A Poem Without Words?

They say pictures are worth a thousand words, but are they really? I love pictures, picture-taking and everything related to photographs, and I’ve discovered that in some cases the saying proves to be true; nevertheless, I’ve recently found myself looking through a great deal of Facebook photo albums full of really good pictures taken in exotic or more familiar places that tend to lose their intrinsic importance because they simply have no captions.

Images and captions complement each other because an image by itself may be shallow at the same time that a stand-alone caption describes something that is missing. Despite of this, many people fail to enhance the depth of their images by not writing descriptions for those photographs. If you’re sharing photos on Facebook or anywhere else on the web for your friends, relatives and family to look at, don’t underestimate the importance of captions as they actually allow the viewer to better relate to both the image and the picture taker and to understand how each image connects to the set.

Captions to images can be defined as titles, short explanations, descriptions or labels that are usually short -one to four words or sentences long- associated to an image. However, while short captions are frequently recommended, they’re not always effective for trivial or obvious descriptions. For instance, imagine you have the following picture:

A caption saying “Ben and Julia kissing” might seem unimportant, so in these cases, it is better to use a short paragraph or two if that means adding value to the image, allowing the photographer to actually capture the image’s situation and providing people with adequate information to understand the picture and logically relate to its circumstances in a relatively small amount of words. Consider for instance using something like “The intense feeling of love still bringing Ben and Julia together after 50 years.”

The main reasons to use captions range from identifying the subject or most important element of the picture without necessarily giving the obvious details, identifying the place where the picture was taken to present relevant cultural or natural information, identifying the rest of the people or things in the picture, establishing when and why the picture was taken, and providing context for the picture, which involves letting the vie wer know the events surrounding that one specific moment in time or the actions that took place outside the frame and that are therefore not evident to the viewer.

To better understand the previous points let’s look at an example. Let’s say you took the following picture:

You could use captions to describe the action taking place and give the details about it without simply stating the obvious, “Linda walking towards Gina.” You could instead try something like “Linda taking her first steps towards her mommy,” which tells more about the significance of the picture, and if you further add “while dad gives her a hand on a sunny day at Gorky Park, Moscow after several frustrated attempts” the caption provides even more context to the picture and highlights the importance of the events taking place around the image.

Although different people have different captioning styles and although certain guidelines are to be followed when writing professional captions for journals or other media, and when actually selling pictures; regular people like you and me can still convey the meaningfulness of a picture to share on the web if writing a decent description for it. Captioning pictures can be both an art and a science, but the fact is that doing so remains a matter of taste. The most important thing to consider when writing labels is the content that you want people to notice in the picture and the stories, if any, behind it.

I recently vacationed in Chile and while there, I visited many historic places such as one of the three Pablo Neruda’s houses in that country. He was an iconic Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 1971; the place was decorated with his belongings, and the one thing that captured my attention the most was the fact that he had lots of colored glasses because he believed the color improved the taste of drinks, so only people who weren't welcomed at his house would get clear glasses.

The latter explanation would make a great description to the picture below, rather than simply stating “Bar area at Neruda’s house.” It also adds worth and importance to the image as it allows the viewer to know an interesting fact about a whole bunch of otherwise seemingly random colored glasses sitting on a bar station.

Another example could be for instance my visit to Valparaíso, which is a port in Chile that you can see in the picture that comes next:

Rather than just stating the location, something like “Valparaíso's landscape, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2003 because of its historical importance, natural beauty, port's history and unique architecture” could be used to enhance the significance of the picture and let people know more about the site. In other words, if you have a story to share then make sure do so even if the story or the picture will never have the same meaning to viewers than they do to you. It makes all the difference. It is useless to have traveled around the world, been to places and to post great pictures you’ve taken if you and only you know what they are, where and when they were taken, who the people in them are and why you took them.

Of course you won’t always have something to say about a picture, but even a small and simple caption can enhance and draw the viewer’s attention to it. Noun phrases, prepositional phrases, adjectives, active verbs and adverbs can all be used to highlight the most significant information of an image. You can use descriptive captions that say something about the physical attributes of the picture, conceptual captions that explain the ideas you were going for when taking the picture or technical captions that talk about the analytical or theoretical aspects related to the image.

Sometimes letting viewers interpret the picture by themselves is a good idea, but at other times doing so only implies that they probably won’t get as much meaning out of the picture as they would if they had more information on it. Do not assume that viewers will automatically know everything about the picture; make sure the viewer does not overlook the fundamental elements in the picture and that your captions do the job of letting them know instead of leaving them to wonder what the picture is trying to convey. Let the text illustrate outstanding aspects of the picture and let the viewer draw out visual information from it so that he or she can have a guided interpretation of the image.

A picture isn’t always worth a thousand words, so make sure you use at least two or three to let your viewer recognize the meaning of it. "Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience." (by Dale Carnegie)

Images by: Hummer and Nancy R. Cohen @ GettyImages, Cris DeRaud @ Stock.Xchng, Hans Arne Nakrem @ Enjoy Chile, and Edmund Yeo @ Swifty's Blogger

Black Friday Shopping Day in the U.S.

In the States, the Black Friday (BF) shopping day not only denotes the beginning of the traditional purchasing for the Christmas season, but also marks the end of the Thanksgiving holiday.

The term “Black Friday” has different meanings to people around the world, but it usually holds a negative connotation. In this case, it is a metaphor that compares the day after Thanksgiving to other "black days," characterized by sudden drops in the stock market, such as the one that took place on September 24, 1869 in the U.S.

Having its origins during the 70's, the Black Friday receives its name from the heavy traffic that is observed on this day at stores. People go crazy doing their shopping on Black Friday and the crowd not only floods stores aisles, parking lots and mall escalators, but also the streets overall, which become a complete chaos with the huge sales going on as loads of people push and curse at each other while awaiting anxiously for stores to open.

A different theory suggests that Black Friday represents the time in which retailers turn their red numbers or financial losses into profits or black numbers given the large amount of sales on this particular day. However, making profit only during the holiday season and operating at a financial loss during most of the year doesn’t seem like something businesses would really live up to since their financial objectives require them to make money throughout the year, so the accounting-practice premise seems more like an urban legend to me.

Black Friday may only fall between the 23rd and the 29th of November, always the fourth Friday of the month. Although it is not an official holiday, people typically have the day off due to the Thanksgiving long weekend and on this day most stores offer the lowest possible prices and deep discounts on almost every item they carry. The Black Friday specials are typically published in the newspaper on Thanksgiving Day, although most big merchants release ads earlier both on the press and online, so that people can plan in advance and in order to attract more shoppers.

The sales on this day were originally intended for early Christmas shoppers, but in recent years it has been pointed out that some people shop during BF in order to get huge discounts on items they can later resell, oftentimes online. On this day, customers line up in front of shops from early dawn and for hours to benefit from stores' big sales. Everyone wants to get the best bargains, especially since some stores even give out free gift cards to a certain number of customers, which can be coupled with the savings people can get from coupons and other special deals. Although electronics, toys and jewelry are often the items people search the most; apparel, shoes, and even food may also be sharply discounted.

Most experienced shoppers typically do some research beforehand and visit the stores on the days prior to BF to know exactly where the items they're interested in are to be located. They also do research on the different sales, do some price matching (consisting of retailers letting customers buy items at the lower price that a competitor is charging), collect as many coupons as possible, and make sure to bring with them a list of what they want to buy. Then, they make sure to go to bed early on Thanksgiving Day because they know that they will get the best deals from stores that offer them in limited amounts if they wake up really early.

After opening time, store staff members only allow small groups of people to enter the shop at a time, and customers begin their hectic shopping experience by rushing to grab their items. The morning hours are by far the best to shop, not only because people are more likely to find what they’re seeking after, but also because not everyone is an early bird and not everyone sacrifices to get up early, so as packed as stores might be, it is expected that it gets worse as the day reaches its zenith.

Even though some people like doing window-shopping only, during Black Friday, some other people, like me, prefer not to shop on this day at all. I usually don’t handle well rivers of people, overcrowded parking lots, long lines and packed stores; I never went shopping on a Black Friday in the 5 years I lived in The States, so it didn’t really ever become a part of my Thanksgiving tradition.

Despite of this, Black Friday remains the busiest day for shops and retails at least in terms of customer traffic, although not necessarily in terms of sales' volume since in reference to that, this day usually falls two or more spots behind the weekend before Christmas and other shopping days. My boyfriend, unlike me, typically takes advantage of the Black Friday sales while saving himself some much needed cash, this year in particular so that we can see each other in December (keep in mind that we currently maintain a long distance relationship.)

So as Black Friday broke this year on November 23rd, Mauri put on his comfiest shoes and wore his most classical-casual outfit to embark on his BF shopping adventure. He had already visited the stores, gathered his coupons and done his research. He had also planned on the stores he would be visiting first, starting with the ones that were closer to his house and also the ones that had the deals he thought would run out faster, so he made sure to be there earlier.

My boyfriend had it all figured out from going to bed early thereby waking up early, not taking the car, wearing a comfy attire, carrying an iPod and a PSP, having done the research well in advance, having visited stores on the previous days to locate items, and having collected all possible coupons, but even so, that still doesn’t do it for skilled BF shoppers; I mean they still need a more powerful weapon, and it’s what I’ve called THE “shopping tactics.”


Tactic #1: Divert the enemy’s attention

He had 50 people in front of him at Circuit City, the store he visited first, at 3am in the morning. They finally opened a couple of hours later, and he waited another half hour in line to finally get inside the shop. He was planning on buying a 4G memory stick card for his digital camera so we can take thousands of pictures in December. It was going for $30, but BF isn’t just a normal shopping day in which you walk into the stores to find the discounted items organized and where they’re supposed to be; on the contrary, Black Friday is the day people become animals and spread into the jungle to gather, what I’ve called, their stack of “annual food” even if that means using their teeth and nails in the process. Nevertheless, the orderliness depends on the location and the store, but madness tends to be the norm at least when it comes to Black Friday in Miami, FL.

As my boyfriend was desperately searching for his first article, another customer approached him and asked what he was looking for. My boyfriend quickly made up a story and replied he was looking for something other than what he was actually looking for, and the man in turn, told him that he was looking for that 4G memory stick that was going for $30 when the price usually more than triples. Carrying lots of items around becomes ineffective when people are trying to make the most out of time, so what they do to make sure they get their share of the pie is to actually hide items anywhere around the store so they can come back to them later.

Knowing this, in a very sincere and natural way, my boyfriend proceeded to distract the guy by telling him that the store had actually run out of that item because it was a well-liked one, so the man left the aisle in disappointment while he expressed how unbelievable that was. In the meantime, my boyfriend continued to look until, buried among other stuff, he got to find the only one piece of memory-stick card of that kind.

Tactic #2: Make an intentional misstatement

As people fought to buy that plasma TV at a heavily discounted price and everyone seemed to keep going aggressively crazy at the store, my boyfriend went on to find his next item on the list, so he got to the photo-frame aisle only to realize it was packed with a thousand women who were discussing how great the frames would look on their houses and how their husbands would like one or the other.

My boyfriend approached the group of women and pretended to be a salesclerk. He politely offered the ladies assistance after which they asked if he worked there and he replied, in a very self-assured tone, that he did. Right after his lie, one of the women said she was looking for that digital photo frame that was going for $50 when it usually costs $100. My boyfriend turned around and pretended to look for it and then told the lady that they had probably run out since it was a very popular item. My boyfriend suggested she looked elsewhere in the store pointing out that people usually hid items so they could go back to them. The lady and her friends left discouraged while my boyfriend got down on her knees and kept looking for the frame until he got it. He realized there was more than one so he got back to that woman although she said she had already found one on the DVD section.

Then he had to wait about 45 min in one of the lines to pay for his memory stick and another hour and a half to pay for the other item. As I was listening to the story, I was absolutely shocked at the crazy things he had done just to get his items, and especially at the fact that he had planned on dressing nicely for the sole purpose of doing what he did. My only question is, didn’t these people notice he wasn’t wearing a uniform? Maybe they thought he was an undercover salesperson, but what they didn’t know is that he was actually a clever undercover buyer who fooled them so he could get the same items these other customers were looking for.


Tactic #3: Arouse the approval of the staff

He finally left, and it was then time to go to Macy’s. My boyfriend was smart enough not to take his car and instead walked to the mall. He was infinitely grateful for this as he noticed how absolutely crazy things were at the parking lot after he got to Dadeland Mall in Miami, FL. As he approached Macy’s almost at 8am in the morning, he noticed there were three or four female employees at the front door welcoming customers and still giving out some gift cards. But wait, last year they ran out of gift cards by 6:30am, so how come they were still handing them out at 8:00am? My boyfriend stood still as to observe what was going on, and he discovered that the ladies in the front door were not giving the gift cards to everyone who walked into the store. He said they were mostly giving them to elder people, couples and people who were well dressed.

He was well dressed on purpose as he mentioned staff treats you better if you are nicely dressed, but he was lacking both the age and partner that could make him win the favor of some of these employees. After a few minutes of observing the staff behavior, he came up with a strategy so that he could be one of those people who got the gift card. He approached the store while making eye contact with the one lady he thought could give it to him. She caught him looking, but he meant for her to do so; he kept walking towards her, and as he stepped closer he saluted and made some conversation about the craziness of people and the busy day. He made sure to mention he was getting presents to his family, and this seemed to engage the lady’s attention. He went on to mention he also was getting presents for his girlfriend, that would be me, and this definitely melted the lady’s heart as he left his mark. She handed him a $100 gift card while wished him a Happy Thanksgiving, and as my boyfriend kept on walking into the store while doing the “YES!” gesture we typically make when we achieve something.

Tactic #4: Take advantage of the enemy’s compassion

Once inside Macy’s, he went straight to the area where the items he was looking for were located. He wanted some scarves but only found trash in the box where scarves were supposed to be, so he went on to the next item on his list. He started to get frantic after noticing the item wasn’t where he had seen it earlier on that week. He kept looking and looking miserably, as it was an item that as he mentioned, he “could not, not get,” so he continued to search for it until he saw a woman he decided to approach. He once more pretended to work at this store while he offered assistance to the lady. She actually asked where she could find some apparel that the lucky bastard had happened to see on his way in, so he gave the woman directions and made her leave.

He kept looking unsuccessfully until a white light suddenly illuminated the sky as he found his next victim. He actually saw the only woman at the store who had the item he was looking for in her hands, so he started chasing after her and observing her behavior as to see if he could catch her dropping the item. She dropped another item but kept hanging on to this one, so he decided he HAD TO do something about it or else he would lose it. He next approached the lady and he asked her where she had found that item. She explained herself as my boyfriend asked whether there were more and she replied there were, but scattered all around the place.

My boyfriend, in a very heartbroken tone, mentioned that he had been looking for it for hours and that he couldn’t find it. His voice started to break down as he told the lady that he felt so bad, that it was stupid, that he woke up at 2am in the morning for nothing and that he had been planning on getting that item forever. The lady tried to calm him down as he kept insisting that his girlfriend really wanted it and that it wasn’t fair until the lady finally gave in to his cuteness, tenderness and seemingly sincere desperation.

The lady offered him to stay with HER item, but he refused saying that it was okay and that he was sure he could find something else. The lady insisted even though my boyfriend said he couldn’t do it, and that he would feel really bad for taking it. She emphasized that he should take it since she didn’t really need it, as it was only an “impulse buy.” For the fourth time during the day he succeeded in carrying out his tactics and got his precious item.


One way or the other I can only say CHAPEAU for him! He stayed focused and didn't let himself be caught up in the frenzy; he received all the deals he had been looking for even if he didn’t have a family, team or an accomplice with who to devise a plan of splitting to make the most of time and sales at different stores. He really worked hard to get those items even if what he did might not seem righteous. It was legal nonetheless and the only way not to be eaten as Black Friday “is a zero-sum game” in which either you get what you want or somebody else will. I thought I would share this story just in case you wonder how people manage to survive throughout Black Friday shopping. For people like my boyfriend, the struggle is certainly worth the sweat of their brow; and as for me, I’m still sitting in the comfort of my room not wanting to join the madness that this busy shopping day in the States brings along.

Images by: Brian Edward Dean, Adrian, Kagedfish & Allan Chatto @ Flickr

All Saints' Day in Spain

With the intention of honoring both acknowledged and unfamiliar martyrs, All Saint’s Day, also known as All Hallows or Hallowmas, is mainly a Roman Catholic and Anglican holiday that gives followers a chance to remember all saints and martyrs throughout history. “Moved from its original date in May more than ten centuries ago to offset the pagan autumn festivals held at that time of year,” this holiday is usually celebrated on the day after All Hallows' Eve (Halloween) on November 1st in Spain and other Western countries since Pope Gregory IV designated its official and mandatory church-wide observance in the year 837. However, churches in the East typically commemorate it on the Sunday right after Pentecost.

The original observance of this day started as a solemnity for all martyrs of the ancient church, “men, women, and children who were persecuted and killed for their faith in Christ,” but because many of the martyrs’ names were unknown, and because many of them died on the same day or in groups; the celebration came about to include all sufferers and believers, and it resulted in a common veneration and tribute to all saints, representing the gradual unity of the entire Roman Catholic Church.

Even if this feast is genuinely considered more of a religious than pagan tradition, the Lutheran or Protestant Church also honors this holiday although in a much different way; they celebrate Thanksgiving and strengthen their devotion through the imitation of faith and other virtues by giving glory to God and not to the saints since they believe that only God can give saints the grace they need to deserve heaven, as on Earth they were miserable and sinners, just like we are.

Today, all the thousands and thousands of people who have died in the past defending their faith are remembered and honored on this day even if their names are not on the list of canonized saints. This celebration is much like the American Veterans’ Day or Memorial Day holidays, in which many people or heroes are admired in a single day.

The liturgical color of this holiday is white, and although each country celebrates in their own way, this festivity is considered an “obligation” day in the West and a “feast” day in the East, which translates in the forgoing of servile work and the requirement of attending mass for followers.

In Spain, followers make offerings on this national holiday; they visit and bring flowers, usually chrysanthemums, and light candles next to the graves of dead relatives during the previous days and on the day of the feast. The Church traditionally celebrates a Eucharist to commemorate all saints, and remind us of our links to those who have passed away. It is customary for people to attend Mass, often held in the local cemeteries, or participate in a march even if no relatives are buried on the sacred grounds. On this day, Catholics “recall men and women of the Bible,” Apostles, Martyrs, Prophets, Hierarchs, Monastics, and Righteous “and praise God for their examples.” People recall their relatives and friends, which makes the celebration more personal and meaningful, and they also “glorify God not just for the faithfulness of the saints, but for His faithfulness to the saints.”

Another typical Spanish tradition is for people to see a performance of José Zorrilla's play "Don Juan Tenorio." This play tells the myth of “Don Juan” and his choice between salvation and perdition, which mirrors the theme of the holiday and has been performed in Spanish theaters on All Saints’ Day for dozens of years.

Even though this represents a day of retrospection and prayers, as with other religious festivities, there’s also room for enjoying the typical All Saint’s Day sweets and favorite gift of relatives during the celebration: “Huesos de Santos” (“Saints’ Bones”), which are thumb-sized marzipan sweets made of egg yolk, almond and sugar, and frequently filled with egg-yolk cream although as time has gone by, Spanish bakeries have started to offer them filed with chocolate, strawberry syrup, coconut and even praline and yogurt. The flavors of this dessert are very concentrated, which makes them sickly. Although the saints’ bones aren’t really bone- but rather cylinder-shaped, they do have the characteristic whitish color that’s given by the sugar syrup that covers them.

Other typical sweets that people are delighted with during this holiday are the “Buñuelos de Viento” (Puffs of Wind) and “Panellets.” The “Buñuelos de Viento” are small, usually fried round-cakes of sweetened, leavened dough, much like the traditional donuts but smaller. They have a delicate taste and although they weren’t originally filled, therefore their name “puffs of wind,” nowadays they can have milk cream, whipping cream or chocolate on the inside. Finally, the “Panellets” were originally handmade sweets made of almonds, sugar, lime, sweet potato and egg-yolk, typically covered with chocolate, coconut or pine nuts, although today they are also industrially produced. These small cakes are traditionally given to Godchildren by their Godparents during this day.

In Catalonia, “La Castañada” is customary as well, which is a tradition that includes not only eating the traditional sweets but also sweet potato and roasted chestnuts with white wine after a family meal, and in many other regions of the country local traditions are also embraced on this day.

All Saints' Day can be seen as the sum of the most important Catholic festivities such as Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost “because it reminds us that it is only by the perfect life and saving death of Jesus Christ that Christians are made saints in the sight of the God.” Although its importance varies from country to country and person to person, and each church holds a different interpretation of who are to be considered saints, All Saints’ Day is an emblematic tradition that has been celebrated for centuries and will keep passing on from generations as the day in which we simply remember all saints.

Images By: Dimitris Petridis @ Stock.Xchng & Consumer.es

All Hallows Eve in Spain

Traditionally celebrated on the night of October 31, Halloween is the day before All Saints’ Day as its name entails the vigil or “All Hallows Eve” (Hallowe’en) of all saints. As many other Catholic traditions such as Christmas and New Year’s, the festivity of All Saint’s’ starts the evening before, so even though most people only think of candy, costumes, pumpkins and witches on Halloween, and even though it is widely thought to be a pagan tradition, this celebration actually has its origins in the Roman Catholic Church since “the date is simply the eve of the feast of All Saints,” and “many customs of Halloween reflect the Christian belief that on the feast's vigils.”

In the Celtic tradition, “Samhain” was celebrated on the night before November 1st, and this was the pagan festivity that marked the end of the summer and harvest season and the beginning of the cold and dark-day season. Celtic tribes believed that the Lord of the dead made the souls of deceased come to life, which allowed the druids (priests, soothsayers, judges, poets, etc. in ancient Britain, Ireland, and France) to communicate with ancestors and invoke the dead. They started bonfires and cast spells to scare away the deaths, and people used to leave food at their doorways so that spirits would leave happy and leave them alone unharmed. After the roman invasion, the two cultures began to mix and the sketches of the primitive Halloween celebration began to appear, and it transformed through the years until it became the traditional Halloween celebration that people commemorate these days and that has little or nothing to do with what it primarily intended.

Some controversy still revolves around the origins of Halloween and on whether it is genuinely Catholic or Pagan. Although its origins are Pagan, the holiday seems to have more elements of the Catholic Church. For example, the start of the current “trick-or-treat” custom can be found between the ancient and modern European history, in which “poor people in the community begged for ‘soul cakes,’ and upon receiving these doughnuts, they would agree to pray for departed souls.” In the States Halloween is actually not an evening to cry or remember saints or the departed, but rather a night n which kids wear costumes and go door-to-door asking for candy. In addition, the trick-or-treating tradition remains as such mainly by custom since “the naughty and destructive tricks once associated with Hallowe'en seem mostly to have disappeared.”

In the same manner, people dress in evil costumes and wear frightening masks to mock evil, confuse and scare evil spirits while looking like them “because as Christians, it has no real power over us.” The tradition of the jack-o-lantern also developed originally in Europe as a way of decorating streets during the eve of All Hallows Day, and therein the Witch Night evolved. However, some people believe that the tradition of the pumpkins is uniquely American, but the truth is that it has its origins in an old Irish custom according to which a dead man had to walk every night with hollowed-out turnip lantern as punishment for all his sins, which relates to the “authentic Catholic teaching about Purgatory and the need for every soul's purification from the effects of sin before entering Heaven.”

Being the traditional Halloween colors, orange and black represent the color of “ripe pumpkins, falling leaves and glowing sunsets and candlelight;” and the “traditional color of mourning in the West” respectively. The latter is believed to represent sins and evil, as it is the liturgical color of All Souls’ Day (the day after All Saints) while the previous one is believed to represent the fall season and the blazing of bonfires and candles.

Nowadays, the “Halloween” tradition is considered a secular festivity, and it is the result of the different customs that European immigrants took with them to the U.S., many of which are just part of the past in Europe since they only make sense in the integration that the American culture has given to this festivity. Although the tradition remains strong in the U.S. and has been widely Americanized while it has disappeared in most parts of the world, some European countries are resorting back to this holiday. In Spain, October represents the month of candy and every year more schools throw costume parties for the children. Spaniards have and are everlastingly adopting their own version of the tradition, which I have found surprising even though the celebration hasn’t extended as much as it has in the States.

Today was the second Halloween that I spend in Spain and both last and this year my family and I got kids on our door asking for "Truco o Golosina" or "Truco o Trato." It was kind of cute as I had never listened to kids trick-or-treating in Spanish, so I was all excited watching the kids wearing their Halloween costumes and collecting candy around the neighborhood. Even if the tradition remains primarily American and it isn’t officially observed in Spain, people from this and other cultures are embracing it as well, and I think it is a matter of time before the tradition becomes more popular and we start seeing imposing Halloween decorations and customs around the entire European land.

Image by: Mark Miller @ Stock.Xchng

Adeje's Patron Saints' Holiday

Being the city center and capital of the county receiving the same name, Adeje is proud of its heritage and celebrates every year its ancestral traditions during the city’s local festivities on the occasion of the town’s patron saints: Saint Sebastian, Saint Ursula and Virgin Incarnation. The county’s Mayor, the Culture Councilor and the local parish priest presented the schedule for this year’s festivities last October 4th. This year the celebration lasted from the 6th until the 21st of October and the detailed outline for the different religious and secular activities to take place during those days was also announced.

I’ve only been living in this county for twelve months, and although I couldn’t attend to the rest of the galas this year, I was able to join the crowd of pilgrims for the closing event during the town’s festivities. Splendid, colorful and decorated carts together with traditional Canary groups of dancers and singers wearing classic Canary costumes flooded the town’s streets as they paraded through Adeje. Hundreds of people from the neighborhood and adjacent cities in the South of Tenerife’s Island traveled through the streets as well while they followed and walked next to the many carriages that the different city’s neighborhoods and associations rode.

What I enjoyed the most was the fact that the people riding each carriage would give out to pedestrians typical Canary food and drinks as they walked along and at the same time that singers and dancers livened up the passage. Glasses of wine, beer, sangria, and sodas; typical Canarian potatoes, “gofio” and hard-boiled eggs were some of the items on the menu. Grilled pork chops, chicken skewers, chickpeas, sardines and stew were also part of the list of options. Everything was cooked on the moving carriages and dished out for free when ready; it is the first time I participate in a celebration of the kind, and also the first time I am aware of one like it. The distribution of alcoholic bevera ges would be unthinkable in the U.S. and even worse if it is during midday hours.

Pilgrims also honored the patron saints with offerings of fruit, flowers and vegetables, which they placed at the saints’ feet once they finished the journey. The ambience was pretty warm and emotional, and people’s happiness could be felt as they sang along and enjoyed the Canarian live music. Adeje’s traditions have found their way into people’s culture and allow citizens to bond together while they live those customs in their own way. This is precisely what makes the town and its people special, because their ethnic foods, decorations, music and special activities help them become distinctive.

The entire celebration flowed smoothly as no incidents took place. The local police and a Civil Protection team looked after the multitude, which along with the neatness of the event demonstrated the great organization behind it. It is amazing how the traditions of this town are kept and passed on through generations by means of that symbolic communication that goes past what words can express. It’s wonderful to see how the entire family, from the smaller ones in the house to the elderly participates actively in the festivities, thereby creating a bridge between family members, their present and their past.

I was glad to participate in this event, and I enjoyed not only the music and food but also the carriages. I couldn’t stay until the end of the celebration, but I’ll make sure to attend again next year. Adeje’s festivities are observed year in and year, and regardless of what else may happen, the town’s traditions will not change. Their importance surpasses the economic, cultural and religious lines, and there comes a point at which it doesn’t matter what the tradition is or how it came about, but only that it is practiced. Adeje’s traditions grant great value to their culture, and it is a kind of value that lasts far beyond the moment because it comes from the stability, continuity and identity that it provides for those who participate in such traditions while they make this town unique, link generations, and offer something for every person to hold on to and to rely upon.

“Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening”

Images by: Manuel López & Jessica López