The ads started recently. This year’s festa major (main festival) was
going to be ten days long and have 200 activities. And I thought to myself, “Geez, can’t these
people think of anything else except partying?”
It was day one and I was walking towards the
Rambla to do my errands. I found the
streets closed off to cars and the children’s parade underway. It was cute as can be and there I was without
my camera. So I ran back home to get it and
devoted the next hour to trying to capture how splendid it was that over 1000
children, from most, if not all the schools in Figueres, were costumed and
parading through the streets, accompanied by homemade floats pulled by farmers
driving their tractors. Anyone not in
the parade was standing on the sidewalks admiring and cheering and clapping along with the music that was blasting through loudspeakers placed all along the route. My photos didn’t come close to doing them
justice. I need to practice the art of
elbowing your way through a crowd to get to the front. And probably other techniques too.
People here do like to party. But they also like to take part in their
community. Festes include some
professional entertainment, but they also benefit from a tremendous amount of
citizen participation. This is true at
all the festes, from the smallest villages to Barcelona the capital.
Sardanes (the Catalan national dance) are scheduled three different times
during the festa, danced in front of the city hall that has been decorated for the
party. I’ve already attended two of
these and have danced both times. While
I’m dancing, I feel part of the community -- a feeling that unfortunately ends abruptly when the dancing does.
No comments:
Post a Comment