Every Day Is Special: Cape Town

Showing posts with label Cape Town. Show all posts

October 4 - Blessing of the Fishing Fleet in South Africa (Maybe!?)

Posted October 4, 2020

Once again, the annual event held in Cape Town's V&A Waterfront - the Blessing of the Fishing Fleet - may not occur this year. You know why: pandemic.

But maybe it will happen as usual?

What's certain is that "usual" means a Catholic service (Holy Mass), a procession along the waterfront, a motorcycle parade, blessing given to the fishing fleet, and then PARTY!

The Portuguese Cultural and Welfare Society runs a fundraiser, with traditional foods sold and live entertainment offered for the entry fee / donation. In a place like Cape Town, there are lots of cultural traditions, including San, Dutch, Tsonga, Cape Malay, Xhosa, French Huguenots, Zulu, British, etc. But I assume that in this case, the traditional foods are Portuguese!

Also on this date:

Anniversary of Snoopy's debut

Lesotho's Independence Day

Ten-Four Day

World Animal Day

Cinnamon Roll Day in Sweden

National Taco Day

Birthday of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes

National Ship in a Bottle Day

St. Petronius Day in Italy

Change a Light Day
(First Sunday in October)

International African Diaspora Day

(First Sunday in October)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

November holidays
November birthdays
Historical anniversaries in November

January 2 – Kaapse Klopse in Cape Town, South Africa

Posted on January 2, 2017

If you don’t speak Afrikaans, Kaapse Klopse doesn’t mean much to you — but what if I told you that the English name is Cape Town Minstrel Carnival?

Maybe you are still a bit at sea — minstrel isn’t that common a word except in historical concepts. It simply means a musician or singer.

Another name for the day is Tweede Nuwe Jaar — which translates as Second New Year. Like many others, the people of Cape Town extend the New Year’s festivities to January 2 every year.

(Here in the U.S., January 2 is usually an ordinary day, but this year it is a public holiday because New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday. Lots of New Year’s Day stuff got moved to today for that reason.)

Today about 13,000 minstrels will parade about the streets, dressed in bright colors, and those who aren’t playing musical instruments will be holding colorful umbrellas.

Sounds fun, right?

Actually, these days the various musical troupes compete with one another in a variety of categories, from the musical (Best Brass Band, for example), to the performance (Best Juvenile Drum Major, judged for his or her dance), to the creative (Best Dress). There are at least a dozen different competition categories. That involve marching and dancing, singing in harmony and performing jazz, comic songs and love songs…and on and on!