a bit of Fallas

I potentially may have just lost my mind. Valencia is in uproar—a normally 1 million person city filled to 3 million with foreigners all over the globe. Every March marks a fiesta called Fallas. This provides a weeklong holiday from classes and most work where city divides into 385 small barrios and each builds a group of statues/puppets/monuments. The rich barrios can be enormous, up to 5-stories tall. These scenes depict a general satire on what is negative in society—corruption in politics, sexual perversion and general burlesque exaggeration. The artists spend all year designing and constructing them, and come Thursday they all burn to the ground. Absurdity, right? Apparently it symbolizes the removal of all that is bad, a cleansing process if you will. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. And naturally, the Catholic Church has to redirect these ‘pagan rituals’ and it is now considered “Día de San José” to celebrate the poor forgotten father of Jesús. The children and adults who are “falleros” wear fancy 1800s gowns, and have parades to offer flowers that construct a 40-foot tall Virgin Mary. Beyond the monuments and people, the fiesta consists of petardos y mascletas, the Spanish way to celebrate blowing up dynamite. It’s not uncommon to see 4-year-olds running around with not-so-small sticks of dynamite, ready to throw at an unsuspecting victim. The real problem is the borrachos (drunkards) with the firecrackers. It’s also a regular sight to see a large crowd running from a poorly placed whizzing firework. The noise level from about 9am to about 5am in the ‘night’ is next to horrific; imagine snare drums sporadically drumming the floor of the city. I find the only way to survive is to embrace the chaos, and abandon all ideas of normalcy.

The Spaniards use their fiestas to find a sense of belonging and build community. The entire city eats, drinks, and dances in the streets of their barrio, and my family does not disappoint. Our small flat which usually just houses my madre and I, hosts my host-brother, wife and daughter, and my host-sister, husband and two sons. Any shreds of order left upon arrival of my naughty little ‘nephews’. I find them regularly hiding my jewelry, drawing on my notebooks and bulletin boards and playing on my computer; as they are ages 4 and 6 it’s a wonder that it’s not all broken. Despite their mischief, I find myself enjoying my family, the noise level and the food and music filled streets. They have truly invited me into the intimacy and chaos that bonds a family and I could not be luckier. Last night my niece and nephew fought to tears over who could sleep in my room with me… In the end they shared a bed, and joined me. I admit I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when it’s all over but for now I am living and living deeply. This truly is my Father’s world, and the farther I get from stability the more my heart irrevocably becomes attached to a place and a people so strange and beautiful.
(Wed, March 15th, 2009)