Spanish views from a small town

It was described as the second weirdest festival by The Guardian in 2008, right after the mud festival at Boryeong in South Korea. To those who are not Catholic (and even quite a few Catholics), visiting Santa Marta de Ribarteme on its feast day, July 29th, is a sight to make you think you've fallen through Alice's looking glass.  Normally, when someone asks a saint for a favor, they then go to the festival of that saint carrying a votive candle, as a way of thanking the saint for having answered their prayers. But Santa Marta is special. She was the sister of Lazarus and Mary Magdalen, and is now the patron saint of those about to die. In the New Testament, there are a couple of stories about her. When Jesus visited their house once, Mary sat by Jesus and listened to him talk. Martha bustled about in the kitchen and was put out that her sister didn't help. Another time, when Lazarus had died and Jesus asked to be taken to his tomb, Martha declared that it was now too lat...

The Spanish have a way of making the Virgin Mary the patron saint of just about everything. That is why we refer to her with so many different names, such as Virgen de los Dolores (Virgin of the Pains), etc. As a consequence, we get women's names that sound normal in Spanish but absolutely strange in English. Amparo (Succour), Pilar (Pillar), Nieves (Snows), Dolores (Pains), and Rocío (Dew), are some of those names. All of them refer to a different patronage or name of the Virgin Mary. Each of them has a feast day, too (can't live without celebrating). Fifty days after Saturday of Holy Week is the festival of the Virgen del Rocío. This saint has a hermitage in Almonte, Huelva. The festival and pilgrimage to the hermitage date back at least to the fourteenth century. There are now over a hundred hermandades (brotherhoods) of the Virgen del Rocío, mostly from Andalucía and Extremadura. They make a pilgrimage to Almonte every year for the festival. Each hermandad has a simpec...