This past Saturday I took part in the yearly parade that commemorates the founding of our parish. All the satellite communities get together to celebrate and pay tribute to the capital. In particular, all the primaria and colegio kids participate, as do the profs. I was definitely the worst-dressed prof, as they had all had suits made and I came wearing my finest (non-club-going) outfit—a button-down shirt, sneakers, and jeans.
It was a bit like herding a bunch of unruly dehydrated cats, in the sun, for 3 hours. In theory, we (the profs) were supposed to keep the kids marching in lock-step and turning corners crisply. In practice, we were trying to give the kids as much water as possible so that they wouldn’t pass out from heat exhaustion (whose idea was it to hold a parade outdoors, on the hottest day in weeks, without providing sunblock, from 0900-1200 in the day?) and hoping that they wouldn’t openly mutiny, or get run over by the many vehicles that passed us on the supposedly closed street.
We marched from the high school to the soccer field, where everybody assembled and each community/group’s float (heavily-decorated truck) drove by. The decorations represented the best that each community had to offer (for instance: bananas, coffee, sugar cane, palmito). All the Important People were assembled on a stage in the middle of the field, where they proceeded to say Important Things.
Blah blah, typical small town festivities, nothing to see here. Aside: The hierarchy of government is as follows: nacional, cantonal, parroquial.
Wait. They’re making an announcement that the canton has decided that our parroquia could use another police camioneta (truck). They previously had 1 for the 5 or so cops assigned to the entire parish. Here comes the truck. Looks nice, pretty new, still has plastic covers on the seats.
Uh… what? There comes a priest with a cup of holy water and a small branch (ortiga maybe?). The priest is now blessing the truck. I repeat, a priest is now blessing A TRUCK. He walks around it, muttering some incantation and spraying the vehicle with water every few steps or so. They even pop the hood so that he can spray the engine.
I thought that this was awesome and really strange, but when I mentioned it to my host brother, he told me that just about everyone takes their new car to a priest to be blessed.
The more you know.
Hi Sebastian, Hope this finds you well. Nice entry. The question that you will need to answer is: do the vehicles that get blessed break down less frequently than those not blessed? If they do better, we may need to open a car-blessing shop right next to NTP, AAMCO, or Meinicke! BTW, last night we had our "Club de los Viernes" dinner and Sofia joined us. Nice to see her. Mikael was also with us, and played with his toy car/motorcycle in a manner that reminded your mother of the way you also used to do as a child... Best regards from all of us in ATL! Ken
I guess it kinda adds up if you follow the logic of "If it's important to you, bless it". Think about it. People get blessings. I've heard of homes being blessed. Here at home there's a yearly 'blessing of the fleet' for all the fisherman (common practice in fishing areas). I guess this was just a version of that practice, just instead of a shrimp boat it was a police truck. Good example of what you were talking about earlier though about how vehicles are scarce/treasured.
That seems like all the "mechanics" at the shop do to my car when I take it in for service, because unfailingly I am right back in there a few months later.