Festival Madness

After a quite strenuous period of not being sure if my travel plans would work and after oh so many trips to the travel agent, we finally managed to buy the tickets. As soon as my departure dates had been set the time pressure of getting the last episodes done became stronger. The TresHermanos Group had a contract with the tv channel to film 26 episodes - and we were still about 4/5 short with only about a week left. The challenge here was to find festivals that we could attend.

"Noah, we've got a plan about how we can do this." Tasha told me as the last days of my stay drew nearer. "There are three festivals happening - two of which are quite close to Barranquilla. However some of them are during the same days."

"Ok, what is your plan with that then?" I reply a little perplexed as to how they are actually planning on going about this. Whatever the case it didn't sound like I would be able to relax.

"Hear me out: so we will first go to the 'festival del pastel', however it is not going to be happening that day. We can organise some people to go there when it is happening but before that we'll film some scenes of you there. We can just cut them together afterwards. For the next festival something similar is the case. We are going to arrive one day earlier, film one day without it happening and then the first day of the festival we can be there and film. Then the last festival is the 'festival del porro', which will be for two days as well and we'll be there for the whole festival. However because it is pretty far we will have to drive from the second festival throughout the night until we get to the next one. It will be quite a lot of pressure but I bet we can do it. What do you think?" She said in one long talk that she seemingly had gone over and over in her head.

"Sounds acceptable for the most part - I guess we have to get the show done. What was the second festival about again? And how will we manage with the dates - how much time will I have to pack up all my things before flying back?" I say a little tired, this coming week is going to be tough. And in addition to that I am going to have to be happy and energetic for the show.

"It's the festival del mojarra - it's a kind of fish. Anyway, we will come back on the 30th of June in the morning. So you only have about a day to pack all your stuff up. Sorry about it being a little bit messy towards the end."

We hit the road for the festival del pastel in the morning to get as much done as possible for the single episode festival. The towns streets were empty and silent - and after some of the usual interviews with the organisers of the event we got into the real essence of the festival. A few women in the village had been willing to prepare everything needed to really show us how to make the pastels. It ended up being very fascinating to see how the process went. As you would start with some banana leaves, which would function as a natural wrap. Then with rice and meat and sauces and all sorts of marvellous flavours you could create the combination that you wanted. Then after ensuring that the banana leaves contained the mixture within it would be tossed into a pot of boiling water for 4h. Unfortunately we couldn't come during the days of the actual festival, but even this sneak peek and the taste of the truly delicious 'pastels' were able to give a me a good representation of the essence.

The two following days, during which we continued staying overnight in Barranquilla, we went to the festival del mojarra. We came quite late for the first day but again the locals impressed by preparing a few things for us to experience outside of the real festival. They had organised a fish eating competition, for which I was relieved that I wasn't asked to participate. Mangos I could eat in masses but just the thought of having to eat 4 big fish made me cringe. The day continued with murderous heat - and we had decided to go out on a boat to interview a few fishermen and get some beautiful shots of the scenery surrounding the village. Even on arrival to the sea came the sad realisation of the tough situation of the fishermen. As we reached the water a boat that had been out all day came to land. With all but a small bucket of fish as the fruits of their hard work the fishermen were grumpy and pissed off. It really touched me to get a deeper understanding and real life example of how big organisations, through the use of expensive fishing equipment, had left the sea dry for the local fishers. However the TV Channel didn't want this to be a show with any of the sad stories of Colombia - so we couldn't get a deeper understanding of this on camera, but instead went out on a boat with one of the local fishers. He however wasn't there to show us how to fish, but to show some of the music from this region. Through the simple use of his voice, nothing more, he told the stories and hardships that he had to endure in his long life. In the evening of the second day of the festival del mojarra we had to go through the pain of driving until 02:00 to get to the next festival. Which luckily was a lot easier to film as the festival was really happening during the days of our visit. It was the festival del Porro - a dance form which shares many similarities with the dance of cumbiamba.

Even at the late time of our arrival one could still feel the heat radiating from the concrete walls of the bedroom. We had to fall asleep to the constant noise of old fans that had been put around the room to make sleep an option. We start the day by witnessing the beginning of the band competition. While hiding underneath a large tree from the intense heat I felt that the past few days had taken their toll on my body. I was starting to feel more and more ill throughout the day and only dancing and interesting interviews managed to keep my mind afloat. After the competition we got the honour to interview some of the originators of porro music. They have had a very large impact on the music scene of the northern colombian coast as a whole throughout their lives. By travelling the caribbean coast and other parts of Colombia with bands and music groups they spread the word about their music style and not just kept it alive but made it an integral part of the regions culture. At this point people from all over the world come to San Pelayo to experience and learn from the musicians of this culturally rich region.