I cannot believe it is already April! Yikes! This morning I woke up to a note that was posted that stated that in honor of the upcoming holidays (not Passover, rather, Easter) the archbishop was coming to visit and bless our school. Thus we were told to dress nicely, and if we happen to encounter the archbishop, to courtesy and kiss his ring and when speaking to him, use the title, “Your Eminence.” I of course thought this was so exciting, so I made sure to actually shower when I got back from my run and pick out a nice outfit. In painting, my teacher was excited too, because she had all our best work displayed nicely for when the archbishop was going to come see our studio. Sadly, however, he never came. Much to my and my painting teacher’s disappointment, the whole thing was an April Fool’s Day prank. As many of you can imagine, it took me a long time to fully understand the fact that it was a prank. I guess most people realized this right away, due to the tone of the note that was posted. But of course, it took me the whole day with many people blatantly telling me it was a prank. I am still slightly confused about it.
Friday was GORGEOUS! I had a wonderful run, although class today was a struggle, because all anyone wanted to do was play and frolic outside. In art ed, we are preparing for our additional art teaching day in a much larger elementary school outside of Cortona. Although we still have one teaching day left in Cortona after the Easter festivities come to a close, after, we have a day planned to go down to the neighboring town of Camucia where the school has a full day devoted to the arts. The art ed class is going to be driven there for a few hours to teach an art project and eat lunch with everyone after. Although this is not for a couple weeks, we are planning now to get ready. In book making, we actually went back to paper making temporarily and did a paper making project using abaca with the visiting professor, Zena (the woman who grows her own garden of fibers and dyes). Abaca is a fun fiber to work with because as the paper dries, the fibers shrink, thus pulling and stretching the sheet of paper in various directions creating a rippling, sculptural effect. It takes a few days for the abaca to fully dry, so I have yet to see the ending result of the sheets I made. Later that night after dinner (where I by accidentally sat at the Italian table and had to make use of my extremely limited vocabulary, which was more or less the word gratzie) there was a GIGANTIC procession throughout all of Cortona for the holiday of Good Friday. This is a very important event for everyone here. People come from all over to participate or watch. It was very much worth the long wait in the cold we had to endure before it started. The procession consisted of huge groups of monks, each group in their respective robes and hoods, carrying a huge, much larger than life statue on a big pedestal. There was a large number of these groups processing by, each carrying a different statue. As the statues went by, I realized that they were illustrating the story of Jesus. The entire effect was extremely eerie because the monks were all hooded in a Ku Klux Klan-like fashion, even though the two groups are not at all related. The statues they carried together loomed above everyone in a ghost-like way. All sorts of prayers were being chanted. In the middle of the procession, an actual archbishop marched through (no April Fool’s prank!) At the end of the procession, a group of hooded nuns carried the large statue of the mourning Mary, and following them there was a marching band playing various funeral tunes. I was in complete awe of how the entire community came together for this major holiday and city-wide procession. (I was also amazed at how the monks carried these 10-foot tall statues and even larger crosses up and down the steep hills of Cortona. They must have some major upper-arm strength and incredible balance). Every single member of Cortona, from the very young infants, to the very oldest people were there, either in the procession itself, or watching it go by. Anyone had the option of joining in and processing with all the monks and nuns and everyone. This was a time where I realized that it was a very special moment to be here in Italy; I could never imagine anything like this happening at home.
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