Campanas

Two posts in one day!! Whaaa?

I haven't had internet in weeks and I haven't posted in even longer. The past month or so has been a rough one for me. It's part of the service and I found this quotation the other day that sums it up better than I seem to be able to:

Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it. – Cesare Pavese

Well said, Cesare. Part of the deal in being here is acceptance of bad days and the resolve to take them as they come, trusting the whole way through that we have the inherent strength to make it through to the other side. But sometimes we mess things up along the way. But this post isn't about bad days or the peculiarities of change. That's just a thought.

The past three days have comprised the festival of Campanas here in Fogo. Aside from festa Sao Filipe in April/May, this is one of the "bigger deal" festas on the island. Saturday was the killing day. I've seen a pig slaughter, and despite remembering the shaky feeling in my legs that persisted through the screams that gradually became gurgles and chokes on a seemingly endless river of blood, I figured I could witness an assembly line slaughter, having heard that goats are less vocal.

After we hunted down the house, my roommate and I sat in chairs along the wall and tried to figure out where the killing would take place. Gradually, the sound of drums broke through the assortment of voices, and grew until the assembly of drummers entered the house. A crowd of people holding flags preceded them, some with blood-stained pants and machetes with brilliant splashes of red down the sides tucked into belts. Everyone had blood on their shoes, having come from a house farther down the street where numerous animals had already been killed. One woman wearing all white--a torn shirt, pants and a scarf--looked like a violent Pollock painting. Others had red handprints on their faces, or splashes and dots between their eyes.

The house filled with so many people that we had to stand up. Eventually we saw an old woman carrying a large, metal bowl and we knew that the killing was about to begin. They collect the blood in bowls to use in chorizo, or blood sausage, which is one of the only foods here that I haven't developed a stomach for. We circled to another part of the house where I squeezed in just in time to see a goat being bled to death, with two grown men holding it above the bowl. I kept locking eyes with a Portuguese guy right around my age who evidently hadn't witnessed fora parties before. I wasn't sure if he was going to make it. One after another they led in a goat and professionally hoisted it above a bowl to saw through its neck, before stringing it to a tree to skin it. As one was being killed, another would be standing behind it, calmly, watching everything take place.

They killed three goats and I thought it was over. There was a gelatinous coating of blood on the dirt floor that people covered and danced on. Gradually people began to scatter, and seemed to be nervous. I looked towards the trees, now occupied by numerous dead animals, and saw a giant cow being led down to the area where the goats had been killed. Killing a cow is a process. First, four grown men led it to a tree where they tied its head to the stiff trunk. The hind legs were tied together, which was a fight, and gradually the animal was felled to its side and all four legs tied in a bundle. One man readied its neck, which meant sitting on its head to make sure it couldn't move. Two others held down the body, and a man with a knife broke through the people pushing past to try to find a comfortable distance. The woman holding the bowl danced through the crowd, the drumbeats not pausing during all of this, and after what seemed like an hour of nervous preparation, they slit its throat.

Watching a pig die is difficult. The screams last for such a long time that it almost seems necessary to look away. The cow didn't make a noise. Or if it did, it was drowned out by the drums. One of my students came next to me and put her arm around my waist, and after seeing so much blood throughout the day, I was worried that I might fall on her. The smell was overwhelming. Blood smells sickly, and thick and salty. I walked away for a breath of air and quickly heard the screams of a pig that was being killed on the other side of the house. There's no escape on festa day. But I held my own, though a little shakily.

It was astounding, really. The rest of the festa seemed fairly normal. The street was lined with people and it felt almost like a party that happens in Blacksburg every year, when people crowd in the streets to eat good food and drink a few beers and listen to the live music. Except here everything is public, from start to finish. Including the slaughter and preparation of the food that everyone eats. The rest of the time I wandered the cobblestone streets, ate good food (except no chorizo), watched the stars and talked to friends.

The background of this festa is the most interesting part, in my opinion. In the days of slavery, the only way that slaves could feasibly have an uprising was to dress in costume from head to toe so slaveowners couldn't recognize them. They would run from house to house in an attempt to scare and intimidate the slaveowners. Because of this, the "Rae di Festa" or king of the festival dressed from head to toe, even in blackface, kind of like a clown. He and his son (who also dressed up) got up early in the morning and went from town to town. Every man who wanted to participate in the killings that day had to catch the man and his son before they would be allowed to participate. If they caught both men, they could be part of the procession and help kill the animals. Another part of the tradition is that the king of the party steals things throughout the day, so I would occasionally see him running from a crowd of people who would be throwing rocks at him. At the festa after the killings, whenever I saw him he was carrying a goat head and threatening to attack people with one of its horns.

So it was a weekend filled with significance and emotions that left me absolutely drained when things were said and done. I regret not taking my camera with me, but will try to scavenge a few to post.