Though the papers had devoted a fair amount of print to the city center livestock extravaganza (see previous entry) tentatively scheduled for yesterday -- documentation problems related to health regulations threatened to prevent it from happening -- I couldn't find any mention anywhere of what time it would happen. Once I heard that documentation difficulties had been ironed out and the event would go forward, I decided to head into the center Sunday a.m. and see what happened.
And I did. On a beautiful morning, as it turned out, with plenty to see. I'd been to dinner Saturday night with friends, they'd said they were going to a demonstration in la Plaza Mayor at 11 a.m. I was in the neighborhood at that hour, so wandered over, camera in hand, where I found plenty of people about -- tourists; locals attending a stamp, coin and tchochkes-collecting market; police; people seated outside cafes enjoying spectacular weather -- but no demonstration. Which was okay by me. I ambled, enjoying the scene, taking far too many photos. Every now and then I'd ask someone if they knew when the sheep would be passing through the center, the general response seemed to be bafflement. A cop finally said something about midday, which gave me plenty of time for further wandering before heading toward the main drag on farm animal alert.
Along the way, I came across the local walking-into-the-wind guy, stopped to watch for a moment, found myself drawn into conversation with a passing elderly Spaniard. A man who'd seen a lot in his 70+ years and had plenty to say about it. In the fifteen minutes or so that I stood with him -- he mostly talked, I mostly listened -- I picked up some of his personal history (how he'd been one of the many thrown into jail during the dictatorship) liberally spiked with Spanish history (how the basement windows in what is now Madrid's city hall -- a center of detainment and torture during the dictatorship, called la Casa de los Gritos, the House of Screams -- provided a view of the outside world for detainees crowded into belowground cells) and editorial commentary about anything that came to mind.
When I saw that the time had reached noon, I shook his hand, said I had to get going. He wasn't ready to disengage just yet and continued talking, offering some history about a nearby building. I heard distant music from the direction of the street, and when the older gentleman wanted to take me to the building to show me something I begged off, apologizing, thanking him, then bolting -- arriving at la Calle Mayor just as the beginning of the pre-sheep procession came into view, squeezing into the narrow street from the more wide-open expanse of Sol. I could see a crowd behind the procession's first wave that stretched through Sol and beyond, heard the sound of many voices, saw flags borne on poles and staffs, waving gracefully above the multitude as their bearers walked.
For the next thirty or forty minutes, groups representing towns from various provinces (though mostly León) went by, some playing music, many carrying enormous flags, most featuring folks in traditional dress. Marchers of all ages passed, most looking happy to be there, as the crowd along both sides of the street steadily increased in number. Human marchers gave suddenly way to a stretch of horseback riders. Behind them came shepherds, and immediately behind them: sheep! A white river of sheep, filling the street. At which point the energy of those watching spiked, faces all along the parade route lit up, hands reached out to touch passing animals, making contact with something normally alien to life in the city, or at least in the capital's 21st century version of city life, as development sprawls ever outward, swallowing up farms and open land.
A thousand sheep went by, accompanied by dogs, burros, numerous shepherds. And then they were gone, the energy and noise of the strange blending of city and country slowly diminishing, the crowd dispersing, until all that remained of the event was a a hard-working city crew cleaning up a whole lot of sheep-dip.
As soon as the way was clear, traffic returned. The air filled with the normal city soundtrack. Normal life flowed in to fill in the brief post-parade vacuum, crowds filling sidewalks and crosswalks.
Just another Sunday in Madrid, November sunlight slicing softly down between buildings, life everywhere.
España, te quiero.
rws 10:56 AM [+]
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