For my non-Spanish speaking readers, Santo/Santa means holy.
Semana Santa is the week leading up to Easter Sunday. A very traditional
celebration in Latin American culture, it takes on many different meanings
depending on the denomination of Christianity.
The workweek ends Thursday at noon, but many take the full
week off. The official religion of the Dominican Republic is Catholic, so there
are many religious processions and reenactments. Unfortunately I don’t have any
great pictures because I was not able to get close enough.
For most people, the week is to celebrate and go to the
beach or to a family country house in the interior of the island. The news is
plagued with tales of horrific quantities of traffic deaths and drowning from
the masses who leave the city to flock to the beach. As Peace Corps Trainees,
we were not allowed to leave Santo Domingo.
The food specialty for Semana Santa? Habichuelas con Dulce,
or literally, sweet beans. I personally am not a huge fan, mainly because of
the texture. This is probably the only food that I have had here that I don’t
care for. It’s blended red beans with milk, coconut, sugar, cloves and chunks
of potato. When fresh, it’s served warm and after that they are eaten cold.
Another common Good Friday food is Bacalao, or codfish.
Normally pan cooked and shredded into a tomato sauce with onion and olives.
Served with rice, duh.
Either way, I was not going to allow the holiday to pass without
doing a little bit of exploring. A group of us packed a picnic lunch and headed
over to the Botanical Gardens to check them out and walk around the grounds.
The Japanese gardens were especially impressive.
After the gardens we made our way to the Malecon, which is
the boardwalk close to the water in Santo Domingo. The Malecon is famous for
the public pools they put out for people to swim in during Easter Weekend.
Public pools, you say? Yep, it’s quite the celebration. Habichuelas con dulce
are sold by the 10 peso plastic cup to kids running around in their soaking wet
swimsuits while their parents look on from the shade.
Another common pastime on the Malecon: Kite flying.
Dominican kids are experts and will make a kite out of any and everything and are
able to fly them just as high as the expensive ones. John and Ivette insisted
on buying one…which promptly plummeted to its demise on the rocky coast.
We stopped for a novia (cold beer) at an oceanside
restaurant and surfed some free wifi before heading back.
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