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For the month of April, our Globe Guide
travellers set off to discover how the celebration
of the Christian calendar's most important festival,
Easter, varies from country to country,
taking  in Brazil, Guatemala, Spain, Israel
and the Philippines. After that it's
back into the arms of Mother Nature with diving
in Micronesia and trekking across Hawaii.
For something completely different we end up back
in Spain for a celebration of the old enmities
of its warring religions.
Across the Christian world, people take part
in ceremonies marking Easter - the anniversary
of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Merilees Parker journeys to the state of
Pernambuco in Brazil to Nova Jerusalem,
the world's biggest outdoor theatre - a third
of the size of Jerusalem in Jesus' time. Every
Easter eight days of plays re-enacted by hundreds
of actors trace the story of the last days of
Christ, culminating in his resurrection.
In Guatemala, Justine Shapiro takes part
in the colourful Easter celebrations of Antigua,
which hosts three days of passion plays and processions.
In Spain, Christina Chang joins the procession
in Seville whilst Justine Shapiro
is in Jerusalem, where the Christian celebrations
focus on the retracing the route supposedly  taken
by Jesus as he carried his cross to the place
of crucifixion, along the Via de la Rosa to the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
In the Philippines, Shilpa Mehta witnesses
the lengths to which some people go to venerate
the crucifixion with a real life re-enactment
in which a man is truly nailed to a cross.
For something more relaxing, Megan McCormick
finds that April offers perfect conditions for
diving among the wreckage of Japanese ships sunk
by the Americans in World War Two in Chuuk,
Micronesia.
And Cristina La Monica takes a trek across
the virtually untouched island of Molokai
in Hawaii taking in vistas of magnificent sea
cliffs and ending with a cool dip in the pools
of an awesome waterfall.
To end their April dash across the globe, Christina
Chang witnesses a celebration of a twelfth
battle between the Christians and the Moors
in the town of Alcoy, Spain. Unchanged
for 700 years, this feast of colour, pageantry
and history is an exhausting but enthralling way
to close April. |
