Fire Run

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 6

After a good night’s sleep, and a lazy morning, we were ready for more festivities.  After lunch we headed to the Parc de Montjuic, the castle specifically, because the La Mercè schedule listed lots of family activities that would take place throughout the day there.  It was a crystal clear, blue sky days, one of those days that sits on the cusp between summer and fall—hot in the sun, cool in the shade.  So it was beautiful up on the hill, but the activities were a bit of a bust—a nice carousel, but several tables where kids were to make things out of plastic bottles recycled from the sponsor company’s products.  How many butterflies made out of bleach bottles can you have in your home without it seeming a bit theme-ish?  I’m sure the sponsor company was looking for visibility and trying to associate itself with recycling.  But to me, it just reminded me how much plastic this firm—which makes cleaning products, shampoo, etc—makes and sends out into the planet.  Anyway, I’m not really interested in getting up on that soap box just now, so let’s move on to the main event.

The Correfoc, or fire run.  Everyone told us this was not to be missed.  Fireworks and fire in general are quite central to La Mercè.  The festival inclues two correfocs—one for children, which is held at 6:30 in the evening, and one for adults that happens later in the evening.  We were advised to dress ourselves and the children in long pants and long-sleeved shirts—cotton—and to cover their heads with hats.  We did.  As we gathered at the side of Via Laietana, where the procession would go, we saw parents tying bandanas around their little ones’ faces, covering their necks and putting hats on top of hoods.  We even saw one family decked out in swim goggles.   We wondered what we were in for. 

The parade starts with community groups of drummers proceeding west to east on Via Laeitana.  You can hear them from blocks away.  Each group is from a neighborhood and has its own beat.  After about a half hour of drumming, there is a pause and spectators spill into the streets, waiting for the fire.  And then suddenly, from the direction the drummers have gone, you begin to hear the pop popping of fireworks, and see the sparks in the sky.  They march closer, and you realize that they, too, are in groups—each group dressed as devils of one kind or another, each devil swinging a pole that’s rigged up with what appear to be giant sparklers that shoot their sparklers sideways into the crowd.  So it’s loud, and sparks are flying like crazy, and you begin to understand the swaddling that came before.  Some groups are accompanied by dragons or other fire beasts that are also adorned with wires equipped for holding several ginormous sparklers.  Before long the street is filled with an acrid haze.  And the devil groups just keep coming and coming, dancing with their fire while crazy spectators rush them—as though it might somehow be a good idea to go after a fire wielding devil.  Alec and C.C. were actually accosted by a family of devils, and it took him to realize it was the family we had swapped houses with last Christmas, and who had us to lunch last week (see Photos of the Day).

C.C. loved it, and had Alec take her to the front row so that she could take photos and videos.  Crouched there in the street with her camera, her baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, her face intense with concentration, she reminded me of Christiane Amanpour reporting from Baghdad.  Milo started out on my shoulders, but freaked out pretty quickly, and chose to watch from several rows back.

I can tell you one thing—this kind of parade would NEVER happen in the US, and for one reason.  Too much potential for lawsuits.  Swaddling or no swaddling, many were the five year olds getting showered by sparks in the middle of the street.  Watching it, I was reminded of the words C.C.’s horseback riding teacher in Brooklyn Ryka uttered when we told her we’d try to find a place for C.C. to ride in Spain:  “Ya gotta be careful over there,” she warned. “It’s not safe like it is here.  And there’s no 1-800-LAWYER in Spain, you know what I’m saying?”  She’s right.  In the few short months we’ve been here, I’ve swum in a few municipal pools—none of them guarded.  My kids have climbed on some really cool playground equipment, that probably wouldn’t fly in the US.  But all’s well that ends well, and no one got hurt as far as we could see.

As we wound our way through the Barri Gotic to get to Plaça Catalunya and our train home, we encountered two stages with groups playing rock music, and then a violinist playing classical.  The streets were full, the sky getting dark, the mood light.  The festival is still raging, I’m sure, but we are headed for sleep here in our house, the occasional boom of fireworks reminding us that it’s not over yet.