Cubans crawl on rough roads to ask for good fortune

The pilgrims mix Catholicism with Santería to honor St. Lazarus on a day that reveals many of Cuba’s complexities.

The pilgrims crawled forward, some barely inching along the rough ground with hands, knees and elbows rubbed raw. The procession of St. Lazarus is one of the largest yearly religious processions in officially secular Cuba and also one of the most colorful. To show their devotion, thousands of Cubans walk for miles barefoot to the small church known as El Rincón — the corner in Spanish — on the outskirts of Havana ahead of December 17, the day when the saint is celebrated. “It was a tradition of my father’s and I have followed it for 27 years since he passed away. Lazarus grants me what I ask for,” said pilgrim Fernando Valdez, after walking without shoes for more than five hours on broken roads. In the New Testament, Lazarus was resurrected four days after his death by Jesus and became the patron saint of the poor and the sick. Many of the Cubans asking a wish from the saint wear clothing made from rough cloth sacks to represent poverty. Other adherents take their shows of devotion to the extreme, crawling on their stomachs or facing backwards or sometimes with cinder blocks tied to their feet to further slow them down.