The weekend before the start of Lent is Carnival. This is a very popular tradition in many countries around Europe and Belgium is no exception. Some of my friends went to a lot of different small cities to experience the different festivities. I decided to go to Bruges in northwest Belgium, and to Binche.
Carnival celebrations vary from town to town, but Binche is very unique. It’s a very small town of about 30,000 near the northern border of France, but when I went there on March 4, it was packed with people. There were no empty seats on the train ride there and back and the streets were covered with confetti as soon as you left the train station. Like Carnival celebration across Europe, many people dressed up in outrageous costumes.
The Carnival in Binche has a unique parade. Men in the city dress up as a strange figure called Gilles. The Gilles wear a uniform of red, black and yellow, and a mask. They carry small woven baskets filled with oranges that they throw at the crowd members who are expected to catch them. The other people in the parade have their backpacks filled with oranges so just when the woven baskets run out they can get replenished with more oranges. The length of the parade is quite long and the goal for the crowd is to walk away with an orange.
Everywhere the Gilles walk there is always a drum roll. Every 100 metres or so, the band (that is also marching with the Gilles) starts playing a song. It always starts with the flute playing a few bars of the song to signal to the rest of the band to get ready to play their instruments.
As soon as the song start, the people dressed as Gilles start bouncing and turning in circles, to ward off the evil spirits. After the song is done the orange throwing commences again. A woman beside me, explain the significance of the oranges. She told me that it is very lucky to receive these oranges from the Gilles and it is seen as rude to throw them back. I must be very lucky because I caught a lot of oranges.