Cofradia del Rosario

ANTIGUA, Guatemala--You had to see the faces of these women. Grimly determined pride sort of begins to describe it.

These photos are of a procession I watched today. The Cofradia del Rosario--basically, a rosary sodality--walked through the streets of town carrying a float of the Virgin Mary, in order to commemorate rosary month, which has been October.

Now, this float isn't made of foam rubber or plastic. It's solid wood, ornately carved. And it's not on wheels. The statue of the Virgin is about five feet tall, and I'm guessing that if she's like most Guatemalan religious statues, she is solid wood, too, with gilded fabric robes.

In other words, this baby is heavy. The senior women of the cofradia, all dressed in their good dark blue suits, started out carrying it from the church, walking with a sort of side-to-side sway. Men and some younger women preceded them. A band followed them. Occasionally, someone shot off fireworks.

After a block or two, some of the younger men hustled in to give a break to a few of the women, possibly their grandmothers. But the women kept walking alongside the float. After all, the procession was scheduled to last about four hours.

Here's a slide show of a dozen or so photos of the procession. Note that the foreground, in almost all cases, includes a tourist with a camera. If this kind of thing walks by you, you just have to take pictures!