Birthday and Festival

Every year in early December Delta Cultura Cabo Verde has an intense time. The 2nd of December is the birthday of the football school. This year it makes 9 years that the football school has started its training. And every first weekend in December is the date of the Batucofestival that Delta Cultura Cabo Verde is organising. As an innovation this 6th edition of the festival happened during two days (Saturday and Sunday) and included african dances to the Batuco. We have combined these two consistently enjoyable events and made a great celebration of it. And it was a real celebration! A celebration for Delta Cultura, for the numerous Batuko and dance groups who participated, and of course for the entire community of Tarrafal. The village center was crowded for two days as usual only for Christmas and the village’s patrons day of Santo Amaro. The celebration of the birthday of the football school already started a few weeks ago with the realisation of football tournaments for all age groups. The actual birthday was celebrated with the attachement of a bow (that is tradition for birthday celebrations in Cape Verde) for all children and young people, the distribution of recognition diplomas to everybody who helped build up the football school in the last years and of course an excellent dinner. Astonishing was the performance of the cooks: they didn’t only have to cook for the 180 children of the football school but also for their godparents (each child had a godparent – another tradition in Cape Verde) and for all the Batuko groups of the first day. All together at least 300 people. The event started at 16:00 in the renovated old market of the community and until the opening of the festival on the main square of Tarrafal all children, young people and leaders were honored and fed. The Festival de Batuco e Dancas Africanas – thanks to the strong support of the local municipality and the national Ministry of Culture and of course because of the professionalism of the organiser Marisa – was even more impressive than the previous years. Just the stage and its equipment has improved in comparison to last year significantly. But also the artists that have performed have provided a fantastic level of the event. Accordingly, the attendance was large on these two days of the festival and the enthusiasm of the audience as well. For everybody who can understand Portuguese, here is the news report about the festival of the Cape Verdean televison and for everybody who does not understand Portugues but want to have some impression a few fotos:

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