This weekend the April Fair ends, the Seville one, the real one, and it is impossible for me not to remember the contrite face of councilwoman Elisabeth Merino, from the Popular Party, responsible for Tourism, Sports and Human Resources, when a few weeks ago she announced that this year there would be no April Fair in Arrecife. And she said it with pain. Much pain. All the pain of her heart.
One imagines the scene: sleepless nights, soaked handkerchiefs, a sevillana song playing in the background while making the very tough decision to cancel lanterns and rebujitos. Because if something keeps the public officials of this governing group awake, it is, without a doubt, the absence of stalls.
One appreciates the sincerity. It's not every day that a public representative opens up completely about the cancellation of a themed party in a city that is neither Seville nor has the Guadalquivir River.
But what a relief to know that, at least in the sentimental realm, the City Council functions.
Because if we talk about other ailments, perhaps the municipal heart has a curious selectivity.
The Fair hurts. But it doesn't seem to hurt that hundreds of neighbors from Arrecife have had to consider going to court to be able to simply rest in their own homes. Rest. That Asian luxury.
It hurts that there are no booths. But it doesn't hurt that in Valterra they continue to wait for the ownership of their homes to be resolved, like someone waiting for an inheritance that never arrives.
It hurts to cancel sevillanas. But it doesn't hurt that in Titerroy there are families living with their houses shored up, trusting more in wood than in public management.
It hurts to suspend an illuminated cover. But it doesn't hurt that the most populous neighborhood in Arrecife doesn't even have a Municipal Library. Not a macro-infrastructure, a library. A place with books and silence. Although, given what we've seen, perhaps silence is precisely the problem. Maybe they are thinking, what's the point of a library if, well, between the two or three hours that the residents of Argana spend going to work in the tourist areas due to the lack of an interchange, and the two or three hours to return to their homes after their workday, who has the time and desire to go to such an invention?
The absence of lanterns hurts, but it doesn't seem to hurt that we are still waiting for the transfer of land for the Argana health center.
It hurts not to be able to toast with rebujito, but it doesn't hurt that sports clubs receive in February 2026 the subsidies for the 2024-2025 season. Grassroots sports has always been very much about endurance: what better training than surviving a whole year without getting paid?
It hurts not to inaugurate a fair, but it doesn't hurt to lack a municipal funeral home, nor a family respite center, nor sufficient public baths in a city that boasts of being touristy while forcing residents and visitors to practice the noble art of physiological improvisation.
It hurts that there is no Fair, but the Reducto Beach was closed to swimming for more than five months without the institutional mourning having reached such dramatic intensity.
That said: to protect non-existent bicycles, yes, we have been creative. There are those urban "mushrooms" sprouting around the city, iron guardians of an imaginary cycling. A perfect metaphor: we protect what is not there and we leave unprotected those who use a manifestly improvable public transport daily.
And speaking of housing, that trifle, it hurts that the governing group voted against the declaration of a tense zone, thus renouncing the possibility of capping rents in a city where more and more people are living with their backs to the wall. But of course, rents are not decorated with polka dots.
Because in Arrecife we have learned something important: structural problems are not solved, but at least they are illuminated with colored light bulbs. And if there are no light bulbs, then it really hurts. It hurts in the heart.
One does not doubt that the councilwoman suffers. What happens is that the citizenry also suffers, although their pains are less festive and more everyday. But, it seems that the only pain that deserves a solemn appearance is that of the Fair.
With all the pain in my heart, allow me the license, perhaps what has been canceled this year has not been a party. One of many. Perhaps the problem is that we have become accustomed to the festive calendar marking the intensity of political emotion.
And that, yes, should hurt us.
