Friday, December 12, 2008
Recycling Carnaval and other crisis-beating magic
Next year's Carnaval in Los Realejos will have as it's theme, recycling. This northern town in Tenerife has chosen an eco-friendly and crisis-beating theme that deliberately aims to have a dig at the public conscience to reuse as many items as possible from previous years.
There appears to be some Irish logic going on with this one, however. Santa Cruz Carnaval, they re[port is currently 8th in the ranking to select the 7 best fiestas in Spain. How can one of the most well-known features of Tenerife and the best after those of Rio de Janeiro, possibly fail to make a very high placing, if not be right at the top, on the list?
On Monday, December 15th, at 10.30 a.m., magician, Xerax, will place a number into an urn, which according to him, will be the winning number of the lottery on December 22nd. The urn will then be lifted by crane and suspended in mid-air, where it will remain for the week until the lottery is drawn, after which the number will be revealed. Now if only you could get a glimpse ... [Photo: Jose Mesa.]
The mayor of Candelaria has been accused of deception, for not having called a council meeting over Cho Vito (the coastal village where demolitions were carried out in October.) He's been criticized for turning a blind eye to the plight of residents. As an earlier article explained, "As is often the case with illegal homes in Spain, owners have official water and electricity connections, and have been paying property taxes to local government for decades."
Photo (left) by Jose Mesa, shows a view of Cho Vito before (in February 2008) and after (in November 2008) the demolitions took place. It seems that the houses had to go to make way for ... wait for it ... a footpath. This is despite the fact, as Jose explains, that "in contrast to other points on the Candelaria coast (invaded by private chalets, hotels, the Unelco [electric company's] installations, etc.), you could walk along the coast of Cho Vito, as the houses, grouped organically, didn't impede access at any time." There seems nothing fair or logical here.
(More images of the demolition and how the village was before.)
In other news ...
The Canary Islands Government presents a new book on the costumes typical of La Orotava on Friday.
The Tenerife International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, will be showing films from 15 different countries, between January 26th and February 1st, 2009.
Unemployment affects half to all members of 20% (one in five) of homes in the Canary Islands.
And in the "late to the party" department, the mayor of Arico wants to promote more tourism to combat unemployment during the crisis.
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