The first of the activities of the Riocabado festivities program, which took place from May 1 to 3, took place on Friday at 6.30 p.m., and was titled “Opening of the WhatsApp group of festivals”. This town of Ávila has, according to the census, 140 inhabitants. However, at 18:30 on Friday, the group to celebrate the town's festivities reached 161 users. Among the uncensored, in addition to people from Rio de Janeiro who live outside their locality and did not want to miss the event, I was: even though I am from Albacete, they let me enter the group to enjoy some parties that were entirely held by WhatsApp.
The coronavirus crisis has not been able to prevent the people of Rio de Janeiro from celebrating, as every year, their May festivities. Traditionally, in addition to the religious acts in honor of the Cristo del Amparo, in these festivities “many activities are organized, such as a brass band with costumes, a contest (last year, photography) ... And at night, they play bingo ”, tells Verne by phone the riocabadense Carmen González. All these activities, including religious acts, have been celebrated in the WhatsApp group. The first of these, after the opening of the party group, was the "putting of pennants" on doors and balconies. More than 70 people sent theirs:
Not all of these images are taken in Riocabado. Some are from balconies of riocabadenses who live in Madrid, Andalusia, the Canary Islands or even the United Kingdom. "One of the advantages that this celebration has had is that people from outside have been able to participate who, otherwise, could not have come," says Carmen González. She is one of the young women who was in another WhatsApp group, with only seven people, who coordinated the group of 160 members: that of the town's festivities committee.
In addition to programming the events, organizing the activities and moderating the macro-group of the parties, the committee has been making videos of each event with the material - photos, small videos ... - that the participants sent. Like the one of the dessert contest held on Saturday, in which the people of Rio de Janeiro who cheered up had to send the image of a dessert - "before trying it", the program clarified - to the group. About sixty desserts participated and the winner (honorary, because there was no prize) was the creator of the "chocolate sausage". The popular vote, also carried out by chat, was based on the pint. You cannot do tastings on WhatsApp.
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Thank you very much for participating in this activity !!!
A shared post from RIOCABADO 🇪🇸 (@riocabado) on May 2, 2020 at 6:30 pm PDT
From the celebrations committee they also made a video summary of the costume band (all dressed up, but each at home and publishing photos on WhatsApp) and another of the activities that caused the most laughter - written -: the contest of Your face It sounds to me, where the participants who cheered up had to publish a video, in the style of the TVE program, imitating a singer or music group. The imitation of Camela won.
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Thank you all for participating!
A shared post from RIOCABADO 🇪🇸 (@riocabado) on May 2, 2020 at 6:40 PDT
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Charanga plus costumes to liven up our second day of parties !!
A shared post from RIOCABADO 🇪🇸 (@riocabado) on May 2, 2020 at 1:58 PDT
"The truth is that we have had to work hard to make everything work out, but the idea [of celebrating the holidays via WhatsApp] has worked much better than we expected," says González. And whose idea was it? From a 15-year-old boy, Andrés Sánchez. "Seeing the situation we were in and taking into account how important these festivals are to the good atmosphere of the town, I started to think and it occurred to me to organize one or two activities to maintain the tradition," says the young man to Verne . "When I decided to carry it out, I contacted my neighbor Angélica García [also from the festivities committee] and we started scheming little by little ... And ideas such as mass or bingo came to mind."
Masses and bingo for WhatsApp, Zoom and public address system
Some activities, such as bingo - held on Saturday and Sunday - could be followed by multiple channels: the residents who were in the town could follow the numbers by opening the windows and listening to the public address system. “Andrés [Sánchez] 's brother is a DJ, so he lent us the equipment for the activities,” says González. The rest of riocabadenses, by WhatsApp or Zoom. This is how a bingo is organized and sung on WhatsApp:
Despite having more than 150 members, the WhatsApp group did not run wild at any time: there were no interruptions, no WhatsApp chains, or any content that had nothing to do with the parties. "It also helped us that on Saturday - May 2, the first day with allowed outings to do sports and walk - you could already go outside," says González. "Thus, some neighbors were able to speak or even go and tell the older neighbors, from the door, how the group worked."
The mass could also be followed on different platforms: from the balconies through speakers, by direct from Instagram or, once finished, in a WhatsApp audio. The priest, of course, was another member of the group. "There are older people who, due to the coronavirus, left the town temporarily with their children, who live in Madrid or Ávila, to take care of them," says Carmen González, "being able to follow Mass on mobile has given them life" . There was also a procession on Sunday, in the style of those that circulated on Twitter and WhatsApp groups during Easter: from balcony to balcony. It could be followed live on Instagram and, at the end, the video was published on WhatsApp.
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Long live the Christ of Amparo 🎉
A shared post from RIOCABADO 🇪🇸 (@riocabado) on May 3, 2020 at 7:06 PDT
Although the festivities have already ended, the WhatsApp group of the parties continues to exist, and this Monday messages of thanks continued to come to the organizers. "I think that the great success has been being able to reach everyone, both young and old, those here and those who were away ... there has never been so much involvement as this year," writes one of the people of La Rioja. Not only have they managed to keep the celebration, but now they keep a beautiful memory for posterity: a group with more than 2,000 text messages and 300 photographs and videos of the days when they had their big parties without leaving home.
The Riocabado twins
The probability of having twins in Spain, according to INE statistics, is usually around 2%. Unless, of course, you live in Riocabado: with only 140 inhabitants, this small agricultural town of Ávila has, among its inhabitants, twenty couples between twins and twins.
In Mutating Spain, the genetically unique towns tour of Verne , Riocabado was the first stop. You can watch the video below:
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