We moved here in 2004 and, at first, we knew very little about the ebb and flow of the Spanish year. As we hunted for a house to buy we rented in Santa Pola and, one evening, as we watched the telly, I got really fed up with the thud, thud thud of a couple of drums in the street. It was obviously a pair of lads on their way back from band practice. I went onto the balcony to give them a right rollicking only to find 50 blokes carrying a big frame on their backs and practising that rhythmic swaying that they use to manoeuvre the Easter floats. The drums were to mark time. I turned round and turned up the volume on the telly. We didn't know about the enormity of the Easter celebrations in Spain.
Just before our first Pinoso Fiestas, in the August of 2005, I was talking to a bloke called Ian who'd lived in Pinoso for a while. The first stall holders were beginning to set up and streets were closed to traffic. He pointed towards where Consum now is - Over there will be a stall selling knives, over there is where you'll get the best chips and don't forget to buy a waffle from el Flequi, he'll have his van up by Lothermans. He'll be playing Rock music. Ian had done the fiestas a few times and knew the drill.
Spanish Internet services were not well developed in 2005. I was hunting for something entertaining to do with our weekend. I was pleasantly surprised when I came across a calendar of events for the town of Novelda. The calendar listed what would happen for the Fiestas of Santa María Magdalena, it stressed the growing importance of Carnaval. There was a snag though, to me a serious flaw in a calendar, no dates. Joy turned to despair. I was angry enough to send a snotty email, in my dodgy Spanish, complaining that the town only cared about people whose grandparent's grandparents had lived in Novelda and they should be aware that life in Spain was now conditioned by the arrival of lots of we foreigners. They didn't reply of course, nobody ever replied to emails in Spain in 2005, but they did add dates to the calendar.
This last Sunday I saw an event advertised for a guided tour of the Teatro Wagner in Aspe. I went and did the tour. It was interesting. As we looked around it became obvious that I was the only person who didn't live in Aspe. Lots of people on the tour knew the guide, Mariano, and those who didn't know him directly knew of him. They also knew the local councillors who were shadowing the tour. When Mariano talked about this or that event, this or that local personality and this or that place then everybody else knew what, or who, he was talking about. There was no problem with me being there but why would someone from Pinoso go to an event in Aspe?
The cyclical nature of things isn't particular to Spain. All over the place night follows day, Summer follows Spring and Easter and Christmas (at least in nominally Christian countries) come around year after year in a predictable way. It's the same everywhere and for lots of things from the Grand National to Halley's Comet. The date of Eid ul Fitr Eid is based on the sighting of the Lunar crescent and Diwali is on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Indian calendar. It always seems to me though that Spain, at least rural Spain, is more cyclical and more locally orientated than the place I was brought up.
Spanish people seem to be happy to repeat what they do each year and to do it in the same place. It's unlikely that someone from Valencia would think to travel to the rival Fallas in Denia or that someone from Jumilla would go to see the Easter floats in Tobarra. Spain also seems very keen on the permanency of things even if they aren't that permanent. I often snigger at the posters that say that the Christmas Circus will be in the "usual place" even though it moves every year or the fiesta programme that says that the route for the Flower Offering will be the traditional one. The assumption is that the people who are going to a local event will know where the circus is or where the traditional route goes. One year Pinoso only did the leaflet for Villazgo event in Valenciano even though the town shares a border with three Castellano speaking municipalities!
There is though a feeling of permanece, of repetition, to so many Spanish events and something too of geographical immediacy. As the Easter procession in Pinoso moves along Calle Monóvar it will stop for someone to sing their saeta from the balcony and I'll be as emotional as I get when they shout ¡Costaleros! - ¡al Cielo con El! as Easter Thursday becomes Good Friday outside the Church in Pinoso. Over in Elda the torchlit procession will wend it's way down Monte Bolón at Epiphany. In Holy Week, in Malaga, the Legion will carry the Cristo de la Buena Muerte on their shoulders. On the 6th July at 12 noon they will launch the chupinazo, the rocket, from the 2nd floor of the Town Hall in Pamplona to get the Sanfermines under way and in Elche on the 14th and 15th of August lots of men and boys will dress up to deliver the Misteri d'Elx mystery play in ancient Valenciano in the Basilica just as they have done from the middle of the XV century.
And so on because: to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
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