Carnival is almost here

Carnival in Jimena this year is to be held on the weekend of March 13, 14 and 15. In years past, we have tried to explain this phenomenon, a difficult proposition at the best of times as it's so different in the province of Cádiz to anything associated with the likes of Rio de Janeiro or Venice. We don't know if we've been of any help at all, but you can see for yourself: CARNIVAL. You might also want to look at TioJimeno, who is an avid fan of Carnaval and is thus better qualified than we are to explain anything (go to his page and write in carnaval in the space beside the header, where it says 'Buscar' - that's 'Search' in Spanish. The page is translatable into something resembling English.) We couldn't help illustrating this item with anything other than yours truly 'officially announcing' or 'presenting' the Carnival in 1998 ... oh, too many years ago. A little anecdote and another photo:>>>

I was asked to be the pregonero ('official opener') at the last minute when someone more worthy had to drop out; I considered it a great honour nevertheless, particularly because it was the first, and I believe the only, time a foreigner has been asked to do so.

Now, a pejorative word for 'foreigner' is guiri, with which we are all usually identified generically in Spain. Wanting to relieve the word of its not-necessarily-nice connotations, I chose it as my theme.

Accordingly, I went through four costume changes onstage that began with the picture at the top - you'll agree that I looked fairly typical of a tourist on the beach. My skit, which was accompanied by a rhyming nonsense about guiris in more than acceptable local lingo (which I hadn't had time to learn by heart and was punctuated by the famous if incorrect call of all foreigners, "un thervetha pour farvour"), ended with an approximation of 'Farmer Giles', which is more or less what the señoritos de Jerez ('gentlemen' of Jerez, only not quite the same 'gentle' meaning in English) like to look like.

On my back was pinned a sign that read GUIRI, and my back was the last my more-or-less appreciative audience got to see. To my surprise, the word lost its pejorative meaning very quickly, at least at local level. Indeed, I still use it myself to identify the likes of me.
It was great fun, even when it was so cold that my knees turned blue shortly after the top picture was taken...