Turns out, December 8th in Barranquilla is the first official festival day of the holiday season. Some say that after this day, it’s the start of the festival season…as in, festivals and celebrations start now and pick up until Carnival, which happens the first week of February. While I can’t vouch for that, I can say that I have never heard of a holiday with such a religious name comprise so much fiesta-ing!
Technically the day celebrates the immaculate conception of Mary..which involves the concept that in order for Mary to be a virgin her mother would have had to be immaculate as well…so apparently this transformation took place on the eighth. I could be quite wrong about this. But I’m pretty sure that was explained to me in English, so who knows!
The formal tradition of the night includes candle processions, where children and adults carry small candles in lanterns made of colored saran-wrap and wood through the streets. Perhaps not the most fire resistant materials, but they look pretty! Some women even dressed in beautiful traditional costumes, including white tops and full skirts embroidered with colorful threads and splashed with glitter.
The parties started the evening of December 7th. Many families had parties that night for various things before the holiday festivities started; I ended up at a volunteer’s family’s celebration for a high school graduation where their uncle cooked chicken with mushroom and Jamaica flowers, carrot rice, and a mashed potato soufflé of some sort. Delicious.
As a sidenote, I’ve finally figured out that there is a distinct difference between “reunions” and “fiestas,” even though they can be comprised of the same people, and both are almost always attended by family members and close family friends from ages zero to ninety. In case you were interested, turns out a “reunion” is the sitting thing, where everyone sits in a circle and has a progressive dinner with such delicacies as bologna wrapped dates and tuna rice. A fiesta is lots of drinking and dancing. Events such as birthdays or graduations can be celebrated with either reunions or fiestas. Both are considered highly important, both are full of family (as in, fiestas are not just for young people and/or friends) but they are very different, and the two words are never swapped, here…which leads me to believe my family thinks I’m a crazy partier, since I’ve told them I’ve gone to multiple “fiestas”…except sometimes these were “parties” of the American style…such as “baking parties,” where we made cookies. And ate them. And ate some more. Anyway. Fun cultural distinction of the week!
But back to the Immaculate Conception--having thought that my abuelos had mentioned a family event, I went home around midnight to see what was going on. They were highly surprised to see me, expecting me to be traipsing around the streets all through the night, as apparently all the other normal, non-septuagenarian Barranquillans were. But with taxi prices shooting sky high, I couldn’t afford to travel solo to any other place in the city, so I took a catnap until 4am. After my senile grandpa got over his surprise that I was in the house for a second time, we lit candles underneath the lanterns, turned on our very own competing sound system, and sat outside our house to listen to the smorgasbord of Colombian music exhaling from each doorstep while the sun rose. We sat there until every last of the ten candles had burned to the tile, and I retired to my room around eight.
A bit anti climactic after all the buildup for this holiday, but I guess I have a few more years to get this one right!
Pictures of our pretty candle row:
Sun has risen
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