Romeria 2010--Viva San Pancracio!

That's right, this past weekend was our romeria! For any of you who don't know or don't remember, a romeria is a kind of festive pilgrimage that usually happens in the country. Our romeria is in honor of San Pancracio (Saint Pancras). He was a fourteen-year-old Roman martyr and is now the patron saint of youth, work, health and bread.

If you're observant in Spain, you'll notice that many businesses have little statues of him in their places of work, almost like the cat with a raised paw in the Chinese culture. As an offering he receives parsley (according to a google search, parsley represents "useful knowledge"). Spaniards also put a 25 pesetas on his outstretched finger coin--that's a coin that has a hole in the middle.

Our romeria begins on Friday with the bajada. The city provides a bus and shuttles people up to the ermita (that's like a mini church...by the way, it's also where Angelines and I got married). Then we walk the saint down to the town. The people take turns carrying him on the 7km walk back to town. San Pancracio stays the night at one of the founders' homes and the brotherhood invites the people who accompanied the saint to a small appetizer and drinks.

Saturday evening is a procession around town where the saint is pulled by oxen. Each year a different street asks to host the saint and the Saturday festivities. The procession ends in this street and the saint is taken from the cart to the altar that all the neighbors have prepared for him. Then there's dancing with live music, an open bar and food provided by the neighbors of the street. All of this is open to the whole town.

Sunday is "el camino". We leave around 10am and walk back up to the ermita with the saint on his ox cart and most of us romeros dressed in typical flameco style, or jeans and a white shirt.

This year was a different romeria. I was much more involved than I ever have been simply because two of our most devoted members didn't attend most of the activities this year. Remember my friend's father died? Well, he chose not to come with us until Sunday...and his partner also abstained until el camino. They have both got incredible sevillana repertoires, so not having them with us on Friday especially was really difficult. Sevillanas are a specific kind of flamenco style song that is usually accompanied by clapping, drums, castanets, and dancing.

Typically we sing and make music all the way down the hill to town as we carry the saint. This year wasn't an exception, but it took us a bit to warm up without my friend there to get us going...and we had to repeat the five sevillanas that EVERYONE knew since none of us could remember others.

I have been listening to sevillanas in the car for about three months now; so my frustration was not being able to begin very many...since I actually know quite a few! I can follow along or end lots, but stating and singing to the end is another story. All the same, I was glad I had been practicing because I was able to join in the celebrations vocally. However, for the entire bajada and camino I played the drum so even when I didn't know the words I could participate. Acutally, I still find in incredibly difficult to walk, play drum, and sing all at once. Maybe I'm not as coordinated as I'd like to think, but the professional tamborilero who was payed to play along the camino also confided in me at one point that he thought it was hard to play and walk, too. ;)

Having the drum was pretty cool. At the very beginning of the walk down, a kid who used to be in my classes here in La Roda decided that I was the person to be with since I had the drum. He spent the entire walk by my side suggesting the same two sevillanas over and over again, bless his heart. Toward the end he grabbed girl his age to come be with us, so depending on who else was singing, if anyone else was singing, the three of us were our own little choir.

(These are my choir)

It was sad not to have the same atmosphere as other years with my friends singing one song after another, but I also thought it was good and really important that the rest of the people on the way down have the chance to sing. It's not so much that they don't normally have that chance, just that usually we all follow the lead of the person who knows the most sevillanas and sings the loudest. It was touching to see this 12 year old kid getting so into it on the way down.

And on Saturday when we did the procession around town, it was the same story. He came running up to me first thing asking where the drum was and telling me that he was going to walk with me. After our practice on Friday night, we really did much better Saturday, and we had more vocal/instrumental support.

This year, once again I had a visitor for San Pancracio--Kristen, my co-auxiliar. :) It was lots of fun to have her because it's always fun showing people new things; it's almost like getting to re-experience them for yourself. Kristen was especially easy to have because she speaks great Spanish and already knew a lot of my friends in the brotherhood. It was a good thing, too, or she might have felt very alone all weekend! On the way down Friday and on the way back up Sunday, I kept losing her in the crowd. Finally I gave up looking for her because I figured if she needed me, I was pretty easy to find--you couldn't mistake the drumbeats! We had a really good time and I was really glad that she was able to be part of the romeria.

It turns out that there are only two other romerias in all of Spain dedicated to San Pancracio. One is in Murcia (another state) and the other is in Valverde de Camino, Huelva, right here in Andalucia. Last year, our secretary got in touch with the group in Valverde and we decided to become sister brotherhoods (haha). Their romeria is usually in June and so some of us went to visit as representatives from La Roda. It was wonderful and they were so amazingly hospitable and kind and excited to meet us and show us how they did things. We were really touched.

This year thirty representatives from Valverde del Camino came on Sunday to make the walk back up to the ermita and take part in the day's celebrations! Of course, all of us who had been to Valverde were really excited, but also nervous, feeling that we had to reciprocate the same great hospitality...and on a much tighter budget! Everyone was worried about food, about bathrooms (we usually just find a good bush on the hill), etc. In the end, I can confidently say we outdid ourselves. ;) We had FAR too much food, a guy in our brotherhood built a bathroom, we had a mic for the mass in the ermita... it was really quite impressive. And our brothers from Valverde were impressed.

After the mass in the ermita there was a small, very emotional, ceremony with the mayor and the two presidents from each brotherhood. We exchanged gifts and each said some really beautiful things. I was crying. It was beautiful to see the good faith between two groups of people who really hardly knew each other. We spent a great afternoon together and when it was time to leave we went with them to say goodbye to San Pancracio. This is a picture of most of us on the steps of the ermita.

I've washed my dress, hung up my medallas and have yet to clean my boots.

Until next year...

Viva San Pancracio!!!