In Procession

The exciting adventures that happen in my usually quiet Belgian village have made their way onto this blog a few times already; here’s another possibly interesting event to add to the batch.

On Sunday morning I woke up to the intermittent music of herremeniekes, or, basically, village orchestras, consisting mostly of brass instruments. They were playing some festive tunes of not exactly outstanding quality. I went to the bathroom, then back upstairs I noticed we had received a message, probably on Friday, about there being a harbour festival in the small yaughting harbour of the village, during the entire weekend. Including Zodragekla! Whatever the hell that may be.

Whether this actually had anything to do with the yaughting or not, there was a procession which passed by right in front (or behind, depending how you look at it) our house. I had never seen a procession before so I watched the entire group, but I have to say I wasn’t terribly impressed.
At the head of the procession was a man in every day clothing carrying a tall cross, followed by a man in very different every day clothing – including silly hat – carrying a large flag with some sort of logo and text I could not decipher. Then came a herremenieke, which had never previously attempted to march in step, and therefore failed badly, followed by another flag. This was a good flag, the only one in the entire procession to look respectful, and it was basically a heavily decorated Belgian flag. Then came a group of little children clad in blue dresses, followed by elderly women in white dresses, and then, what everyone had been waiting for, four blokes carrying on their shoulders a sort of roofed platform with a statue of Mary. The statue looked like it had been made out of papier-mâché, and the poles supporting the platform roof looked suspiciously like plastic broomstick handles. I can only congratulate the four men who carried this travesty, because they kept looking serious and important throughout, no small feat with such a platform.
Obviously behind this important statue came the obligatory pious followers, and there were about thirty of them. They looked very pious in between the looking through windows and talking about parked cars.
At a suitable distance followed a priest carrying a monstrance with two elderly altar boys, who were very enthusiastic with waving the incense. Behind them came another priest, under a sort of roof on wheels, carrying what I presumed was probably a relic. There were various altar boys around carrying torches, too.
And that was the end of the procession.

I have a hunch that apart from the procession and the harbour festival, there is also a meeting day for people who own minis. I have seen over a dozen. Ah, Neerkanne. Life never gets dull here.