Traditioning

Valencia is home to what is thought to be the oldest running court in the world – the Water Tribunal. it is a small group of people who have come together every week at the door to the Cathedral to settle water disputes. They, and their predecessors, have been doing this for around 1000 years. The farmlands around Valencia are heavily irrigated so disputed rights to water were common in the past. The court sits, people present their issue, and a decision is made on the spot. Today there were no disputes, so the whole thing pretty much involved some people marching an and sitting down for five minutes. But, still, that’s a pretty long tradition to witness.

Then, leaving school this afternoon, I stumbled upon a group of strangely dressed men throwing little branches of myrtle all over the street to at accompaniment of drums and horns, it says something that no one I asked could tell me what was going on, but some research reveals they were cleaning the streets by making them smell nice for the Festival of the Virgin of Carmen.

There is something deeply satisfying in seeing these connections to the past keep on living today.

And that thought made my evening activity even more fascinating. I chatted via Zoom with a cousin I, until very recently, did not know existed. He lives in California and my grandfather is his great-grandfather.

I was just about to press post on this article when they marched the Virgin right by my front door.