Carnaval

Carnaval- Alicante- Beginning of February

Carnaval is a fascinating tradition celebrated in various countries in Europe and Latin America. Because I wrote earlier about its history, I can just give you my experience with it specifically. I was invited by my host sister Sandra and her boyfriend Raiko to take part in the Carnaval festivities whith the two of them, something that sounded like a great idea, because I hadn’t actually hung out with that many Spanish kids up to that point.

For a costume, Sandra wore a red dress and devil horns, Raiko had his face painted not unlike an evil clown, and Sandra’s friend Vicky was dressed up as a “muñeca” (a doll) with patches drawn on her face and on her shirt. In my great wisdom I displayed my ability of picking out entirely appropriate costumes, and went as an “Arab” in flowing robes, doing my best, in my mind to look like Lawrence of Arabia. With my curly hair covered and a black beard drawn on by Vicky in face paint, few people would have recognized me at first glance. Little did I imagine the exact reception that I would get form a few of the Spanish (though entirely good natured- come on, it’s Carnaval) or the possible symbolic significance of an American dressing up that way here in Spain. As for the reactions, throughout the night I was either called out with greeting of “Jesús!” (hay-zeus) or simply chanted at by drunken teenagers. At one point I saw someone in the same costume, and we exchanged bemused grins. At another point, a crusader came p and embraced me, which I hope is a good sign of Spanish attitudes in general, but fear it might just have been a drunken acknowledgment of a possible shared past between our two “characters”. I dismissed pretty quickly any added “significance” of myself, as an American, wearing the outfit, for I didn’t feel like any statement was being made at all. It was only one person who suggested the possibility anyway.

We went out at about 10:30 (early for Spain/Carnaval), and made our way down the “Rambla,” the large main street where the festivities were taking place, joining a gentle and costumed sea of humanity heading in the same direction. What wa saw when we arrived was amazing. Imagine a large street festival that combined the outfits of Halloween with the atmosphere of a county fair, and add two large stages of live music to that. Although this was taking place in the middle of the night, virtually all ages were present. It’s true that the majority of the “kids’ activities” were in the afternoon, but there was still an appreciable number of children out at midnight and beyond. There were plenty of teenagers around, watching the musical acts, eating, sitting, running around, but it seemed that there was a disproportionate number of younger/older folksà my host parents hadn’t seemed too excited about themselves heading out to Carnaval, and yet there were quite a few people of their age out in pretty large proportion compared to the teenagers. I wondered why. The answer came after we met up with a large group of Sandra’s friends all dressed up as 1920’s-1930’s American gangsters- black pants, white shirts, black vests, hats, Tommy guns. Once we met up with them (and my Japanese friend Atsushi, dressed appropriately as a Geisha), we headed to an Oceanside park called Carnalejas, a few blocks over from the Rambla and right next to the Marina. What I saw there struck me dumb and went a little way to remove my impression that European teenagers tended to be tamer with alcohol than their American counterparts. In this park that must have been several hundred yards long and couldn’t have been wider than a football field were several hundred (maybe upwards of 500) Spanish teenagers and young people, drinking many different types of liquor along with their mixer of choice. Every group had a bottle or two, and the 10 of us were no different (though we didn’t get close to finishing either bottle). I was almost entirely occupied with people watching. Here not only was a massive crowd of drinking, raucous Spanish young people, but they were all dressed up in costumes either made or bought at the toy store.

My favorite two sets of costumes that I saw at the park were both homemade: One was a group of about 8 guys who had dressed themselves as the Ghostbusters, a movie/animated series/toy staple of my childhood which I’m pretty sure never hit Spain at full force, so I was happy to see someone had put some effort to pay them a little bit of an homage. Needless to say, I had to take a picture with them, and they wer every excited to meet someone who not only knew who they were, but was also enthusiastic about humming the theme song with them (Who ya gonna call?).

Another set of about 8-10 guys had all brought matching jumpsuits, and had procured a traffic cone, a helmet, a whistle, and a bunch of old dish towels. They would then stop cars on the one lane road next to the park and give them about an 8-second pit crew treatment (the boss had the whistle, someone planted the cone in front of the car, and then one person too each window and wheel). I couldn’t decide which entertained me more: the seriousness and diligence of the pit crew, or the reactions of the drivers.

In my opinion, the only other set of costumes that could compete with the others for creativity and imagination was the same one that has now won the award for “Best Use of a Shopping cart” in my life so far. A group of guys and girls had all dressed in white shirts and pants, with red scarves tied around their waists. They had placed a mock head of a bull on the front of a shopping cart and cut out in poster board the shape of a bull’s body to past on each side. I only glanced the whole group of them briefly, running wildly through the streets as someone pushing the cart pursued them in a deft imitation of the festival of the running of the bulls in Pamplona.

The costumes for Carnaval that aren’t homemade can be bought for weeks beforehand in normal toy stores- I didn’t see anything like our seasonal Halloween stores, but the products were all very similar: cute kid outfits, cool teen outfits, slightly off-kilter adult outfits, and of course a ton of accessories. In choosing my “Arab” costume, I passed up the “cowboy” one because I thought it’d be just a little too stereotypical. One curious thing about the costumes was that the packages had writing in English and French on them, but had been made (and were obviously being sold) in Spain.