On 27 July, we hold our first celebration in Penadexo in honour of our patron saint Titus Brandsma. In Spanish, Titus becomes Tito, which is also the diminutive for any word. Thus we get the catchy name of Festival de Santito: little saint festival.
Why is it important to host a festival? Firstly, it’s local culture for any village including the smallest hamlets to celebrate their saint. Secondly, we don’t want to be a sleepy retirement community, but something more vibrant that can attract younger people too. Thirdly, we can promote liberty both to would be residents and locals alike. It is for that reason we have adopted the Guímaros legend as our heritage: a tax rebellion of the local peasants against the count of Lemos.
Communities are formed with celebrations and it is about time we hold one!
The program for Santito 2024 will look something like this:
13.30 Lunch with group members and volunteers
18.30 Inauguration of the source of San Tito by our local priest
20.00 Pancetada (traditional bacon barbecue) with live music. As is customary, visitors get free panceta, bread and wine.
In order to make this happen the following needs to be done:
- Rebuild the water system – this has been approved by the parish last year, but work has not commenced. If it is not done on time an alternative can be made fairly easy using the village wells, pumps and storage tanks uphill, for less than 1000 euros
- Construct a septic system for the main house. This way we get at minimum two bathrooms operational.
- Construction of a ornamental faucet at the site of San Tito.
- Supplies for the festival: panceta, wine, bread, beer, supplies to feed the volunteers
- Sound system & Lights. Koen, yours truly and his brother have this one covered pretty much.
- A band or two. Here are some options:
Something with mandatory bagpipes: Link
Talented singer deserving of more views: Link
For later on at night Baiuca, a DJ who collaborates with traditional musicians to create a unique style of electronic music: Link
A band from Vigo, who wrote a protest song during covid lunacy. For this reason alone my favorite, but their music is nice too.
Naturally there are many details that need to be covered but that goes without saying.
No pains no gains so we’ll either need your sweat or cash to get this festival going and launch into orbit.
First let’s talk about volunteers: no matter what your skill set is, we have a job for you. If your Spanish is good and/or have a million dollar smile, you can go door to door as is the custom and gather funds. Anybody who can wield a hammer, report for duty. We need posters and signs made and installed. Houses need to be cleaned, land cleared. With special emphasize on beauty: no stray garbage in Penadexo, we do maintain abandoned properties and have something flowering in any corner. People that work need to eat so anyone who can cook will be much appreciated.
Funding:
Galicians are a party loving people. You will never hear an (elderly) Galician couple saying: it’s getting dark, time to go home. In fact, the children’s activities usually start at 21.30. Within the municipality of Pobra (population 1500, average age of 60) there are probably around 100 festivals during summer alone. Young and old know how to sing and play an instrument. Every grandpa seems to have barrels of wine in their basement. People give generously for festivals.
A few weeks prior to every festival, the commission member will pass local businesses and all the houses of the community to ask for donations. These are people we know well: the bakery we go to every day, all the taverns and shops in town and so forth.
The parish of Saa, our parish, made a fortune last year with the pine harvest from community lands. Both the festival of Saa and the festival of San Vitorio near Penadexo had several bands, bars, inflatables for the kids – they were massive. Attendance was 500 and 2000 people respectively. We will definitely ask for funding.
Then there is our group and all the people we know. How eager are you have a great festival and put Penadexo on the map of the liberty movement? (like Porcfest in New Hampshire?) The liberty movement is growing in numbers and fueled by crypto-currency. Penadexo and our festival is a liberty incubator. After ten years and 100 million in funding, Prospera in Honduras has 0 official residents. In terms of attracting real people, we are 1000 times more effective. We should communicate this throughout the libertarian movement and invite all freedom loving people!
Places to sleep for volunteers:
There are two hotels in the area and two reasonably price AirBnB rentals. Of course we like to host as many people as possible on site, but even in the best of circumstances accommodation will be primitive. You’ll have to bring your camping mattress and slleeping bag and sleep on the floor. Other than that there will be a functioning bathroom and the weather is good. In this fashion we can probably host about 20 people in Penadexo itself.
Success will motivate to do more, and as Penadexo develops we can think of homeschooling school camps, chestnut harvest festival, salsa workshops by one of our members, libertarian conferences and so on!