May Fiesta del Espíritu Santo

So the Holy Spirit Festival rolled around once again at the end of May this year. It’s eight weeks after Good Friday. This festival is local to El Batey, think of it as El Batey’s Spring Fest, minus the rides and the dunking booth. I was excited to be here for it again because last year I had just arrived in site and didn’t really understand everything that was going on. I feel like I know a little more this year. Supposedly, the Holy Spirit doll (although you can’t call it a doll in front of the true believers) was left to the community by Taino Indians (the native population of Hispaniola) a long time ago. Although it was definitely not made by the Tainos. My guess is it was probably given to them by the Spanish, assuming the story is even partially true. Many people believe that it really does hold the spirit of the Holy Spirit and believe in its ability to grant wishes and perform miracles.

They start by having eight weeks of practices. The women go to the church in their religious clothes and clean the church and the men play the palos. Then the Saturday before the party, they carry the doll in a glass case through the community, stopping at various houses where they play the palos and do blessings on the house. At some of the houses they even make food for everyone in the procession, which means food for 50 or 60 people, maybe more, I’m bad at estimating numbers of people. They also have some people along who play perico ripiao, another traditional music that is played with a drum, a guira, and an accordion. A guira is a round metal thing that looks kind of like a cheese grater that you play by rubbing a stick on it.

Last but not least, the festival is on Monday. People come from all over the place by the carloads, truckloads, and busloads to see our little Holy Spirit doll. There are venders selling pictures of the Holy Spirit, candles to light when you pray for your miracles, plastic necklaces with crosses, jewelry, clothes, food from fried yucca to hamburgers to pizza to traditional sancocho (stew) and chen chen (grits), and alcohol mainly beer, whiskey, and rum (Brugal of course), and all the mixers to go with it. Some people will stay in the church all night praying (or sleeping on the benches). Meanwhile, palos are playing in various places outside and sometimes inside the church and people will dance. By the end of the night it’s generally the young people and the very religious who are still standing. The very religious stay at the church and the young people go over to one of the discotecas and dance reggaeton, bachata, and merengue until the wee hours of the morning.