This is a town that is most thankful Someone else has died for their sins. Holy Week in Spain is a week of solemn, almost morose processions marking the last days of Christ, observed  by a local citizenry hellbent on turning it all into Spring Break.

   Beginning Palm Sunday, funereal processions wind through Rota’s narrow streets highlighted by high pointed, masked hats too uncomfortably close to what our Klan might have copied a century earlier.

   The processions quite literally drag on all week to no one’s impatience. It’s like waiting for the parade to begin provides the same excitement as watching it in full motion, which in many instances of the evening is difficult to distinguish.

   He was the perfect age for my level of spoken Spanish. I prepped myself.  I looked at his ball of wax and froze. I could not remember the word for wax, or for candle and was only 50-50 on the word for ball. I fell silent, and he soon trundled off. 

   It’s a big week for the bars and cafes making it hard to believe it marks one of the greatest political murders of all time. Think Lincoln Assassination Theater Week.

   The thrills build nightly culminating in a Good Friday procession that starts at 2:00 a.m. the previous middle of the night and concludes sometime afternoon on Friday. Where do all these people come from (and when did they sleep?) but by noon on Friday every square inch of the public squares are filled with beer and wine swilling penitents. 

   It’s a holiday for businesses but a true Black Friday for the bars and cafes which spill customers into overflow areas that we don’t see during a normal week. It’s an Irish Wake for a Sumerian martyr.

   Growing up in New Orleans, the only parades I’m accustomed to are ones throwing fake Spanish coins or gold painted coconuts at the “throngs” crying “throw me something mister!” Here the color-robed Klansmen drip wax from their candles onto rubber balls held by young children hoping to create the largest ball of wax by evening’s end. It’s no worse, I suppose, than coming home from a Mardi Gras parade with a shopping bag full of worthless trinkets and calling it “loot.”

   I did have one opportunity to engage one of the lads sporting an impressive baseball size ball of wax. He strode up and greeted me, “Hola!” I returned it, and then he asked, “Como te llamas?” I was shocked by two things: 1) I was addressed out of the blue by a child, and 2) I understood what he was asking. “Reid,“ I answered.  “Y tu?” “Alejandro,” he replied. 

   He was the perfect age for my level of spoken Spanish. I prepped myself.  I looked at his ball of wax and froze. I could not remember the word for wax, or for candle and was only 50-50 on the word for ball. I fell silent, and he soon trundled off. 

   It was a made-to-order opportunity for a language-level appropriate exchange and I choked. I looked up all the words and realized I had known al of them. I forgive myself for not knowing “nice to meet you,” since I’d long since progressed from that long ago initial lesson. NOT!

   I slunked back home feeling defeated, perhaps much like Jesus looking down from the cross and seeing all the partying going on in his memory and crying out, “Father. Seriously, what was the point?”