My EVS in Andalusia 10
Three Kings and Workshops
Another Spanish peculiarity is the celebration of the “Reyes Magos” (“Three Kings”) on 6th of January instead (or in addition) to Christmas. And of course, for whatever is celebrated, we have to prepare activities and workshops.
The 4th of January in the morning, Renata and I built a so called “buzón”, a kind of box in which the kids put their wish cards to the “Three kings”. In the afternoon, beside the card writing activity, we offered a workshop to make cute looking “Chupachup reindeers” out of paper and chupachup lollipops. The ardently loved Chupachup lollipops, by the way, are an invention of which the Spanish are very proud.
In the evening, after the workshops, we had the pleasure to meet the new volunteers, a Turkish girl called Mine and a Turkish boy (no idea how to spell his name, but the short form is Chef), both in their mid-twenties. We went to buy food with them and helped them understand and translate the rules of their apartment (since the owners do not speak any English).
The 5th of January in the morning, we were again busy with preparations, buying missing material and starting to make “decoration presents” by wrapping big cartons in present paper. With these presents, we then went to a warehouse full of beer cans and bottles, where a kind of carriage waited for us to be decorated. At this point only, I understood what this was all about: like the parade carriages during German and Brasilian Carnival, this one was meant to be used to make a round through the village at night.
The following decoration session was expectedly (we are in Spain after all) unorganised. We had to do more presents and go back to the shop several times to buy more golden and silver tinsels to wrap it around the railings of the carriage.
In the afternoon, Renata cut my hair whilst having a nice chat with Mine.
At 5pm, we went to the library to watch a group of teenagers getting dressed up as Christmas elves and the Three Kings. Together with the elves we went to the warehouse again, waiting in the cold for the Three Kings, who (an eternity later) dramatically arrived in a police car with sirens.
As soon as all members of the costumed group had taken their places on the prettily decorated and with chains of lights festooned carriage, loud rocky Christmas carols started playing and the gates finally opened:
The carriage, now torn by a car, started rolling solemnly, expected by an enormous crowd of children and adults. They followed the slowly moving procession screaming and running around like crazy as tons of sweets and confetti was thrown on their heads. Under a not ceasing rain of bonbons and paper snow, Mine and I tried to fulfil our task to walk aside the carriage, stopping kids from coming to close to the wheels on their excessive fight to fill their bags with whatever was falling on the street.
I can say, I do finally have an impression of what German carnival in Düsseldorf, Mainz or Köln is like, only that it is with 50 carriages instead of one. As well, I have never seen as many people in Purchena as this day.
After a highly enjoyable round the carriage stopped on the main square and we followed the stream of people making their way up to church. In church the Three Kings were waiting to give the children presents their parents had secretly left them before. One by one, the children (all wonderfully dressed) went to the front, some excitedly running, some scared and on the arms of their mums.
Although we obviously were too old to get presents, it certainly was a hilarious day!