local councils find a better way.

The following day was a quick march in basically a straight line into Seville. Arrival came as some relief as the rain was literally bouncing off of the roads.

In summary. I found this a wonderful route in spite of the early challenges and the ugliness of the final kilometres. Waking from Jimena de la Frontera and then again from Ronda I encountered stages as beautiful as any I have walked. The route is not "historic" and in parts substantially follows local hiking trails. There is a train line linking the towns in the early stages meaning it would be possible to be based in either Jimena de la Frontera or Ronda and to either skip or walk the most demanding stages without carrying a full rucksack. This plus accurate milages and accommodation will be described in the walking notes which will follow.