Few people know Gràcia better than this year’s town crier. Carla Carbonell He has presided over the foundation of the Festa Major for eight years. And from the privilege of having the first speech of the celebration, this 39-year-old physicist did something perhaps against the current: tell the neighbors who want to lose control after two years of the pandemic that the world is a disaster, but that Gràcia has the kryptonite, the potion, the seed to save it. And it is the spirit that makes the decoration of the streets possible every year. That is, “respect, cohesion, tolerance, balance and co-responsibility”.
It was not an acclaimed proclamation. And he came preceded by the almost traditional whistles to politicians who took the floor before the protagonist. She herself was the victim of even the most radical reproaches for the simple fact of making an indirect reference to Israel. But the herald’s message sounded loud and clear, above the noisy minority: humanity is going to waste due to climate change and deforestation, wars, violence and characters like Trump and Bolsonaro, Carbonell asked: “We are destroying the planet, can we change things?“. The answer of this physicist by profession is yes, that the spirit that allows the ‘guarnit’, the decoration of the streets, in the “Gallic redoubt” of Gràcia, can be exported. It can be a reason to “open the eyes, work for the common good”.
But Carbonell failed to focus attention. The young people from the ‘colles’ of the neighbourhood, like the Maleficent of Coll, they were more interested in sharing the beers sitting in the center of the Plaza de la Vila than in applauding her. And they were, the most anti-system, willing to whistle at the councilman Ferran Mascarell Already Eloi Badia, from the Government team of Ada Colau, when they took the floor briefly to introduce the town crier or simply to wish everyone a happy holiday. The alternative barker -another tradition already installed, the work and grace of the ‘cupaire’ environment- has already criticized the fact that politicians wanted to go up to the balcony of the Vila de Gracia headquarters this year more than ever because municipal elections are approaching.
“Women have come to stay”
Carbonell spoke in a feminist key and revealed that being proposed as a candidate to preside over the festivities raised “nervousness among characters” who did not see well that she was a woman and young. These misgivings made her decide to take up the post. “We have come to stay“. The town crier also reviewed with emotion the response of citizen solidarity after the attacks five years ago. She recalled the reaction of the people to make the tragedy more bearable. All this led Carbonell to claim that Gracia’s is more than a party of neighborhood
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A party that has been, like so many others, two years in suspense, and that even before the proclamation warmed up engines with a forceful joint performance of the groups of percussionists of the neighborhood, next to the giants and the ‘devils’ prepared for the fire and the night. Meanwhile, in all the adjacent streets and in the Plaza de la Vila itself, the residents continued to work on what Carbonell defined as the heart of the festival: the street decorations, ‘el guarnit’. Tourists took photos, older people occupied the benches and balconies – especially the shirtless older man on a balcony on Goya Street, with privileged views, and entire families from the ‘colla’ dels Gegants on Princesa Street were on their way towards the square. There was a desire to party.
Without tears
This time in the proclamation there were no tears or excessive whistlingas happened last year when the mayor Ada Colau He introduced the town crier, Jordi Cuixart, then leader of Òmnium, who came to his defense. This time a town crier was imposed who is neither a politician, nor a singer, nor an actress, nor a ‘tiktoker’, but who came out in defense of the neighborhood, of the party, yes, but who also raised her gaze above the neighborhood, of the day and of the celebration and called everyone to look for a reason but start to “change the balance” for something as simple and definitive as saving the world.