PHOTOS: Sergio Betancort
The town of La Asomada is already celebrating. The church of San José Obrero hosted on Thursday night the reading of the proclamation by Juan José Reyes Viña, a conejero entrepreneur who lived his childhood and infancy under the skirts of the Guardilama and Gaida mountains. The event was attended by the mayor of Tías, Pancho Hernández, the Councilor for Festivities, Francisco Javier Aparicio Betancort, and the parish priest of Tías, Agustín Lasso.
The town crier, accepting the invitation extended by the Festival Committee, recalled his personal experiences and those of his family. As he highlighted last night in his proclamation, Juan José Reyes was born in La Caldereta, in a house that bordered that of the parents of his friend Juan Calero, a prominent lawyer and former mayor of Tías in the first democratic Corporation after the Constitution of 1978. At the age of 14, Reyes Viña moved to live in the capital of Lanzarote and his student stage was spent at the Mácher school because, in his years, there was still no school in La Asomada.
"La Montaña Gaida was the best in Lanzarote, because back in the 50s it supplied us with food and water. If my memory serves me right, its ravines housed ten or fifteen springs, which allowed us to be the only town with enough water until the mid-50s, when water began to come to Lanzarote in tanker ships and later they set up the desalination plant", the town crier recalled.
"If something was never lacking in La Asomada, it is the wind"
José Reyes described that stage of agriculture in this town, before the arrival of tourism to Lanzarote. "We have four mountains that shelter us, well, shelter is a way of saying, because if something was never lacking in La Asomada, it is the wind, their names, as we all know, are: La Asomada, Gaida, Guardilama and Tinasoria, without forgetting the smallest one, La Montañeta, being, I repeat, for me, the most special Gaida", he pointed out.
The mayor of Tías, Pancho Hernández, highlighted the town crier's knowledge of the festivities of each town because for many years Juan José Reyes was a member of different musical groups that performed at the verbenas of the neighborhoods and towns, during their patron saint festivities. Among them, in the Sociedad Unión Sur de Tías. The mayor and the representative of the Festival Committee presented some souvenirs for his participation as town crier in the present edition of the Fiestas de La Asomada 2018. After the proclamation, a musical trio performed several songs with the essence of the music of the Canary Islands.
In addition, during this weekend the central events of the festivities will be held. On Tuesday, May 1, the feast of San José Obrero, and non-working throughout the Spanish geography, La Asomada will celebrate its big day with the religious function starting at 12 noon and the subsequent procession, where the image of the saint will be accompanied by the Municipal Band of Tías (Cultural and Artistic Group of Tías, Acuarti), and the Gaida Folkloric Group. At night, and as the closing of its festivities, the magician and comedian Karim will perform in the halls of the Sociocultural Center.
Theater, music and sports
Within the program of events promoted by the Festival Committee and sponsored by the Department of Festivities of the City Council of Tías, the Theater group of Mácher will stage on Friday night, April 27, at 8:30 p.m., the play 'How Antonio López ascended to the heavens'.
On Saturday 29 will be the XII Montaña de Gaida Folkloric Encounter, with performances by the Rubicón and Atacayte Folkloric Groups, from Gran Canaria, and the subsequent performance of the Parranda Raíces. On this day, the residents of La Asomada will pay tribute and homage to Mrs. María Gregoria Camacho Montero, the grandmother of the town of La Asomada, and the oldest neighbor among the residents of this rural nucleus.
On Sunday, April 29, at 8 p.m., the II La Asomada Song Festival 2018 will take place with a wide representation of new emerging values of the song in Lanzarote. That same day will take place, at 12 noon, the Canarian wrestling.
