They have arrived. It is remembered a monument in the center of the municipality that emerges from the earth: large hands that support a wooden flame, and that are guarded by four human figures with mud to the knees. At 10 in the morning of this Friday, groups of neighbors were visibly excited to photograph themselves, to observe, to read the posters with legends in Valencian. “Hell came as a storm to our land for the action of a vile government of which you have to protest,” says the manifesto.
“It is a very successful failure,” says Carmen Aracil, a neighbor of the area, on the monument donated by Jerusalem convent, one of the most popular failures of the nearby city of Valencia, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, which are celebrated from March 15 to 19 and attract hundreds of thousands of people. “For the message and because it pays tribute to the volunteers, however, it does not feel like other years, here in the town we have many needs to meet,” he adds without looking away from the monument.
Paiporta was the population where more dead were recorded in the floods (45) on October 29. Like another 70 locations, he continues to recover from the worst natural disaster in its history, and give a space to the most anticipated party by the Valencians has been a challenge.
The majority of casales, which are the urban spaces where the neighbors come together to celebrate, suffered material losses. “We will take up to three years to recover everything,” shares Héctor Martínez, spokesman for Paiporta Falleros groups, who states that many families stopped paying their monthly contribution to the failure after the catastrophe, which unbalanced the budget of the groups. Consequently, five of the six Paiporta organizations canceled the elaboration of the FAILURE, normally in charge of an external workshop. “Instead, the little ones will make their own failures with cardboard and paper and we will burn them on March 19, as was done in ancient times,” Martínez says. In Paiporta, about 3,000 inhabitants, 11% of the register, belong to a failure, according to data from the local Fallera Board. In Valencia, epicenter of the holidays, there are 350 falle commissions.
The workshops that the ninots (dolls) either were saved from the flood. The Dana hit 21 ships in 15 populations of L’Horta Sud, La Foia de Bunyol, the Camp del Túria, La Ribera Alta and La Ribera, according to data from the Fallera Board. Which forced the artisan masters to cancel ongoing orders. The Convent of Jerusalem in Valencia proposed to raise funds to donate to the affected areas a festive monument. On March 2, the SOM fault (“We are”, in Spanish) landed in Paiporta. The artists who elaborated it clarify that the mud covers reflect the effort of the volunteers for rebuilding the swept peoples.
Not far from this monument, Arturo Sanjuán, 51, monitors Jaume I. Street. He hopes that the neighbors are encouraged to buy the churros and fritters that he sells only for failures in a central park in Paiporta. It is the only position of this type that has opened in the town during the celebrations. “After the Dana we thought we would not return, but here we are,” says Sanjuán, who wants, in some way, the party invites the neighbors to forget what happened. That is why the churrería has reopened. “At Christmas we manage to disconnect, this time we want the same,” he shares before attending some customers. Disconnecting, despite everything, is a complicated act when the people maintain several open fronts. The sound of firecrackers is not heard, nor is the smell of gunpowder that floods the streets of Valencia during these days.
A large part of the neighbors continues to repair businesses, extract the accumulated mud from the last garages and clean the facades where the level that the mud six months ago is still visible. Business owners such as Francisco Pedreña, a hairdresser in the area, comment that they have recently had to deal with lodose water leaks in the first floors and others are waiting for the aid promised by the Government to arrive. In addition, most elevators still do and the lack of garages has caused a crisis with public parking lots. “Now with the falleras tents it has become worse,” says Aracil, 60, who says that many times they have to walk up to a kilometer to get home.
To all this is added “the neurosis” that causes the head and feel that the chapter of the Dana can be repeated at some point, as Aracil points out. The province has suffered rains since the beginning of the month and more rainfall is expected during the last days of failures. In Valencia, classes suspended for four days in early March, as a precautionary measure.
Come back with the crema
In spite of everything, there are some neighbors who have not wanted to throw in the towel and have managed to raise a failure at one end of the town. This is the case of the Jaume I. its president, Raúl Pérez, says that they have renounced the contracted orchestra and the number of events have decreased to be able to afford the monument, which some years has cost up to 30,000 euros. “Being able to get it out is a special reason, it is a time to turn page and leave the mud behind.” In this line, Aracil, a neighbor of the area, considers that the failures are also presented as an opportunity to start over. “The cremá symbolizes burning the old and accepting the new,” says this neighbor, who has been living in the town for five decades. He says that in his building a neighbor died in the garage due to the force with which the water entered.
Trini Estanislao, 52, has also come to see Paiporta’s failure. “The Dana caught me in the car, I had to leave it on the middle road and when I arrived in the town I thought everyone was dead,” summarizes visibly excited. It also regrets the slowness of some basic services. “The delivery of free transport bonds has been slow, there are few operators to attend many requests,” he says. Although there is a feeling that surpasses sadness, it is that of rage. The majority of neighbors consulted consider that an alert in time had saved many lives and directly point to the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, of the PP, as responsible. “We have had a lousy manager,” says Aracil. “And on top of that a manager who does not stop talking and lying,” ditch.
Criticisms of management are not only reflected in the paiporta failure or in the comments of the neighbors. In Valencia, in the Ninots exhibition in the City of Arts and Sciences it has been filled with small figures that tell stories where there is only one culprit, the president. The exposed failures recreate Citizens being dragged by the current with images of the popular politician and even vestorro invoices, the restaurant where Mazón ate with a journalist to offer him the direction of regional television, according to the official version, the day 228 people died by the flood. Currently, the responsibility of the administration during the catastrophe.
There are more and more families interested in belonging to a fault, says Pérez, president of the Jaume I Failure. The feeling of solidarity is not unique. Aracil also believes that the people have joined more, that coexistence has improved. “We all get together to clean the town and have given us the opportunity to meet.” Estanislao, meanwhile, believes that Paiporta has already lived his failures on October 29: “That day the reconstruction of this town began that rises from its ashes.”
