Flores y Dolores

Semana Santa, the holy week leading up to Easter, begins today. It is Viernes de Dolores, the Friday designated in the Catholic tradition for honoring the sorrows suffered by Mary, mother of Christ.

But to walk through the streets of Guanajuato today is to revel in joy, for here, the day of sorrows is also el Dia de los Flores, the day of flowers. It is glorious! Beginning last night, the streets were lined with golden lights and filled with unfathomable flowers: fresh lilies, roses, daisies - fragrant and bright - and delicate paper flowers shaped like calla lilies and poppies, sprinkled with glitter.

Between the stalls of flowers are rows upon rows of colorful paper baskets lined with blown and dyed eggs that are filled with confetti. People run around and break the eggs on each other's heads. The cobblestone streets shimmer with confetti in today's hot sun. There are children's toys - all kinds of dolls and figures mounted on sticks that children carry around like giant popsicles, such that little princess dolls and angels and lambs bob up and down on their sticks above the crowds. And the streets are gushing with people. Families and children and friends stayed out all night, enjoying the churros and tacos and cotton candy in the streets and accumulating bundles of flowers. We've been told that the woman with the most flowers at dawn on Dia de los Flores is the most beautiful woman in Guanajuato.

Mark and I lasted until 2 a.m. last night (maybe our latest night ever), and then we returned to the Centro at 9 a.m. this morning. If anything, the crowds had grown and were more energized than ever. Little girls ran around in pretty spring dresses and painted faces. The fresh flowers and confetti-filled eggs seemed to have multiplied over night. The vendors had been at their posts continuously. One viejita vendor, a little old lady with long gray hair, dozed on the curb behind her piles of delicate paper calla lilies. She had been there all night, sitting placidly behind her bundles of flowers as throngs of people surged by and a brass band blasted music behind her in the Jardín de la Unión.

The doors to churches, storefronts, and homes have been graced with altars to the Virgin Mary. Each altar is distinctive but with common elements: the image of the Virgin sits at the center, framed by draped fabric and banners of colorful papel picado (cut paper), piled with flowers and fruit, and bordered by burning candles.

Tantas cosas tan bonitas.

In the streets of Guanajuato, the flores honor and salve dolores with verve.