Zamarramala

This is a little late, but I wanted to talk about the festival of Santa Agueda- a great experience. We left early in the morning (about 9 or 10, which is early in Spain) to walk to Zamarramala, one of the barrios of Segovia, for la festival de Santa Agueda. The story goes that many years ago when Spain was under Moorish rule, the moors overtook el Alcázar (or the castle) of Segovia. Los maridos (husbands) of all the women that lived in Zamarramala were captured in the Alcázar too. So all the women dressed up in their finest dresses and danced the 5 km to the Alcázar in order to entice the moors and save their husbands. Of course, it worked, and the moors were so enthralled with the women that the husbands were able to defeat the moors and escape from the castle. For this, one Sunday in early February, the women are in charge of this little pueblo. They have honorary alcaldesas (female mayors) and the women dance just as they did many years ago. The entire city has one giant fiesta and then goes to misa (mass). Afterwards, they burn an effigy of a man in the plaza mayor and the alcaldesas give feminist speeches. There’s a lot more to the history of the festival and why it’s on a certain date, but I only understand it in Spanish. Maybe when I get home I can sort through it all and figure it out in English. We ate really good food (pinchos morunos- which are pork kabobs) and danced in the streets. The whole day had a real Spanish feel, not touristy at all.