Easter Sunday In Carcabuey

Carcabuey is a little village situated in the heart of Andalucía. Its citizens make a living from the agriculture, especially the agriculture of olives. Our olive oil has been named the best in the world several times. But this is not the only unique wonderful thing about this stunning village. Carcabuey is an amazing place in which spending your holidays at any time of year is always a good bet.

Easter Sunday is a special day. We celebrate it as if it would be carnival. This tradition dates back over 300 years, when a religious brotherhood included a fast and penance on Easter. When this week ended, people celebrated with a big party in order to quell the hunger from the fast. Since the people who belonged to this brotherhood dressed in purple, we call Easter Sunday, Purple Sunday. 

In the morning, people go out to enjoy the "murgas", those who go through the village to critique the behaviour of different citizens and the local government. They make this show dressing up in costume according a selected theme, and singing the criticisms from a customized float. 

Just after lunch time, everyone goes back home in order to dress up. At 5 o'clock, a parade begins from a historic village square and goes through the main streets, where villagers join in. This parade is led by a steel drum band. An hour later, there is no one to be seen in streets without a costume. A party goes on in the streets where the pubs and tavernas have built temporary bars and placed sound systems outside. There is music everywhere.

At night, a gig begins playing cover versions of songs that people sing along and dance to until 6 or 7 in the morning. The party finishes with a communal breakfast in the main square.

You can see a brief video summary here.

Please, If you find any mistake or you have another point of view about the information that I have posted, please leave a comment. We can all learn together! This blog feeds on your coments!!

Two-party Predominance Ending

It is clear that we have had a two-party system since almost the beginning of Spanish democracy. Every 4 years, when the polls take place, PP (right wing) and PSOE (left wing) fight one another in order to gain the majority. Personally, I think it only undermines democracy the population and the democracy.

In our two-party system, the parties don’t make a difference when they come to power. During the electoral campaign they claim to be concerned about society's various problems and promise to uphold the causes if they win. Even so, in the end, parties do nothing to sort out these problems and Spain is declining every year; we are in recession, public spending is constantly decreasing, the unemployment rate is soaring, there are cutbacks in education and tuition fees are increasing continually. Furthermore, inevitably people lose faith in politics when they are struggling to make ends meet while politicians become more corrupt than ever.

On the other hand, when the government launches a new initiative and all the politicians have to vote against or for it, any of the members of a party are in theory able to vote in a different way to the party line. If they do, they are punished with a financial and a political penalty. In other words, there is not a real democracy and the population loses faith in that too. They decide that it isn't worth voting. Hardly anyone bothers to vote in comparison with the early days of democracy.

Nevertheless, something has changed in the last elections and now there are new parties appear to be aware of the current problems society faces. I look forward to seeing whether they do make a real difference in our country or, at least, how the two old parties are going to reach an agreement with the new ones.

Please, If you find any mistake or you have another point of view about the information that I have posted, please leave a comment. We can all learn together! This blog feeds on your coments!!