Issue: What do a suitcase, 12 grapes, a sheaf of wheat, the colour yellow, three potatoes and a stuffed dummy all have in frequent? Proper! They each signify a custom for bringing in the New 12 months. But do you know these customs and how they’re celebrated?
Get That Suitcase Out
Numerous South Americans imagine that if you carry an vacant suitcase all around the block on New Year’s Day you will be fortuitous to travel throughout the course of the year. When my elderly neighbor sauntered out of her entrance gate in Cali, Colombia with a defeat-up valise she’d dusted off for the event, she brushed off my queries brusquely.
“Do not hassle me now! I am leaving!”
Minutes afterwards, her “tour” comprehensive, she confided her wishes to “see the states” this yr.
In accordance to her, a voyage this year was now, “in the bag”.
Around the middle of December you get started to notice a disproportionately huge quantity of fruit and vegetable avenue sellers beginning to offer grapes. Grapes are everywhere by Xmas. Green grapes, purple grapes, combined grapes – they roll down the street and squish beneath your careless feet as you stroll industry places and shopping districts. Eating 12 grapes at or close to midnight of New Year’s Eve will deliver you good luck throughout the New Year. Eco-friendly grapes are desired by the bulk, but any will suffice I was informed by Anna Lucia who walked into the area with a bag of mixed grapes ample sufficient to generate a circumstance of “vino”.
“You happen to be not organizing to take in all people, are you?” I chided.
“No, they’re not just for me. They are for my family members as well.”
I remembered that she and her spouse have five children. Incorporate in the prolonged family members and well, sufficient stated. Haven’t experienced your twelve nevertheless? Hurry up, there is certainly even now time.
A Bundled Sheaf of Wheat
A black youth stood on a downtown Pasto, Colombia corner hovering more than a five-gallon bucket full of bundled sheaves of wheat. Every was wrapped with a brightly colored ribbon or two. Some ended up enhanced even additional with a flower or little bouquet. People up and down the streets walked with a comparable-seeking sheaf held upright out in front of them like a siren in entrance of a hearth engine. Crossing the Zocalo, or principal square downtown, a young female sitting on a park bench waved her sheaf at us like a magic wand.
“That’s a new one particular on me”, I said to my companion when she explained.
“If you dangle a bundled sheaf of wheat in your residence it’s really good luck.”
She ongoing, “It has twelve stalks of wheat in each and every bundle”.
“How much for a single?” I questioned the youth.
We rapidly bargained to a lower cost.
“Are you positive there’re twelve in listed here?” I questioned, not wanting to get brief-changed.
“Oh yeah. Go forward and rely them.”
When my associate responded, “No there’re only eleven.”
He swiftly snapped back again, “No way! Count them once again.”
We did and there ended up twelve. This New Year’s luck issue is serious enterprise. The flowered sheaf stands guard now on the bookcase above my desk. Would like me luck, ok?
The Coloration Yellow
Not all brain you, but fairly a few Latinos in Colombia and Ecuador use the coloration yellow for the New 12 months. There are a number of ways to do it. You can paint a room yellow. Place new year 2021 wishes in the place. Dress in a yellow item of apparel and you are going to shower by yourself with fortune for the New Calendar year. For reasons which as but elude me, a favorite is to wear yellow underwear. (The preferred shade in Mexico is purple.) The two males and ladies have a pair or two on hand for the celebration – or so I have been regularly instructed. All right, all right, I am going to fess up I have a pair of pairs of yellow underwear myself. So phone me fickle. I have pink ones too. Do I put on a pair for New Year’s? I am going to in no way tell!