Here in Uruguay, holy week is oficially and generally referred to as “semana de turisme” (toruist week) and there appear to be more tourists around. The car park at the supermarket yesterday had a few Argentinian cars in it, and a new restaurant has opened across the road from us.
However Gilberto has been encouraging the congregation to tell people that it’s Holy week whenever someone says “Tourist week” to them! Also this week we have a lot of services lined up! Starting with Thursday we have a service to celebrate the last supper at 19:30, where Gilberto is hoping to have bread for communion like the bread Jesus would have had at the last supper. After this service the church is to be open till 12 for anyone who wants to stay and pray – aparently when he was at college people used to stay up on Maundy Thursday until 6 in the morning singing praises and praying. On Friday we have two services – one in the barrio at 3 o’clock, where I think the plan is to parade round the block with crosses and then one in the parish in the evening both to remember the passion of Jesus. Also we’ve got a service Saturday evening (“it could have been Saturday night when the women found the tomb empty”), and the usual 2 services (barrio and parish) on Easter Sunday.
