Entroido – El mundo a revés

Entroido is a time when the world turns upside down, costumes come out and people act a little crazy. The name has something to do with the arrival of the season of spring and the craziness comes from the need to celebrate the survival of winter. The festival now coincides with Carnival and pre-Lenten festivities which were banned in Spain by Franco, but that didn´t stop Galicians from keeping up their unusual traditions. I first thought Galicia was overlooked because the infamous president was originally from the region ( as similarly is Fidel Castro another well-known dictator), but most people tell me that it was because Galicia is a little out of the way, and the remote areas were forgotten.

In the bakeries special treats are prepared which include Orellas which are similar to Beaver tails but fried a bit more, next are Roscones which are small doughnuts with an Anis flavour and then Filloas which are square shaped crêpes. In other shops ´Halloween´ disguises come out, but what is new to me here is that most people dress-up in a group and go out with others having the same outfit or costume theme. One example I particularly enjoyed was a group of six or seven teenage boys all dressed as little Red Riding hood walking down the street together.

On Saturday morning I caught the bus to the southern Galician province of Ourense because its towns are well-known for their Entroido celebrations. Arriving in Xinzo de Limia I felt like I had entered another world because it seemed like everyone in the town was disguised. In the main square there was a Charanga band standing in a circle playing lively music as people danced around them. The tune of ´Paquito el Chocatalero´ was being played when I first got there and I recognized it from its tune and then hip movements that go along with it. All of the costumes were in bad taste ranging from cultural impersonations, to people in drag and then adults in animal costumes. There were families of clowns, ´eskimo´ couples, parents in Chinese dress with panda children and a ´clan´ of quilt-clad Spaniards were walking around carrying a man dressed up as the Queen. The people watching was just as entertaining as the music.

On Sunday I moved onto Verin to catch a glimpse of the ´Cigarrons,´ a carnival character unique to the town. Because I was staying in the city of Ourense and there was limited bus service I had to get up early to get to the town in time to see the parade. I got there around sunrise, or 8am and it was like walking into a party war zone. Strangely dressed people stumbled through the streets, beer bottles and party debris were strewn everywhere and in a few places you could still here music playing as the party continued. I walked around to get my bearings, find some posters with information on the day´s program and then walked out of town, up a hill to visit a castle.

It was a nice sunny climb and inside the Monterrei castle walls I met up with some locals on their way to church so I joined them.

Then on my way down I started to hear a marching band coming down the main street. When I caught up to the band I counted over twenty drums and a dozen trumpets that were probably trying to wake up the partiers for the parade. This is not an event for the faint hearted.

Shortly after there were other bands warming up for the parade and the Cigarrones started running up and down the street. With a belt of large cow bells tied around their waist and a whip in hand they both animated the crowd and kept them under control. The parade was more of a costume show with a few bands mixed in. I wasn´t sure how to feel about the cowboy and ´Indian´ display which included a truck with a small tipi, a goat roasting on a spit and some brightly painted and feathered natives running around yelling with their hands over their mouths, but it got worse. The part of the parade that did bother me was the Crusader display which included one hooded black man who was chained to the back of a platform as the prisoner. As the float got closer the crusader lifted his hood to show his face and then grabbed at his private parts. At the end the parade was very effectively and quickly dispersed by the last two floats. The first had people running into the crowd with the insides of a recently butchered pig and then if you were still on the side of the street you started to move fast because the last group had people throwing handfuls and bags of flour. They were also accompanied by a truck that blasted out clouds of flour. This was actually a prelude for the Monday flour fight, which in another nearby town of Laza it´s not just flour that is thrown, but dirt and ants too.

Back in Lugo a tamer version of Entroido continued. On Monday night I went out with the English teachers in a fish costume and then on Tuesday I joined my family in the town costume parade contest. The group was dressed as trees and buildings made out of cardboard boxes and walked in protest of the plans to build high rises overtop of the beautiful Rosalia park.

I missed the conclusion of Entroido because of an English class, but I saw in the paper that it include a funeral march for the burial of the Entroido sardine. I have also read this Saturday is Piñata day, so maybe it´s not over…

A Taste of Galician culture

The sun came out again yesterday after a windy and rainy week during which I was able to practise my new Spanish expression ´está lloviendo a cántaros´ or the rain is coming down in buckets. Now after one month here, the second of my umbrellas has broken and thinking back to growing up in Saskatoon I think my family collectively owned one red umbrella. I am beginning to think I should look into weaving one of the more traditional Galician wicker outfits to stay dry.

I was treated to some snow a few weeks ago. In the city it all melted when it touched the ground, but in the surrounding area there were some hills that were toboggan worthy and one Saturday afternoon the family, some friends and I went sledding. I think it was my best English lesson so far when I had the boys chant ´hurry up´ to make me climb up the hill faster pulling the sleigh.

A week ago there was a theatre festival here and I get the impression it doesn´t happen very often, so I tried to take in as many shows as I could. In the end I saw three plays, two by Shakepeare, Ricardo III, more commonly known as Richard III and then Macbeth, which I should really only call the Scottish play so as not to curse the actors. Well the idea of practising my Spanish did not really pan out because if you think the Bard is difficult to understand in English, try Spanish for the first and then try Gallego for the second. I have to admit the blending of the two Celtic cultures worked quite nicely in the latter, but I would have preferred watching the performance in Castellano. The third play was a monologue called ´Ave Sosia´ and I was a little concerned about not being able to understand the Andalucian dialect, but in the end it was not so bad.

In pursuit of live entertainment I also attended a local football (or soccer) match where the Club Deportivo Lugo played the team from Pontevedra. I went in the interest of learning some new vocabulary in Spanish, but because I was sitting with some English teachers I actually learned a few new expressions in English. I was quite entertained by the fact that the team from Lugo was wearing striped socks which made them look a little like elves and I also enjoyed that we were sitting next to the band that very enthusiastly yelled things like ´Vamos Lugo, Vamos Campeón´ or ´Forca Lugo, Allez´. Most of my observations were not really appreciated and as for the match we lost 0-2.

To participate in the athletic side of Lugo I ran in the 5km race last Sunday. It was one of the best races I have been, not because of my time or the location, which was appallingly around the big shopping centre As Termas, but because each lap I made through the parking lot I had the boys running along side me cheering me on.

The other intriguing part about Galicia is that I have now tasted many things I would never have thought of eating before. Lugo is about one hour from the sea and this means that seafood is reasonably accessible. In this category I have now tried three different types of shrimp (Camaron, Cigala and Langostina), some curious barnacles called Percebe along with a salad with Hake eggs. One evening I got to help clean some slimy Calamari for supper and it was fun in a science project kind of way turning them inside out, cutting out their eyes and then squeezing out their mouth. Moving away from the ocean into the forest I have also had a chance to try different varieties of mushrooms.

Then in true Galician style, it is all about savouring all parts of the pig. This ranges from it´s ears or Orejas often served as a Tapas, to its stomach or Callos served as a soup with chickpeas and then last weekend I got to try a stuffed stomach prepared like an enormous sausage called Butelo. Some friends drove me to a town called Fonsagrada where they had a Butelo festival in preparation for Carnaval. One of the things I saw at the market there was a cured pig face and I was tempted to get it to use it as a mask for my Entroido (carnival in the Galician language) costume.

The joys of teaching

I am still figuring out how to be a teacher and how to teach English. I had some experience working as an English language assistant in France and the certificate course I recently took also gave me some more ideas, but I think a lot of learning how to teach comes with practise. At the one academy where I primarily work, I mostly have conversation classes with groups of adults. The attendance is a little sporadic and the level of English of the different students is quite varied. I try to only speak in English during the classes, but at times this can be a little challenging. During one of my last classes I was trying to explain the importance of the correct pronunciation of the word ´beach´ so as not to have it confused with the word ´bitch´ and it took a really long time.

I also have a number of private classes, which are mostly one-on-one conversation hours that sometimes make me feel a little like a journalist trying to think up questions to encourage the students to talk. For these classes I try to bring pictures and/or articles to have a topic to discuss.

For about a week and a half I was substitute teaching at one academy and got to have classes with groups of children. That academy closely followed textbooks to prepare students for Trinity and Cambridge exams. One day after leaving a class I had with a group of ten year olds felt great and I thought I had at last found my calling . Then the next day I had a disastrous class with a group of four year olds. The class got off to a bad start when the tv and vcr weren´t working, so the idea of singing some songs along with a video was quickly scratched from the plan. The students knew some colours and some numbers. For a while I kept the students busy with some activities in their books which involved colouring pictures, but that didn´t last very long. I tried then to quickly think of a simple song involving numbers or colours, but when I started to explain it to them I lost control of the class. They decided whenever I drew something on the board they would all jump up and run to the board to pretend to eat whatever picture I drew. As I put the marker to the board I heard them saying ´vamos a comer´ and they thought it was a wonderful game. I managed to quiet them down for a little while by separating a few of them, but they didn´t want to sit still. All the while the parents were waiting just outside the class could hear everything. Luckily the moment when the director came to check in there were only a couple of the students sprawled on the floor.

I am learning that with children you need a lot of games. In the appartment with the two boys I try to get them to do activities with me in English. The mother, who is an English teacher here, has given me lots of ideas. We have played ´Simon Says´, Bingo with animal pictures, Memory repeating the names of different animals, ´Hot-Cold´ hiding objects, etc. Some days go better than others because often playing football (soccer) and watching the Simpsons are more interesting than playing English games.

Living in a foreign country

Everything feels a little upside down and backwards right now. It´s a little like the idea that I was standing up straight in Canada and now in another part of the world I am standing a little sideways. I think a lot of this feeling is coming from trying to adjust to a new place and a new pace of life. Having lived in France, arrived in Spain first on holiday and now living with a Spanish family the transition is much easier than my previous experiences.

Generally it´s whenever you try to do new things, especially if there is a deadline involved that you feel a bit of culture shock. That is a feeling of confusion, frustration, and lack of understanding why the other culture has to make things so complicated when they are so easy back home. At times I have to remind myself to be a little more patient and that I am the foreigner. I have found that like it or not I have the unconscious expectation that things should work the way they do in Canada. In my mind you should be able to find sugar in a grocery store in the baking section and it is irrational that it be in the beverage section like it often is in France. In Spain the general rule of thumb is to go with the flow and to not try to do anything between 2-4pm. When I want to do something new I try to prepare myself gradually and I try to look at it as a little adventure or challenge to see if I can decode the culture.

Adjusting to my new schedule I am having a hard time organizing my time because everything is a little scattered. First I should explain I am now living in an apartment with a family that consists of two parents, two boys (ages six and soon to be nine) and a dog. My day starts around 8:30am when the kids get up for breakfast and at which point the race begins to get them out the door and to school for 9:30am. Then I have a break until about noon and this my free time, sort of like my ´evenings´ when I lived in Canada.

At 12:30pm I go to the school to pick up one or both boys to bring them home for lunch. On the first day when I arrived at the school we walked through a door and went down some stairs into an inner courtyard which seemed to be both the gym and recess area. As we entered children were running and screaming out of every door I could see into the open paved area. It felt a little like finding a needle in a hay stack trying to locate the boys, but eventually they appeared.

As we walk home for lunch together I try to have a conversation with them in English. It is easiest to ask closed questions that only require yes or no answers, but those are not very good for language learning. The older boy usually understands and if he does not he will answer ´yes´ or ignore me, whereas the younger boy does not like hearing English at all. When I ask him a question first I say it in English, then Spanish and then English again. He will usually play deaf or tell me he doesn´t understand in Spanish. I have recently learned that sometimes I am ignored because I pronounce things wrong and/or make small grammar mistakes. To be fair he doesn´t really understand much English and finds it overwhelming.

We usually eat lunch early around 1:30pm, unless it is a Wednesday when I have a Spanish class and I will try to eat with the father, who is also learning English, around 3:00pm. I have not had to prepare any meals because both parents like to cook and they also have a cleaning lady who comes in every day, so in some ways I am feeling a little spoiled.

My ´working´ hours at the English school are between 6-9pm and then I come home to read a bed time story in English to the boys. I end up eating supper some time between 9:30-10:30pm. The idea is to eat a lot at lunch and then treat supper like a bedtime snack, but I am still getting used to it.