Dinagyang

In the town of Iloilo, there is a yearly festival called Dinagyang. It is in honor of Santa Nino, or the child Jesus, or something, it is all kind of confusing. Every town in the Philippines has a big yearly festival. Around the Visayas (the region I am in) the festivals are usually called the Ati-Atihan, which is also in honor of Santa Nino. Dinagyang seems to be a combination of Ati-Atihan and older tribal celebrations.

The festival lasts for about a week, all told, but centers on three days: the 25, 26, and 27th of January. Dinagyang is one of the largest festivals in the Philippines and draws people from all over the country. The entire downtown core is closed, probably about 20 times the area of Ottawa that is closed to traffic on Canada day. There are stages set up all over the place with dozens of bands playing. The larger intersections have four massive speaker walls blasting music at each other. It is by far the loudest music I have ever heard... BY FAR!! It hurts to go near the speaker wall. With your ears blocked it is still deafening and you can feel the vibrations all through your body and in your clothes. It was insane. But what was more insane were the crazy Filipinos who would dance in front of the speakers for hours! I assume alcohol diminished their ability to make wise decisions.

Snaking through all of this runs a parade route. The fourteen different tribes, or groups, are composed of dancers dressed in elaborate tribal clothing, followed by a team of drummers. The drums are extremely loud but in a good way, a bearable way, not the painful way. The tribes follow the parade route and stop at the various judging stations. After that is all wrapped up everyone eats BBQ and drinks San Miguel beer and listens to bands or insane walls of speakers.

It was quite a experience and really fun. I referred to Iloilo in an earlier post and may not have given a great impression of it. It was still a very smelly place but much less so during the festival, with some actual good smells, like pork BBQ. But all in all the town has grown on me, having been in it on three different occasions now. But the festival showed the human side of the city, the people