Rafa, Gogo, Diogo, and his sons joined the stream of people heading for the day’s procession in honor of their venerated Virgin María held on the seventh of October every year. Young men rap-tap-tapped on drums hanging from straps around their necks, welcoming and summoning the gathering crowd to celebrate this year’s Our Lady of the Rosary celebration, the special day of reverence for Mother María’s crowning day in heaven. Procession leaders dressed in white silk robes holding spindly upright palm fronds directed the crowd, the white of their garments gleaming against their dark skin.
A statue of María was raised up on a platform carried by eight men the color of coal. Today, the Mocambo’s laundresses, household cooks, and nannies all thumbed their rosaries made of simple knots on a cord
