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Bob Maddox

Bob is a retired teacher living in the Alpujarra for most of the year with his wife Belinda. His interests include painting, photography and of course writing. He researches his articles meticulously and always manages to include his own brand of humour. Whatever the subject they are ‘a good read’. He has been a keen supporter of the Moor Times and has contributed many interesting pieces since its conception in September 2009.

 

 

 

Articles by Bob Maddox       

 

The Return of El Niño

Bob Maddox recounts his first experience of Yegen's Fiesta de El Niño Bendito.

It is happening again from 2nd - 4th January.  Do come along.

 

As far as I know, Yegen is the only village in the eastern arm of the Alpujarra which considers early January a fitting time to hold its annual Fiesta.  While others party amongst the frantic growth and blossom of Spring, under the sultry heat of August, or in the gentle warmth of a chestnut-spiked  Autumn evening, Yegen chooses to celebrate its existence wrapped in overcoats, mufflers and scarves in the deep mid-winter of its mountain eyrie.  

 

The Fiesta de El Niño Bendito takes place from 2nd - 4th of January and it celebrates the Patron of Yegen, who just happens to be the El Niño - the Christ Child Himself!  Yegen has  no half-measures when it comes to choosing a Patron for itself.  

 

The first signs of the impending Fiesta are the bright flashes and single loud explosions which begin to split the Yegen night from mid December, signalling that The Rocket Man is abroad once again!   It is Fiesta fund-raising time and The Rocket Man tails along with the village Collection Team as they move from door to door with their collecting tins, lit candles and bright smiles to light up the night.  It is the job of the Rocket Man to mark each contribution with a celebratory explosion!  Should the Collection Team be seen or heard to leave your door without an explosion...well, shame on you!  In this way, the village knows exactly who has contributed and more importantly, who hasn't.  

 

I watched fascinated, as The Rocket Man marked our contribution in the time-honoured fashion and in accordance with the strict Health & Safety regulations currently in force, by holding the fat body of the rocket between bare fingers and lighting the blue touch paper from his ever glowing cigarette.

 

The skill comes in releasing the igniting rocket at exactly the correct moment.  Too early and the erupting rocket falls to the ground to ricochet around between walls and the suddenly dancing legs of the Collection Team; or it takes off sideways with predicable results for windows.  Release it too late and the ferocity of the exhaust is likely to transform the flesh of the Rocket Man's hand into roast pork and crackling.  And then of course, there are the faulty ones.  These explode first, before shooting off in whichever direction the stunned Rocket Man happens to have fallen over in.  A retired Rocket Man is readily identifiable in any Yegen bar by the missing digits or other deformities present on his launching hand.  He may also be deaf in whichever ear occupies the same side and occasionally, blind in the same eye.  So do choose your side carefully before you tap one on the shoulder – some Retired Rocket Men react badly to sudden surprises.

 

The next next phase begins around a week before kick-off when a team equipped with ladders and a lorry full of lights appears from Mecina Bombaron to erect the village illuminations.  Down in the plaza, strings of coloured bulbs curl in great anacondas about the trunks of the old Plane trees and hang like electric lianas from their branches, while the Pensionista gets a special dusting of neon-blue fairy lights.  At the junction of every lane in the village, great ornate electric banners hang glowing in the dark alleys between adjacent houses...'Feliz Navidad!'...'Felices Fiestas!'  Happy Christmas!  Happy Fiestas!

 

At the opening of its Fiesta, the village women descend upon Yegen's grandly titled 'Village Salon'.  In reality this is a great cavernous cowshed of a place, but it is capable of seating the entire village population for a meal, plus room for a bar, kitchen and servery and a dance band. The ladies clear the place of its agricultural everydayness, sweep and polish it to perfection, deck it  with flags and make it ready.  In a blizzard of dusters and scurrying brooms, the church is likewise polished and perfumed; from its great metal-studded walnut doors and granite steps, to the furthermost reaches of its hidden cloisters and crannies.  Infinite care is taken over the cleaning and final presentation of the two stars of the proceedings - the effigies of El Niño, the Christ Child and his mother Maria; for they will lead the solemn procession around the village and must be perfect in every detail.

 

Around the village itself, great silk banners printed with the image of El Niño Bendito are taken from boxes and drawers where they have been lovingly stored and hung from balconies and terraces as the great day  approaches.  

 

The high point in Yegen's three-day extravaganza is the Grand Procession of El Niño and Maria through the little streets and narrow canyons of the village.  As the less pious are recovering from the excesses of the Nuevo Año celebrations, final preparations and rehearsals are conducted across the village.

 

Stalls begin to appear in the plaza.  El Dulcero, The Sweet Man arrives from Valor and spreads out his trays of hand-made temptations beneath a great flamboyant carnival sign ringed with coloured bulbs.  The Turon Man appears, with his great golden blocks of fragrant nougat, spangled with almonds.  Order as much or as little as you like and watch him split your portion off with silver hammer and a hatchet.  

 

A coughing 4X4 towing a caravan announces the arrival of the Churros Man with his dough-making machine and his drums of flour and sugar.  Watch amazed as, with the swirl of a stick, he transforms streams of liquid dough into endless doughnut spirals as they empty into a vat of smoking oil.  Order a metre or two of this delicious cooked dough, dip liberally in sugar and wash down with sweet hot chocolate.  Better still, dip it into the chocolate in time-honoured fashion.

 

Down in Plaza de la Ermita, drum-skins rattle and thunder; reeds twitter and brass hums, sings or bellows, according to its nature.   The marching band from Cadiar has arrived.  With its largely teenage membership, it is now in the throes of last-minute rehearsals amidst a carnival of polished brass, mauve uniforms and the odd cloud of blue cigarette smoke.

 

Strategically placed patches of open land, gardens and rooftops are seeded with explosives and fabulous pyrotechnics; sleeping dragons ready to spring into flight as the procession passes. This is serious work and well beyond the expertise of Yegen's Rocket Man, who can only watch from the sidelines as El Pyrotecnico and his team of  wizards from Ugijar unload their scaffolding, cylinders, mortars and skyrockets and plant the village with latent fiery magic.

 

Fiesta is also the time when the former children of Yegen return to their roots for a short while. Expensive cars begin to arrive bearing number plates which show them as having made the journey south from Andorra or Asturias;  westwards from Barcelona or Valencia and eastwards from Seville.  There is perhaps nothing which illustrates more clearly the enormity of the social changes which Yegen and other villages of the Alpujarra have gone through in a single generation than this gathering of its returning children.  For many of these successful, secure and sophisticated adults were the children of the poor – those  who laboured in 1960's Germany and then returned to invest their new wealth in the land and in the future of their children.  

 

One Fiesta morning, I met a  boy in the lane outside .  He was a tall, good-looking lad about fourteen-years old and he approached me confidently and without hesitation, held out a hand in greeting.

 

'Good morning', he said in virtually unaccented English. 'I'm Mark  from Andorra.  I'm here in Yegen to visit my grandparents for the Fiesta.'

 

And there it was.... encapsulated in this one boy.  From semi-literate migrant worker to this - in a single bound!  Little wonder that  so many of Yegen's parents swell with pride at Fiesta time.  They have every right to and I salute them here.  Job done!

 

But this is the night of January 3rd. and tonight, the village will dress as though this were the last night on Earth!  For this is the climax of the fiesta, the time when El Niño and Maria will be honoured in a great procession around the narrow white canyons of their home village.  Everyone must look their best.  The village ladies abandon their everyday housecoats, slippers and aprons for haute coiture and squeeze their reluctant men into shining suits, uncomfortable ties and polished shoes.  As night falls and the plaza begins to fill with the people and guests of Yegen, the atmosphere becomes charged with a strange electricity - as of coming storm, or the moment after a conductor raises his baton to call a great symphony orchestra to readiness.

 

There in the crowd, amongst the swirl of lights and music, a smattering of applause and appreciative 'oohs!', punctuated by the odd irreverent wolf-whistle, announces the arrival of the Riena de Fiesta...Yegen's Queen of the Fiesta a sultry, sloe-eyed teenager with impossibly long legs.  Following an uncertain tottering start on unaccustomed stiletto heels, she now sways her way through the throng in her full regalia, casting irresistible pheromones to the wind to stun and enchant her teenage male peers, who follow grinning and helpless as part of the game and contemplate the impossibility of concentrating on mathematics while sitting near to her in the same classroom next week.

 

A little girl, effervescent with excitement and great moons for eyes, dashes from person to person in the crowd, ribbons flying telling everyone...'Navidad!  Navidad!  It's Navidad!'...lest they should somehow failed to have noticed.

 

By seven-thirty the crowd in the plaza has gravitated to the church doors and begun to ooze its way inside.  Within the group itself, a strange counter-current is at work as certain of the men begin  to shuffle, adjust shoelaces, perhaps pause a moment to cough, sneeze, greet a neighbour or stamp out a cigarette.  It is a near invisible process, but it suddenly becomes apparent that  most of the seats have now been taken by the women and there is, regrettably, nothing that the men can do but to stand outside in the plaza, entrance denied!  

 

The real experts, will of course be lining the back and sides of the plaza overspill; strategic positions from where they may peel away and materialise suddenly in Bar Donaire.  By the time their wives exit the church in the company of the main procession, these worthies will be safely back in their place outside, looking doleful at their loss and smelling faintly of brandy.

 

The procession of El Niño and Maria about their village is a tremendously important hour in the life of Yegen.  This is no mere nod in the direction of tradition.  As they move through the narrow streets and alleyways of the village, El Niño and Maria generate a spiritual pressure wave ahead of them on which the collective hopes and desires of the village  ride, much as dolphins might ride the bow wave of a great ship.  Those  unable to join the procession appear briefly to pay respects and receive blessings in return as the procession passes their homes.   Ancient eyes, set in faces lined by poverty, war and the often desperate reality of Yegen a mere 50 years ago, appear in doorways and windows.

 

'Look, El Niño Bendito!  I have hung out a sheet in your honour. Do not pass me by Little One! Bless my house.'

 

They look out upon the passing river of a rich new generation - at heads, hearts and minds as yet unscarred by history and holding vastly different hopes and expectations as a result.   

What Mercedes was denied even the vision to dream about, her grandchildren regard as  being nothing more than the natural background tapestry to their lives; like the Andalucian sun and the sky over their heads and the ownership of the houses and of the very land itself.  Things unthinkable in the minds eye of a twenty-year old Mercedes.

 

But despite these differences, wrought by history and cemented in recent affluence, there is a great thing at work here; something indefinable which connects the generations and binds them together with an unbreakable thread.  As I watched El Niño, borne high on the shoulders of the present,  passing beneath the windows of a past generation, a single line from an old and near-forgotten hymn sprang to mind....

 

'The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.'

 

El Niño and Maria tour their village atop long platforms equipped with carrying-poles and decked high, deep and fragrant with flowers.  Hidden away within the flowers, a single car battery provides the voltage to illuminate its holy cargo with spotlights.  Maria goes first - for this is Christmas, the time of birth and the mother must precede the son.  In the Easter procession, she follows on; looking for the Son, after having found nothing but an empty tomb.  Both El Niño and Maria are carried aloft on the shoulders of the men of the village - an honour which triggers intense competition.  As the procession winds its way, the bearers change continually, as individuals give way to pressure to relinquish their position.  Following Maria...the Cadiar Band, playing a selection of suitably spiritual melodies, including a wonderfully appropriate brass version of Louis Armstrong's 'What A Wonderful World'.  

 

Following the Band...the first wave of people, some carrying crosses, some candles, most just walking in silence.  Then, swaying in a halo of light...El Niño Himself appears, held high against the night sky and towing in His wake a long train of villagers, silent and reverent and honoured just to be alive and here at this time.  As the procession pauses at the cardinal points of the village, the band falls silent and a great explosion of fireworks splits the night sky as El Niño and Maria are lifted skywards on upraised arms as the cry goes up...

 

'Mira!  Look! See the Saviour...The Wonder!  Viva El Niño!  Viva El Patron de Yegen!'

 

Being to my shame, of lesser spirit than most, I followed the procession as far as Yegen's upper barrio, then returned to Bar Donaire to await the return of El Niño and Maria to their church.  It took a little under one hour before before they and their silent procession rounded the corner below Bar Donaire and swung in towards the plaza and the open doors of the church once again.  At the church doors, the silent reverence broke and a tremendous mood of celebration took over.  

 

For five wonderful minutes, El Niño was lifted high and held swaying on a forest of arms against a brilliant pyrotechnic sky, while a huge bank of loudspeakers  blasted out the final anthem of the night...And it was Celine Dion bawling out 'My Heart Will Go On', the awful theme from 'Titanic'.  And it was oddly perfect for the moment.  And as Maria vanished back inside the church, followed by El Niño, I cried.  Indeed I did; for it was perfect and it was marvellous and it felt true and good in a way in which far too few things can.  

 

'The hopes and fears of all the years...'   Yes.  Mine too.

 

Footnote: Yegen's Fiesta takes place from 2nd - 4th January.  Programmes should be available in Bars El Tinao, La Fuente, Ceci ,Donaire and Muñoz from late December.

 

© 2010 Bob Maddox

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