Altagracia & Duarte

There were two Dominican holidays last week:

• Dia de Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia (More info. here)
• Dia de Duarte (Another Wikipedia link, here)  

These events also translated into a 4-day weekend. The first holiday, Dia de Nuestra Sra. de la Altagracia was Simon’s first communion. I went with the family to church to watch the ceremony. Simon and his grandmother (my host mom) have been pretty excited about this day for a while. My dona got him a brand-new dress shirt for the day and Simon (who is only 10 but has said on occasion that he wants to be a priest! aw, cute) has been memorizing prayers and studying about confession. So their enthusiasm was enough to have me really looking forward to attending . In short, the communion featured; a lot of kids, their families, and a long mass - pretty comparable in content to most US first communions. The church was so packed. It was completely filled, and some people stood outside, watching the mass from the doorways and windows. The communion began in the afternoon with a parade around town of everyone in attendance followed by a mass that lasted into the night.

The second recent holiday celebrated one of the founding fathers, and democratic leaders of the Dominican Republic - Juan Pablo Duarte. In town there was a long mass for this occasion as well as patriotic speeches in the park, all followed by another parade. Schools, town officials, bands (two) and town groups participated.  

So if anyone’s counting, I paraded twice in 4 days. (Seem familiar? De ja vu of baton, a little) I didn’t twirl in these parades, just walked, so I didn’t really know what to do except to take pictures of people on the side of the road as we went past them. Enjoy!

From the First Communion:

From the Duarte parade:

 

Our school marched, too!

More soon - take care all. Lots of love!

XO


Happy early birthday(s) to my Grandparents who read (& print, haha) every single post! <3