The Grand Feu d’Ebly

As we have been driving around southern Belgium over the last few weeks, Josette has pointed out sites for grand feu in area villages. The bonfires are under construction, with piles of wooden pallets and a random assortment of logs, scrap wood, and Christmas trees. In nearby Habay, the market town we frequent for groceries, bread, sausage, cheese, chocolate, French wine– the necessities of the good life – the grand feu will be at Place de la Liberte, a parking lot at the edge of town where I’ve seen buses, large equipment, a street market, and a festival with carnival rides.

The Leglise Bulletin Communal arrived that day in the mail, and I looked to see what events were on the calendar. Leglise is the center of the Commune de Leglise, which comprises 28 villages, and is where local government services – water, sewer, trash pickup, electricity – are managed. We once went to the Maison Communal in Leglise to get Josette’s passport renewed; it was quite fast and inexpensive compared to the US.

I looked over the calendar of events in the Bulletin. There was a Saturday event called Repair Café to which you could bring broken things for repairs. There was a library book sale, and several group bike rides, runs, and walks. And, there were five grand feu listed over the next month. I was intrigued, and pressed Josette for more information. One of those grand feu was in Ebly, which was a name I recognized because the recycling center we use is on the road to Ebly. It was set for 7:30 that night, with hamburgers and drinks for sale. I was surprised that Josette had never been to one; for her, they were just drinking parties. For me, its something purely Belgian.

We left the house at 7:00 for the 20-minute drive to Ebly; it was only 8 miles away as the crow flies, but the road isn’t fast or direct. We didn’t know where it was, but we ran across an older man walking through the village. I stopped the car, rolled down the window, and asked him where the grand feu was. He didn’t understand me, so Josette got out of the car to talk to him. He did indeed know where it was – “Keep going straight, just under a kilometer”, he said. We thanked him and he said, “Don’t drink too much. And don’t get burned.” We all laughed.

There were only about a dozen cars there when we arrived. The grand feu was set up in a large field, surrounded by barrier tape set back a safe distance. Adjacent to the bonfire was a tent enveloped in disco music, a bar, and a grill with hamburgers cooking. The workers were all young and wore lavender-colored sweatshirts with CDJ Ebly written on them. I asked the bartender what that meant. “Club de Jeune, Ebly (club of young people in Ebly). He told me I needed a jeton (token) to buy a cup of hot wine. The young man with tokens spoke to me but I didn’t understand what he was saying; sometimes accents in the area throw me off. There are lots of X and Ch sounds not used in the French across the border just two dozen miles to the south. Finally, we decided on a 2 Euro token, and I exchanged it at the bar for a paper cup of hot wine. Josette tasted it, and to my surprise, kept it and told me to get my own. It was red wine (tasted like Merlot) seasoned with canelle (cinnamon). Seeing the hamburgers coming off the grill I regretted having already eaten dinner. We soon met a young mother with a lively puppy and Josette had a long conversation with her about the dog, a Bouvier Bernois, which was only six months old, with black and brown curly hair, and destined to be well over 100 pounds. Many more people arrived, most of them young, some walking, and there were lots of children. Just after 8:00 PM an older man lit a torch and handed it to a young couple. The tradition in Ebly is that the last couple to be married the year before had the honour of lighting the fire. The wife was very pregnant and she let her husband set fire to the immense woodpile.

We watched as the fire grew from some isolated places around the circular woodpile into an inferno. The bottom layer was constructed of wooden pallets, allowing air to come into the bottom of the fire, and smoke and flames were soon billowing up into the clear night sky. There were lots of old Christmas trees and on top of the twenty-foot-tall pile was an effigy. I went up to the older man who had lit the torch and asked him if he was the “chef de la grand feu”. He laughed and said no, and indicated a young woman who was with the group. “She is the leader of the club, it’s her fire.” I asked about the effigy – it has several names, including sorcerer and witch, and represents winter being chased away by spring. It may have deeper roots than that in its medieval or Celtic history. The effigy was also a personification of evil being banished from the village. There were several women standing by him, and we had a conversation about the event. He didn’t know how far back the tradition went, but he first attended as a knee-high child. He offered me a beer, a Jupiler in a bottle – you could buy it by the half case at the bar. Until today I thought Jupiler was Jupiter. It is a lager, the Belgian equivalent of Bud Light. I declined, only because driving back at night on rural roads was going to be tricky. The women said the best grand feu was in Mellier, as it was very tall. We know Mellier, we are in a walking and cycling club which begins and ends events at the old train station in Mellier, and it is also in this Commune.

I was certainly the only American at this event, and perhaps, the only American to ever attend the grand feu in Ebly. The crowd was decidedly local people, country people, small town people, happy people, friendly- typically Belgian people.

This afternoon Josette and I went for a 4-mile walk through the forest, picking up beer cans along the road as we walked. As we took a dirt road back toward the village, we saw a deer stand and decided to take a break for some contemplation. Stopping for some contemplation on these walks is a new thing for us, coming out of a conversation we had the day before. The deer stands here resemble giant armchairs, and we climbed up the steps and sat on the wide bench together. I have been thinking about my future, and what I wanted out of life, and this came to me: I want to be as good a Belgian as I can be, as good a companion as I can be, and true to myself.

I am not Belgian, but I now have a one-year visa from Belgium, and my plan is to be a local, not a tourist. In my hometown in Texas, I am not a local – you have to be born there for that– I am and always will be an Auslander, even after 33 years of being deeply involved in the community. And that is OK, its really just something of a joke now, as the town has been run by Auslanders for 25 years now. (I can make a good case for that, but not today.) Do you remember the popular song, Turning Japanese from1980? Belgians have been very welcoming to me. I think I’m turning Belgian