At the procession we remain silent. The faith passes by in a thick column, murmuring prayers, sometimes singing, rockets mingle with dragged and almost rhythmical steps. The color appears only in the “anjinhos”*, in the damask cloths of the canopy and in the platforms where the saints go. Even the amusements are required to stop. Sometimes the brass band is allowed to close with a march. About everything else falls into an unnecessary blackness of respect.

* (literally “little angels”, children dressed as saints)

Serra d’Arga chooses who goes up there, nobody climbs it just by wishing to do so. In her womb she drew valleys of millions of geological years, trodden by the wind and the harsh weather, with an avid wish of preparing the last gathering place for the Homo Sapiens, who would come later. Then a group came and encamped, making it’s history of denial and, among the mountains, suffered the isolation of their counterparts, as the mountain had foretold. But the ones from the plains are allowed to go there, in those unique days of the year, and are permitted to visit the origin. When they arrive, they remove from the earth, from the clean air, from the sparkling waters, from the night fires, from the rocks and from the jagged skyline of green the sentiment which unites all humanity: the one that even leads to the signing of truces and pacts between generations.

I do not understand this, but older people do have fun. There is much confusion, too many people and I’m a bit sleepy. Maybe what I need is to ask a balloon, cotton candy or a windmill to my mother. Of course she will say no, but my father, with two or three well placed tears will soon run to buy.

It is by sitting down by the sea that we realize our insignificance. It is also true that astronomers tell us that, but the sea is always handier than a good scientist. Stranger still, is to be sitting with these thoughts in the burning sand, and someone shouting, is trying to sell us something. If they were Natário’s Bolas de Berlim (small round cake with egg cream and sugar top), we would buy one.

A procession sometimes drags many people, who also go by dragging themselves, as they can. Many more, however, stay with respectful faces on the roadside, on the windows, on the porches or in the higher backyards, watching. They’re no longer surprised when the women decide to take out and carry the shoes, after one or two kilometers of tarmac, because they know it’s not because of blisters on their feet that they’re  praying behind the litter of St. Benedict.

Suddenly, someone appears from behind an altar where it was not even supposed to be. If, moreover, threatens us with a huge black camera, we are caught by surprise. Reacting to this just by smiling as we rapidly move ahead fearing those modern digital sensors as they capture our image with zeros and ones.

Under the trees, to build a tent and to camp. To eat, to drink, to sing, to dance, to party and even perhaps to love, over there, where nobody can see. Days on end, at São João d’Arga. After, walking to the chapel just to see how things are going and return home, with our own, those whom we spent the living days.