New Sociabilities: Celebrating Father’s Day in Quarantine

Celebrating Father’s Day (March 19^th):

Continuing on the theme of new sociability, Father’s Day in Spain coincides with the Liturgical Feast of Saint Joseph in the Latin Rite Catholic Church.  This is always on March 19^th.

Mandatory quarantine and confinement had begun on March 14 (or 16^th depending how you count it).  So it wasn’t clear how people were going to celebrate.

The solution was building upon the consolidating practice of balcony applauses and cacerolada.

A traditional children’s song (“Don Pepito”) would be sung in cadence (here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJCYmHQjycs).  It is a children’s song of call and response, two characters talking to each other:  Pepito and José (or Joe and Joseph). 

All apartments in buildings with odd street numbers (11, 23, etc.) would sing the opening line, and all houses with even street numbers would respond.  While the actual singing sometimes fell out of line from the intended organization of even and odd, the results was a rather beautiful call and response singing across balconies, floors and streets, and made for many laughs!