The family that cares for the statues at the Goa Velha Church

For generations now the Mendes family from Goa Velha has taken the initiative of dressing up the 31 saints for the procession that took place on Monday. “We have been doing this for the last four generations or possibly even more. My father used to go with a neighbour who used to dress up the 31 saints. Since the neighbour had only daughters, who were not allowed to dress the saints, he would ask my father to do it. Even my father wouldn’t allow the girls in the church to dress the saints, but when he started growing older, he let my sister Linette take the initiative. This feast is very dear to our hearts,” says Alfred from the family.

All the saints are entirely made of wood. “Teak is mostly used to make the statues, which makes them very heavy. The statues can be dismantled,” Alfred adds. Thomas Carvalho, Linette’s husband, who has been helping the family during the procession or many years, says, “All the saints have a number painted on them. The same number is on the hands, legs, heads, and bodies. We take around two weeks to get them fixed and we have a few people who help us. By now we know the statues so well that we don’t even need to look at the numbers.”

Every saint has two to three dresses that need to be worn and the Mendes family makes sure that they get them ready themselves. “It’s a very prestigious event for us; we work on it for over a month. The statues are kept in the store room on the church premises and we don’t allow anyone to carry them. These are very precious and if you let workers do it, they could be careless and drop them. We don’t want that happening,” says Linette. They are now training their children to also take up dressing up the saints. Andrea and Lyra, kids of Alfred and Linette, say, “We love to come here and help our folks; one of us does the ironing and the other one helps in cleaning the statues or the planks. It’s a team effort.”

Monday saw the parishioners of St Andrews Church, Goa Velha, congregate to celebrate the procession of saints, which saw about 1,000 people in attendance to see the procession of 31 saints’ statues being carried around the village.

Earlier, only locals from the village of Goa Velha were allowed to carry the saints. “Back in the time, we would have so many people at the procession. But over the last few years, many have migrated to Europe. So the village has fewer locals to take part in the procession. The church invites locals from other parishes,” says Melwin, a parishioner from Goa Velha.

“Out of 5,000 people in the village, about 3,000 have migrat ed and the remaining are only the elderly and children. This is the reason we invite those other churches in the locality to be a part of the procession,” says Fr Emidio Pinto, parish priest of the Goa Velha Church- St Andrews.

There are some who make it a point to be a part of the celebration by either flying down or connect online. “My brother Teodoro would always come for the procession, but due to some issues he couldn’t make it this year.

We have now connected with him on calls, videos and chats. This way he is a part of the feast while he is still in UK,” says Linette Mendes, from Goa Velha.