6 & 7 september 2026
6 & 7 september 2026
We’ve discussed the impact of water on dahlia fields in this magazine before: bulbs drowning in the rain, followed by a drought that gives the nursery garden owners in Zundert a headache. In Peru they might have a mythical explanation for this: the age-old rain god Chaac turns out to be quite erratic sometimes when handing out his rain showers.
Lobke Hereijgers tells us about the rain god Chaac (you can call him Sjaak), an ancient South-American god. “Imagine this: the people over there have no water, no crops, nothing at all. They almost started living on Chaac. It is up to them to wake him up and beg for rain,” she explains. The god can be found in a mountain, depicted as cracked, dry soil.
The idea fort his float had been on Lobke’s mind for a while. When Marc, Luuk and Giel joined her, they became excited to further develop the idea. Giel emphasizes the importance of good cooperation with the designers guild. “Achtmaal has plenty of its own designers. You can only hope that they don’t each chart their own course and instead are able to come up with the best design.” And they did just that: the design offers plenty of room for broad involvement of the entire hamlet.
And that involvement will be required. Luuk talks about a ‘transformation’ of the float, which will come about through the effort of the many movers after a ‘rain dance’ has been performed. Lobke: “Can we call it a rain dance?” Giel: “It’s somewhere between a rain dance and a ceremonial sacrifice.” Anyway, it involves actors, music and plenty of movement.
An important aspect of the float is that it contains a lot of movement that is carried out manually. Giel: “This way everyone can help out with the movement and it can move more easily with the music.” According to Lobke, that is of the utmost importance for Achtmaal: “You need a float like this every now and then. Everyone wants to go out on the street with it, around it as well as inside of it.”
According to her, Achtmaal might not be the largest hamlet, but it is nevertheless exceptionally versatile. There is someone on hand for every job. Eleven actors have already been picked, costumes are being made, the music has been selected and the construction itself has already been calculated and ordered. And all that even before the tent has been built.
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Luuk Wouters (23) work as a technical specialist in automotive technology, Lobke Hereijgers (31) is an account manager VVE management, Giel Godrie (28) is an operator in earthmoving and Marc Roelands (23) is an electrical engineer.
Original Dutch Text: Kris Verdonk
Translation: Bas Booij
Photo: Eefje Fotografie
Hamlet Achtmaal
www.buurtschap-achtmaal.nl
This article is brought to you by Corsief. An independent magazine about corsos in general and the Zundert flower parade in particular. The magazine is produced entirely by volunteers, who are all more or less active in the Zundert flower parade world. Corsief is entirely full-colour and appears four times a year.