Dénia says goodbye to Safir Malonda and Martina Gimeno, the Falleras Mayores of the longest and hardest Fallas
Safir Malonda and Martina Gimeno have left this weekend their positions as Fallera Mayor and Fallera Mayor Infantil, respectively, from Dénia. However, they will not remain as more Falleras Mayores. They have lived through the holidays of the pandemic, having to overcome the most difficult decisions and extend their mandate to continue "suffering" endless bad news until finally carrying out the second and definitive Crida, three years after receiving the calls that they changed their lives. And all this always with the smile that has given strength and united the 11 commissions of the city.
In 2019 both picked up their phones full of hope. On the other side, a voice announced what they had been waiting for so long: they were going to be the Falleras Mayores de Dénia for the 2019-2020 financial year. The following months they carried out protocol acts like all those who held their positions before them. At the end of the year, something was beginning to be heard about a virus in China that made epidemiologists around the world nervous. “Exaggerated”, we thought. Throughout the first quarter of 2020 the news got worse, but nobody expected what was going to be announced that March.
With the Crida de las Fallas 2020 already done, the proclamation read and the Sopar del Germanor celebrated (even giving out the first prizes), Safir and Martina receive the news that shocked all the participants of the festivities. They were going to suspend the Fallas. Safir, in fact, participated in the meeting that took place in the Dénia town hall in which this decision that affected the entire Community was announced to all the commissions. A hard blow that was overshadowed when a couple of days later they began to close everything, and lock us all up.
No one knew what would happen to the parties. Someone proposed to do them in the summer, hardly having given time to know what this pandemic meant. When it seemed impossible for them to be held in 2020, the insinuations began as to whether the positions, including the two of them, should be renewed to make way for other representatives. Both falleras decided to hold on while waiting to be able to celebrate the parties they deserved.
They have experienced a change of presidency in the Fallera Local Board, they experienced the clashes between municipalities and falleros to decide if pseudofallas would be held in September 2021, and they saw how other towns burned their monuments while they, like the ninots of Dénia, continued to wait .
The wait paid off. It is true that the Fallas that were owed to them came through water, but it is also true that they were able to celebrate them "as before". The restrictions were much lighter than those of September 2021 (in which they did not run out of water either) and the party had almost no impediments, enjoying the best health situation since 2020.
Between tears, on March 19, Safir and Martina lit the fuse that turned their monument into ashes. Now they have been paid the tribute they deserved in Dénia, saying goodbye to them to make way for the new Falleras Mayores. Of course, they will hardly be forgotten, since they have been key pieces of a historical moment. And, as such, they will forever be part of the history of the Fallas de Dénia.
