Fiesta in the time of coronavirus

Here in Valencia, we’re taking the Coronavirus threat seriously.

It may not be a lot of use, but maybe a mask says you're taking it seriously

OK, so we weren’t too pleased when the ruling came down from Madrid that the much-anticipated Champions League match between Valencia and Atalanta had to be played behind closed doors.

Bad news. Valencia has a 4-1 deficit to make up from the first leg and needs its fans to support the team at the home game. But, hey, we understand the precautionary principle. Atalanta’s stadium isn’t far from Milan, and it was a journalist attending the away match there that brought Coronavirus back to us in the first place.

Valencia-Atalanta will be behind closed doors

Can’t be too careful.

In the same way, we’ve no objection to the cancellation of major medical events and conferences. Well, we’re terribly sorry for the people involved, since doctors are pretty smart about where they organise their conferences. I mean, they don’t tend to be in Birmingham or Düsseldorf, do they? More like Sicily or the Canaries.

Seems a pity to deprive them of their trips, but I guess we do need them around. Again, being careful. Just in case.

Besides, not many of us are medics, so we’re only moderately bothered about the measures. I mean, the rest of us wouldn’t have been going to that major cardiology conference in Lisbon or that research meeting in Dubrovnik, would we, so how much are we really supposed to care?

All in all, then, we’ve no real complaints. So far. Good to see the government taking an interest. Putting appropriate measures in place and all that.

Just as long as they don’t go over the top. There are limits, aren’t there? There has to be moderation in all things, including public health precautions.

So – don’t touch our fiesta.

Our fiesta? You don’t know what our fiesta is? The Fallas? Why, it’s only the biggest in Spain.

Honestly, you should get up to speed.

Four days – and nights – of firecrackers in the streets. Some of them capable of making the noise of heavy artillery pieces. The mascletas – when we let off hundreds of these damn things in various designated spots around the city (or sometimes outside them) – can make the bombing of Baghdad sound like a kid’s birthday party.

Really, if you want to know what it sounds like to live in a war zone, there’s nothing better than to be near a mascleta when it goes off.

Then we parade around the streets in traditional costumes and take a look at the hundreds of fantastic sculptures set up at street corners all over the city.

What am I saying? All over the city? All over the all the little towns around the city too. Thousands of people. Getting their costumes ready and then parading in them. Collecting their crackers and their fireworks, and then letting them off. Building their sculptures, and then burning them on the last night (all but one which gets a prize).

Men and women in the traditional costume
And this group had travelled up from Murcia (over 200 km away)

No one’s going to cancel that. I realise that Venice cancelled its carnival, but that’s small beer compared to the Fallas. I mean, think of all those people. Think of the dozens of hours they’ve put in to preparing for this grand party. And you want to cancel it? Think again, pal.

OK. I get it. It means huge crowds surging through the streets. Cheek by jowl. Cough by face. Not perhaps the most sanitary conditions. Maybe not exactly the precautionary principle sagaciously applied.

But, hey. Surviving’s important, I know. But isn’t living even more important? And a fiesta’s all about living, which is what surviving is for.

Besides, if things are so miserable, don’t we need a party all the more, just to console ourselves?

So a Valencian might reason. These thoughts were going through my mind as I walked across the Town Hall Square (or Plaza del Ayuntamiento) the other day, and saw the crowds gathering for a pre-mascleta of the Fallas. The Fallas proper don’t start until the 15th, which you might think apt: it’s the Ides of March. But some events happen beforehand.

Crowd gathering for an early mascleta
In the background, the cage where the pyrotechnics would happen

I looked at the crowd. I looked at the cage where the colossal firecrackers were hanging, ready to be set off. And I thought, “congratulations, Valencians, on your courage in the face of adversity, and on your determination to have a good time whatever the threat bearing down on you”.

Courageous they certainly seem to be. But only time will show whether that was wise or not.

For my part, I hurried on home. Partly because I really don’t think hanging around in crowds is all that wise these days. But mostly because, while I wouldn’t question anybody else’s taste, the experience of being in a war zone certainly isn’t mine.

But, if Madrid doesn’t step in to cancel them at the last moment, I wish Valencia a happy and virus-free Fallas, all the same.

A Mascleta going off
Creating the true party feeling. At least, if your idea of a party is a civil war