Sunday 14 June 2009

Sunday afternoon in Benfeita



We spent the day following a band around town, they came from Barril de Alva, they went up the hill and back down again, stopping at various houses to play. The stopped to drink and smoke and eat and wipe the sweat from their brows and ended up giving a concert in the recently opened cafe in the square. It was sunny and very very humid this morning, then thankfully it rained, it stayed cool all afternoon and the sun came out just before it set. We had a lovely day with the locals, we were the only foreigners around all day, we sat with our favourite old ladies and others came over to talk to us. I was made to get up and dance a salsa type dance with the guy (a local builder) who had organised the whole thing, being led around in front of the whole town. We, incidentally were the only ones dancing.

1 comment:

joe whitehead said...

Superb! You are extremely lucky to have a band like that. Charles Ives would have loved its haphazard tuning, timing and timbre. (Although I suspect Sousa may be turning in is grave.) They are to be congratulated!