With the reading of the proclamation last Thursday night by the neighbor of Mozaga, Ramón Corujo Martín, the festivities in honor of Santa Lucía officially began. On such a special night, Ramón was very well accompanied by his family, friends and neighbors, filling the capacity of the social hall of the Durán Socio-cultural Center.
A proclamation loaded with very funny brushstrokes with some nostalgic ones. Ramón, like any child of his age, had a very happy childhood playing in the dusty streets of the town, turned into parks and soccer fields, using toys that they built themselves with any piece of material they found in the surroundings, traditional games, such as the spinning top, the bowling alley, the piola, hide-and-seek, etc. At the age of six he began to attend the unitary school located in the place known as Barranco. Every morning "when he arrived at school the teacher checked his nails and if they were dirty she sent him home to wash them." He said that he would take a barilla that was on the side of the roads and wash them. Another of the teacher's records was to do an exploration on his head in case they had lice, something very common in those years.
When adolescence arrived, Ramón, like any young man of his age, began to leave the town looking for a way to have fun and the most common way was to move with friends to the dances and festivals that were organized in other towns on the occasion of the holidays. According to Ramón himself, he had healthy fun since in those times there was no consumption of so much alcohol and the other drugs that are destroying so many young people and their families.
The town crier also told how hard his parents and his neighbors had to work to get ahead working in agricultural tasks. He recalled how they helped each other by organizing gangs for both sowing and harvesting. Ramón, since he was old enough to reason, has been a man committed to his town and to society in general. When he was very young, he held the presidency of the Socio-Cultural Center, working side by side with his colleagues on the Board of Directors to ensure that Mozaga would advance culturally. And that it would also be a place where young people would have a meeting and fun place. Although he does not currently hold the presidency, he is always willing to lend a hand.
For 18 years he was a member of the Los Batateros de San Bartolomé murga because he has always felt like a carnival-goer. For the town crier, when the Santa Lucía festivities arrive, all those moments when the neighbors did not stop from one place to another whitewashing their houses with lime, painting their doors and windows, fixing the church and decorating the frontis with palm leaves and flags made by the women of the town. They were and still are very important dates for him.
At the end of his reading he was presented with a beautiful sculpture and the coincidences of life that on that same day, December 5, he turned 56 years old and was surprised with a cake that he very excitedly blew out the candles with the chords of Happy Birthday that all the attendees sang to him. Then came the protocol moment of the photos with the family, board of directors and friends to then give way to the musical performance of the Calicanto Group that pleasantly surprised those present with a repertoire of carols with Canarian roots that were highly applauded. The act ended with the inauguration of the exhibition of the neighbor Francisco Curbelo with works designed by himself in his spare time.
