This story, submitted for publication to the Pan American Union, was written in the mid-1960’s while living in Champaign, Illinois. (Publication was denied because it "did not include glossy black and white photos.")
The Christmas season in Colombia begins December 7, the Eve of the Immaculate Conception, which is traditionally celebrated by the lighting of the candles.
This ancient religious custom brought over from the Old World begins soon after sunset. Candles are placed side by side in windows, doorways, sidewalks, and balconies. Sometimes as many as fifty or more being placed there by one family. For several tranquil hours the soft lights twinkle over the city. The candles, made especially for this purpose, are cheap enough for all to buy. Poor and rich alike participate in this meaningful ceremony. Together the ‘criada’ or maid, and her Senora light their candles.
The most beautiful sight I remember was the barrio of Siloe, a slum district located on a mountain just south of Cali. The entire lower part glowed with the burning candles. People from all parts of the city came to watch from the tiny shacks where the poor lived.
The candle wax left from over fifty candles was still left on the sides of the steps up to our entrance area of our porch when the whole city suddenly became alive with the traditional white Christmas cheer. Almost as if to replace the glowing candles, tiny white electric lights had been strung on every tree bordering the main esplanades and plazas. Shops and homes began to take on a festive look with tinsel and lights. Colombian peasants peddled small trees, not pine or spruce but trees they had cut from Andean slopes. They had stripped off all the green bark and leaves, leaving a smooth, bleached, most unusual tree to decorate.
Shops had delicate and ornate glass decorations for sale, but the very poor made their own decorations, out of the cheapest material available, paper! I discovered this when our young servant girl, Lelia, asked me to buy some tissue and crepe paper for her at the papelerillo. Several days later she showed me a basket of beautiful paper flowers she had made. She gave a small one to each of our four children who ranged in age from two to twelve. Then she placed a paper rose on our tree. She took the rest to decorate her church.
Parades are held often, but the most impressive is the Gran Calabato Popular, when aristocratic horsemen ride their silver hung prize animals in a long and elaborate procession one Christmas afternoon through the crowded downtown streets and around the plaza.
Every Latin city has its carnival week. Carnival time in Cali is December 26 to January 6, which coincides with the Sugar Festival, a time set aside to celebrate the harvest of sugar cane, the main industry of the Cauca Valley where Cali is located. Small open-air night clubs called casetas spring up, as if by magic for dancing and eating. The throbbing music of La Cumbia quickens the pulse of the crowd and soon the dance floor is filled with dancers. The men flashing their machetes and the women holding a candle, they shuffle into the traditional circular dance of the sugar cane workers.
The city is suddenly crowded with visitors and onlookers. During Feria time it is almost impossible to drive through the streets. There is dancing all night and some streets are roped off for this purpose. Carnival stalls are erected along the main thoroughfares selling gaudy maracas, papier mache animals and masks, fancy hats, skirts of palm fiber, trinkets and a large variety of fireworks which are so important to Colombians during the holiday season.
Squatting peasants hovered around charcoal fires to sell hot empanadas to hungry revelers. The smell of roasted corn on the cob permeates the air. Gaily dressed dancers and musicians from many areas of Colombia are invited to the city to present programs of folk music and dancing typical of their regions. Bullfights are an integral part of the festivities and many of the bulls are imported from Spain at great expense for the occasion.
The color and pomp of the Corrida de Torros is contagious. When the richly dressed Picadores on horseback, holding their long spears march around the ring, the excited crowd comes to its feet. A great matador is held in high esteem and when he walks out to meet the bull, the ring echoes with cheers.
As the cheers fade away and the city returns to normal after Feria time, paper and litter are swept from the streets. Tinsel and lights are taken down. Christmas branches are thrown away. The candle smudges left here and there are all that remain and are the only reminders that Christmas was, and will come again to Cali.
