Cordoba Heaven / Cordoba Hell
It still feels like living in a dream being here in Cordoba. This week we’ve had Feria. This basically means funfair but this is a funfair like no other. We watched the opening ceremony fireworks from the bridge, looking across the river whilst drinking cava and then walked through a tunnel of fairy lights to the entrance, a light encrusted recreation of the ‘Mesquita’, the famous Moorish mosque turned gothic cathedral in Cordoba.
There were women in flamenco dresses with flowers in their hair and beautiful lights and music everywhere. One side of the enormous park was lined with funfair rides and the rest contained casetas which (special to Cordoba) are all open to the public. The casetas are like nightclubs in marquees and there were streets and streets of them each with their own individual character. Some were full of families dancing to Spanish music, and many were seething with people dancing to thumping dance, rock, or drum & bass music.
It’s a dizzying and heady spectacle which I feel you have to submit to. In a group of people trying to navigate it together, it can be a little frustrating as you keep losing each other but I enjoyed getting lost in the moment and meeting new people and seeing friendly faces we recognised from other contexts in Cordoba. It’s one hell of a party!
Yesterday, however, was not my favourite day of the trip. I took the foolish decision to go to the bull fight. I was curious to discover what it was all about and felt that I wasn’t in a position to criticise an aspect of someone else’s culture without first understanding it. However, I know that murder is wrong without feeling the need to try that, so why I thought that a festival of animal cruelty would be a good thing to watch, now escapes me.
It was interesting and it certainly was a spectacle, with excited cries of Olé from the audience, but I feel that I have blood on my hands for being there. The six bulls suffered a slow, painful, and humiliating death. Apparently they save the bravest bulls occasionally but there was no sign of that yesterday, only cries from the audience that the matador should receive two ears or a tail from the bull for a particularly good kill. I didn’t actually want them to be saved in the end but to be put out of their misery more quickly, or never put through it in the first place of course! I quite enjoyed all the mincing about in pink socks and sequins and flapping the cloth around and dancing with the bull, it was all the unnecessary stabbings that got to me. They used the bull’s instincts against him. I think I would have preferred to have seen a gladiatorial fight to the death because at least that would have been fairer.
After the trauma of that, I thought that one final trip to Feria to go on the big scary ride was in order. I knew I’d regret it if I missed out on the Gigant XXL. Our host at the bull fight warned us that Feria was different on the last night with more people from further afield and a different atmosphere but I didn’t intend to go for long. Unfortunately, however, it sucked me in again and someone managed to steal my phone and money from my closed handbag strapped around me. Not a very good end to the day. Such a shame when Cordoba is usually such a safe and lovely place.
It’s just as well that Feria is over now since we only have two weeks of the placement remaining and are keen to crack on with our personal projects. Whilst we are expected to experience the culture and Feria was written on our timetable all week, including the two days off work that nearly everyone in Cordoba is given for Feria, we do have some more work to do!
The scary ride at Feria, taken on my phone before it was stolen.
