Alfombras (Carpets)

Last Sunday my host family and I went down a couple of "blocks" (houses aren't actually divided by streets it is more continuous) to my hoist mom's family's house to make an alfombra (carpet) for the religious procession later that evening. When we arrived at 11:30am the men of the family were already laying down the four wood planks to make the outline of our to-be rectangular carpet in the street. Up until lunch at 1:30 it was me and the men working on the carpet. The women were inside making lunch. After lunch the majority of the family worked together to finish the carpet. It as finally completed at 6:30. So much work! I'm glad that I got to participate in it, but I don't feel the need to spend my entire day working on something that is just going to get trampled on and destroyed almost as soon as it is completed -The processions walk right over all of the beautiful handmade carpets! Today's procession went from the church in the next town over to our church and back again. I'm not sure how many alfombras there were, but I think that most houses made one. They really ranged in size, material, and level of complexity. I think that ours took the cake in all three categories. Others were made of some combination of greens, fruits, vegetables, wood chips, and flowers.  It would be interesting to total up the expense of the alfombras alone for this event. I am sure that it is a lot of money.
I was going to write out all of the steps that went into the making of the alfombra, but even that would take too long. So here is the condenced version. After the perimiters were set about we used a hose to wet the concrete (this was done in the middle of the road - the street was blocked all day). Next, four big bags of the base color of saw dust was poured into the area. Next, it was flattened out so that it was level with the top of the wood. Then lots and lots of water was added to the top of the sawdust to make it completly wet and prevent it from blowing away. Then a border was made with a dusting of another color. Next a panel in another color. Then stencils were used on top of this to make the final design. Then right after the carpet was finished at 6:30 the pro session began. At this point it was pretty dark. The main part of the procession was a big float only it was carried on the shoulders of probably 30-40 people. It was lit up and there was a band playing music. This as a really neat sight.

   

Sawdust colors 

My host brother adding finishing touches

The finished product!