Participants lay the sawdust carefully and meticulously inside of wooden frames as if they were making a painting in layers. In one of the pictures, I am spraying water onto the sawdust to make sure the wind does not blow it away!
After setting the sawdust colors in place, participants decorate the carpet with local vegetables, fruits, flowers or a combination of all three. One of the beautiful decorating pieces in our carpet this year was the corozo (palm tree pod) which looks like a giant, fuzzy corn husk. Around the carpet, we laid out pine needles from local trees. These pine needles show up in many religious settings. They are biblically important as a sign of welcoming Jesus. But they are used during Christmas too, and they smell nice! Some people say that the alfombras disappear once the processions pass over them. This is not entirely true. The carpets disappear in the sense that they become trampled. Then a garbage truck follows behind to clean up the street very quickly. Sometimes the participants get ready to make the next carpet! Semana Santa is a busy few weeks. Tourists coming into Antigua and create a lot of traffic. This high volume of people also affects the environment in the form of more pollution from the increase in cars.
