Xinzo de Limia, between the elections and the Carnival
The town of Xinzo de Limia, in Ourense, is one of the towns on the planet with the longest Carnival (or Entroido). From January 20 until this Sunday the 18th, known as Piñata Sunday, the neighbors live immersed in the party and manage to dress up differently each day, including this Sunday, which began before noon with brass bands through the streets and will end at dusk with the last festival of the festivities, when the polling stations in the municipal capital and the villages have already closed.
Although the king character of the Xinzo festivities are the Screens, ancestral and almost mythological beings who come out masked and armed with dried and inflated cow bladders with which they incite anyone who is not disguised on the street, most of the What neighbors do is dramatize, parody, represent scenes in groups, as Meli, Lina, Esther, Lola, Sole, Isa and Carmen have done, for example. They are a group of friends united by music and environmental causes who have set up an alternative polling station, with a large pumpkin instead of an urn, and countless magic potions to scare away the meigallo (witchcraft) and combat the “curse of the carrexo“, that is, the hauling or transportation of voters to the polling stations, generally elderly and disabled, by groups interested in guiding the color of their ballots. Ourense is, precisely, the Galician province that registers the most complaints for each electoral appointment carrexo. These neighbors of Xinzo de Limia have prepared various concoctions in front of the people, “some very tasty and others with terrible traps,” says Xosé Santos, another neighbor.
Piñata Sunday is the fifth (after Fareleiro, Oleiro, Corredoiro and Entroido) of the festive calendar of and Laza, although in reality it is a polyhedron with its own traditions in countless municipalities. “For us it is not a farewell party for the flesh, Carnival, in a religious sense,” explains Santos, “but an entrance, an Entroido, to spring and the rebirth of life, that is why it is so colorful.” Today the elegant Screens no longer appear, but all of Xinzo dresses up and many neighbors have come to vote, yes, uncovering their faces when identifying themselves to the president and the members of the table.
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