The city is cloaked in purple, Semana Santa (Holy Week) is almost here. Baeza, a relatively quiet town of 18,000, is going to be bursting with tourists, bands, processions and images of Jesus, in just a few days.
Semana Santa was made famous to the outside world by Sevilla, the capital of Spain's largest provence, Andalucía. Come Easter, most tourists know Sevilla as the city with the ghosts or KKK men parading through town. The images are striking and shocking to the uninformed, including me before I came to Spain. So I asked, wh y the KKK uniforms? Not surprisingly, I received this answer: the costume has always had religious origins, however, the KKK took this symbol and distorted it for their own specialized aims. Moreover, Sevilla and Spain have no penchant to make political or racial statements; they just want a good party, the basis of all Spanish fiestas.
Except, I'll only see the purple banners and the blowing debris of the aftermath. I'm getting out of here. To Madrid, Barcelona and then finally, southern France. I'll be spending the week of vacation hopping from beach to city on the Mediterrean, I'll let you know if any images of Jesus cross my radar.
(Another Spanish fiesta, Las Fallas, Valencia, Spain)
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