Festival Of The Accordion

I woke up with an uncomfortable cramp in my leg as I hear the obnoxious ringing of my alarm. I jump out of my bed to get to the phone in the other side of the room. Shit, I must not have heard the alarm the first few times - now it was already 10:34, 34min late. I had to be in the office at 11:00 to head to El Paso, for the festival of the accordion. After a 5min shower and 15min of packing I grab a banana and haste out of the door. I get to the office at 11:01 - no one is there. Staring at me are only a few open boxes with camera equipment and the big screens used for editing the footage. 'Of course, they'd be late - I should know that by now.' This was not the first time that I had to rush to get to a meeting only to find out that I was the only there one on time.

About two hours later everyone is ready. A little bit pissed off about the fact that I could have had a relaxed morning and with the cramp in my leg still bothering me I sit in the back of car. We start hitting the road, I had gotten into The Walking Dead a few days ago and was watching that a lot during the trip. Though every now and then I did manage to catch glimpses of the beautiful landscape we were passing through. At some point - I had run of episodes to watch by now - we enter a road a less travelled. Mud and stones created a narrow and uneven pathway in between trees and bushes - we only pass the occasional horse rider or motorbike. 'Are we lost?'. We ask the next horseman we pass: 'Donde está El Paso amigo?' He replies that we'd get there in about 10 minutes if we'd just go straight. 10 minutes later, still nothing... or wait looks like I am wrong - I can see a little town a few hundred meters down the bumpy road. We enter, and it turns out that this wasn't El Paso after all. So we ask the people of the village how to find El Paso. They reply with the same words as the horse rider: 'Go straight, and in ten minutes you should be there.' We continue the path and after ten minutes we reach a tarred road. The car had taken a little bit of a beating, driving on that country road - minivans are not made for escapades like that. Hence Roger (the driver) was more than relived to drive on safer grounds. Nevertheless we had still not made it to El Paso. We take a left on that road and pass another horseman. 'Amigo, sabes donde estás El Paso?' Roger shouts from the car. He replies with the same answer: 'It's straight - just drive for about 10 minutes and you'll get there.' After ten more minutes of driving we finally pass a sign reading 'El Paso'. However we end up not even entering the town that day, but stop at a petrol station just outside - as the only hotel we could find was there.

The following day we start the day by filming me entering the town as I hitchhike a pick-up truck into town. Personally I don't like cities, so after spending a few weeks in Barranquilla it was just lovely to pass through this little village. I see trees and small houses line the streets as I drive through them in the back of the pick-up. We reach the main plaza to see some of the first events of the festival. Again, the beginning is based on honouring the saint of the village. So I lie low for a little and simply watch from afar, until I hear the sounds of accordions in the distance. I follow the melodic sounds of drums and accordions to enter into a big back garden. Palm trees, a tree in full flower with pink blossoms and hammocks strung up on poles stuck in the earthen ground set the back drop for some dozen or so people playing music. The festival here in El Paso was only a small event, but the winner would receive quite a lot of money and hence people from all over Colombia had come to attend the accordion competition. In addition to the people playing music there were also a few men preparing big structures out of wood and bamboo. I head over to have a closer look as I see them starting to wrap rolls of paper along the wooden beams, connecting them to paper balls and cylinders.

"What is it that you are preparing there?" I ask once I had come close enough.

The man looks up from his work and says in his very fast and strongly accented spanish: "Well we call them 'castillos'. They are structures that hold the fireworks for the show tonight. These strings of rolled paper have a fuse inside of them that will set off the fireworks in succession."

That evening I got to witness what he had described: these 8-10m large structures were set off after the competitions had ended in honour of the saint of the village. And things got crazy. The fireworks happened to be directed right at the crowd, meaning that balls of fire and colourful light were being flying right into the audience. Again people moved in massive waves to avoid the hot projectiles which were flying and exploding all around us. The young children loved this and ran as close to the fiery 'castillo' as possible. Only to be nearly hit or have something explode next to their head. 'I guess it can't be too dangerous though, I can't see anyone actually being hit or burnt.' It is kind of nice that health & saftey concerns don't mess up some of these rare moments. I watch the kids playing with the fiery balls from a distance, and exactly this moment the fuse of one of the larger cylinders reaches its destination. Setting off hundreds of little balls flying in all directions. I stare at one of the women to my left whose face had tensed up as the firework exploded. And just in that moment one of these balls passes 10cm away from my eye, to explode just two seconds later. Close call, these things were clearly not just toys. Nevertheless I continued to enjoy every single one of the 7 castillos which spewed their light into the running audience.

Besides this community being very connected to the music of the accordion, and in particular a type of music called vallenato, all of its members seemed to be very connected to music and dance in general. I learn more about this with a guy named Cesar whom I meet in the house of culture of El Paso. He takes me on a little walk through the town and to the near-by river as he tells me more about another music style called tambora. It originated from the women that were washing clothes by the river. To occupy their time and make the job more enjoyable the used the sticks of wood they used for cleaning the clothes to create a rhythmic beat. Then they would sing with all their heart and strength. He invites me to his house, and his family being great singers and drummers of tambora they put on a little show once we arrive. The voice of Cesars mothers sang with incredible power with the fast rhythm of the drums. I danced a little bit with them and continued that dancing throughout the evening and night until the festival ended some time in the early morning.