The youngest students of the Cabrera Pinto Institute This Monday they were able to see first-hand the San Diego escape in its purest essences. After having received talks in advance, this Monday they attended a performance about the origins of this tradition and, later, they traveled on foot to the hermitage of San Diego. Another theatrical act and the most anticipated moment awaited them there: counting the buttons on the marble statue of Juan de Ayala, the founder of the Franciscan convent that housed the place.
This is an initiative that has been underway for some years and aims to show first-year ESO students, the youngest in the institutes, what the origins of the student flight were like. This custom led to acts of vandalism in the 90s and early 2000s. which seem to have disappeared in recent years. The escape is celebrated, under normal conditions, on the eve of the festival, although this year it was organized on November 13, San Diego Day, because the 12th fell on a Sunday.
Romualdo García and Manolo Herrera were waiting outside the hermitage at mid-morning this Monday for the students to arrive. They are actors from the group of theater of the Orfeón La Paz, which developed the performances for the students. In the first part, Diego Jiménez de Cisneros y Hervás, an intransigent teacher, refused to allow his students to attend the San Diego festivities because he had a personal tradition of taking an exam on his saint’s day, while Adolfo Cabrera Pinto, former director of the institute and with a friendlier tone, was closer to the position of the young people.
After that trip to the origins of the escape, the students walked along San Diego Avenue to the hermitage accompanied by teachers. A friar was waiting for them there who continued with the historical explanation. There was also Julián Brito, president of the Orfeón and retired professor at Cabrera Pinto. Recently, Brito has been in charge of transmitting the story of the escape to the students through talks. This formula has been used in recent years, when teachers, due to the outbreak of the pandemicthey had to come up with alternative formulas to explain this custom to the students, since, for obvious reasons, it was not possible to visit the hermitage.
It was last year when the escape was able to resume after the impossibility of carrying it out during the years 2020 and 2021. This Monday’s event shows that the tradition continues and that new generations of students will continue to know the historical background behind it. of escape, perhaps the best way to prevent it from degenerating again towards practices so different from what it was in its beginnings.
