I ask him if he wears it as a badge of honour. “I’m going to do surgery to take this off”, he says. Grixti says that although he will not be participating as a bearer, he will be involved. “Most statue bearers in Valletta has some form of this”.Īfter Valletta 2018, Dr. He confirms that other gentlemen carrying the statue have calluses as well. “Once you get used to the weight, this becomes so hot with the friction of the wood, you can practically take any weight”. He’s actually very thankful to have the callus. “Sometimes I close my eyes” thinking about having to walk so far and even uphill still. He stresses that carrying the statues in Valletta during this procession, they move from corner to street corner with the band moving in one way and the bearers moving in another way. The crucifixion statue weighs nearly 1.2 tons carried by 10 men. It’s time for me to zone in on his callus that has formed on his back from carrying the statues. Him and his “buddy” carried the “Behold the Man” statue together for years and now they share the honour of carrying the crucifixion statue. Ivan says that for those that do well with this particular statue, there is a great likelihood that that person will do well with the crucifixion statue. He says it is carried by 6 men and weighs 400 kilograms. He carried one particular statue “Behold the Man” for 11 years straight. He began to carry statues even before he considered it serious – so adding to his 30 years. There are 8 statues and each one has its own intricacies and own weight. “There are an amount of years that you’re good at but then you have to be gentleman and that’s it”. To him, this is like professional football. “To be honest with you, I’ve already planned to step aside” he says. He has been carrying statues for 29 years – next year will be his 30th. He recalls looking at the knees of the statue of Jesus and feeling compelled at that moment to run inside the church and write down her name and place it at the base of the cross. He simply wrote her name on a piece of paper and placed that paper at the base of the cross that was part of the statue he was to carry. The intention that Ivan made that year was to heal the pain and suffering of his friend’s finance. He suggested to his friend that he could be at the hospital and just wait or join in prayer at the Good Friday Procession. He recalls that one year a friend of his had a break up and because his fiancèe was so taken back, she attempted to harm herself by overdosing on medication. In fact so much so every year I have a different intention”. After some time talking about his upbringing in Valletta, we dove into his personal passion with statue carrying. Grixti and we arranged to meet at a boutique hotel in Valletta. Thankfully that one more time located the mobile number of Dr. He flipped page by page through his hand written telephone book about 4 times without any success. So we had a name but we needed to locate the number. Thankfully he knew what I was asking for however he had to make a few phone calls to find out who would be the best person to talk to. I returned to the church where the Good Friday procession was run out of and encountered a gentleman and explained my intentions on finding one of the gentlemen that I had witnessed. Three years had passed and I was in search of one of the gentlemen with the noticeable hump on their back. I had later asked someone in Valletta about the noticeable hump on the gentlemen to which the person responded “It’s from carrying the statue.” Another thing that struck me and it’s something that has been with me for over three years now - is one or more gentleman with a noticeable hump or callus on their back. One thing for sure was the somberness of it surely one would expect this in a Good Friday procession but it felt different. A couple of things struck me as being different or unique from the one I had witnessed previously. When I arrived the procession had already started but I was still able to get a good spot on the very narrow St. This procession took place from Our Lady of Jesus (Ta’ Gieżu) church in St.John Street which is located on the east side of Valletta close to the Grand Harbour. I had seen a Good Friday procession in the village of Paola before so I was looking to see one in the capital city. A few years back I happened to be in Valletta on Good Friday of the Easter Week.
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