With the proclamation of the neighbor Carmelina García Barrios, the festivities in honor of Nuestra Señora del Carmen began last Friday in La Villa de Teguise. The event started at 8:30 p.m. in the Santo Domingo convent, with the presence of the mayor of the Teguise City Council, Olivia Duque, and the Councilor for Culture and Festivities, Francisco Javier Díaz, who shared the presidential table with the proclaimer Carmelina García Barrios, the first seats were occupied by the authorities and relatives of the proclaimer, completing the capacity with neighbors and friends.
The mayor of Teguise, Olivia Duque, presented her with a parchment that accredited her as the official proclaimer of the festivities, and the Councilor for Culture, Francisco Javier Díaz, presented her with a bouquet of flowers.
Full text of Carmelina's words in the proclamation:
"It is an honor for me to be here tonight as the proclaimer of my town and these festivities of Nuestra Señora del Carmen. I hope to live up to the task and fulfill this task, which I have accepted with pleasure, and a little nervousness, and I thank you all for joining me tonight."
"For those who don't know me, I am Carmelina, although my name is Catalina, well, Catalina María del Carmen, to be more exact and faithful to the story. My mother was a midwife in the area, she attended her own births and that's how I came into this world, with the sole help of my mother. She used to tell us that when she went into labor, she locked herself in a room and prepared everything she was going to need; a basin with water, scissors, alcohol, some rags and a blanket to lie on the floor and be more comfortable; this made it easier for her to get up and cut the umbilical cord herself. Once we were born, she was assisted by a neighbor who took care of the boy or girl while she recovered. I was very lucky that she herself assisted me at home in the birth of two of my daughters."
Thank you, mother!
"I am the youngest of eleven siblings, so I can boast that I had some privilege. My father was so happy when I was born that he went to celebrate and lost track of the drink he had, so when he arrived at the registry to register me, he didn't remember the name he had to give me and registered me as Catalina like his mother, but when they went to baptize me, they baptized me as María del Carmen, like my godmother, Carmen la del Acatife. My birth certificate is a complete madness, because it also says that I was born on the island of La Graciosa (I found out about this very recently), Total! that the only thing I am sure of is that I was born in the year 195, you can count the years of this story. And that people call me whatever they want: Carmelina, Catalina, Carmen or Catalina María del Carmen. Perhaps because of so much trouble with my names I have so much devotion to Nuestra Señora del Carmen."
"My mother was from Tinajo, but she came to Teguise as a girl, to serve in the house of Manuela and Esperanza Spínola. Despite the passage of the years, they always maintained a very good relationship, and for me they were always part of my family, as I believe we were for them. The Castillos were also like family, who were very generous with my father, offering him a piece of land to build a small house after my father cleaned the cistern for the soldiers to have water during the war. And so my childhood remained linked to this neighborhood of Santo Domingo and to these streets in which I was so happy. This convent in which we find ourselves was my school in the art of sweeping, because many were the times that in the month of October for the Rosario festivities, they gave me a broom so that I would learn to do the housework. Before, that's what was expected, to do the housework well."
"Although at that age, there was always time to do things like go to school, play or sing. The singing and going on stage comes to me from a young age, I don't know if from my mother, my father, or both. My mother hummed when she was sad and my father, who was a partygoer, sang when he was happy. I remember that my first beginnings on stage were in the priest's halls, where the cinema used to be. There I was the opening act in a theater performance singing the songs 'caminito que el tiempo has borrado' and 'corre, corre caballito'. My mother who was traveling, didn't know anything, and when she arrived she found out from a neighbor of the town who told her: 'Oh, but what an artist you have!'. My mother couldn't believe the fact that I had gone on stage to sing, and with the belief that she was going to have an artist in the family, wherever we went she would say to me 'sing to these people!' and although her dream was not fulfilled, music has always been part of my life. Throughout the years I have actively participated in cultural and ecclesial activities linked to it; the parish choir, the choral, the children's Christmas ranch where I started from the age of 16, the San Rafael and Carmen playbacks, the Chicavillas and currently in the Guagime Folkloric Group."
"If I close my eyes and let my mind go through those days of my childhood, I think I can hear how the paper flags that adorned the streets when the month of July arrived, warned me that the festivities were coming, I hear them in the square, warning the neighbors every morning, in each street that was decorated to receive and celebrate our Virgen del Carmen. I remember the smell of gunpowder in the streets after the flowered diana, the smell of the stew coming out of the houses, humble and not so humble, the sounds and smells that have remained in my memory forever and that I evoke with nostalgia when these dates approach."
The proclaimer also told many other anecdotes and, as she likes to sing very much, she finished her proclamation by singing a folias.
