Advertisement
Published: March 4th 2007
Edit Blog Post
One of these things is not like the other
Can you find the outsider among these neon garbage bags? So here it is. A quick summary of what the heck I’ve been doing for the last few months.
Right now things are going really well at the elementary school that I’m working at. My mother sent me a book of various nursey rhymes in English paired with different interesting activities for kids. They’re all geared at native speakers but I changed them a little bit for my audience. For the last two weeks we worked on “Hickory, Dickory, Dock”. I know you’re thinking, “What the hell are you teaching them? Definitely not practical English. No one says Hickory, Dickory, Dock. In fact, you probably couldn’t even say it in classrooms of some conservative schools because of its similarity to certain explatives. What kind of teacher are you?”. Ok, well the nursery rhyme in itself isn’t all so practical, but I taught the kids how to ask the time and tell the time with it. I’m pretty proud of myself. Word on the street is that the kids really loved it, too. The teachers say that the students are always asking about when I come to the class. After I leave the kids continue to recite the poem to themselves and
Teachers and girls
Another teacher and me with some of our 5-year-old friends. the teacher. So, thanks for the book Mom, it’s a hit.
The end of January and beginning of February were both dedicated to Carnaval activities at school. Carnaval is taken pretty seriously in this part of Spain. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the celebrations, Carnaval is the weekend before the period of Lent. People are supposed to dress up in whacky costumes and engage in all the gluttony and the debauchery to tide them over during Lent. In an elementary school we don’t exactely engage in the debauchery, but we do dress up and engage is some, well, interesting rituals.
It’s tradition for the entire school to dress up on the final day before the Carnaval holiday weekend. Supposedly, people in large groups dress up as the same thing. At my school, it was decided that we would all dress up as the Flintstones (aka Los Picapiedra-literally translated to the Rockpickers. Los Picanariz would be the Nosepickers for those of you with that kind of mind). Our costumes would consist of a brightly colored garbage bag with a fashionable zig-zag cut at the bottom to give it a tattered feel with paper spots glued
The Sardine
Here´s what I encountered in the patio of my school. on, a paper headband with a bone cutout glued to it, and a necklace made of pasta. It was our (teachers) duty to make the costumes for the kids. While the rest of the teachers slaved over making the costumes for their class, I decided to employ some cheap labor. We used our craft hour every Friday to make the costumes. It saved me on a ton of time and then the kids felt some sort of ownership to their Bag—er, well made costume.
On the day of the party, we all proudly put our costumes on and went frolicking out into the school patio to find a 200-child strong army of other colored plastic bags, loud music, and of course, dancing. In the school patio, admist children dancing wildly I found a giant paper sardine with different colored scales. I thought, “I haven’t seen this before, it must have something to do with the party that I don’t understand.”
After about 20 minutes of festivities we are all called over to the sardine but told to stand several meters away. Below the sardine was a large cardboard box filled with newspapers. I see one of the male
La sardina quemando
Here´s what they did to it! teacher approach the box with a lighter in his hand which he uses to set fire to the newspaper in the box. The flames grow and almost immediately the paper sardine catches fire. I look around to see the reactions of the children and other teachers who do nothing other than sit in awe watching the fish burn. I quickly realize that yes, the fish is supposed to be burning. As the 15ft long fish burns from head to toe, rather head to tail, everyone sits and watches, while one of the teacher vigilantly patrols with a small fire extinguisher. Meanwhile, I’m halfway panicky praying not only that a wild child doesn’t suddenly become overcome with excitement and run towards the fully-englufed fish, but also that an ash doesn’t fall on someone’s costume and catch fire. Luckily, neither of the two happens. The fish sucessfully burns down and only the smoldering cardboard box is left to burn itself out. Still in a state of shock, we are all called over to another patio to eat ladyfinger cakes and chocolate while the box is still on fire. I can think nothing other than, oh Spain.
After the fiasco, I ask
The end of the Sardine
Only the iron frame and the smoldering box left! Why didn´t the tail burn? one of the teachers what the meaning of the fish is. To which she replies, “What, you don’t do this in the United States?” I’m like, “Haha, if this were Poway, the firecrew, every local police unit, and the bomb squad probably would have been here before the head had finished burning.” Apparently, the symbol of the fish isn’t used in every Spanish town, but instead an object of great abundance is chosen. The sardine is chosen because of Castro’s proximity to the ocean. The sardine is meant to symbolize the evil and sin of which the period of Lent should be free. Thus, burning the the fish supposedly rids the town of these two things and they are safe. Normally this is done after the Carnaval parties, but it was done in recognition of the tradition in my school.
The town burning of the Sardine is done on the Sunday morning after the parties and is looked at as kind of a joke. It’s called El entierro de la sardina or The burial of the sardine. Everyone dresses in black and acts in a sort of mock-funeral way. There is a procession from the area of the burning
Daniela- the smoky piano bar singer
Now please try to tell me that I didn´t look like a man in drag! fish to where it is later put to rest in its burial place. Here on the northern coast instead of giving it a traditional land burial, the burnt shell of the fish is carried all the way to the sea and dumped into the ocean. I really can’t think anything other than, “If only the EPA found out about this.”
For the weekend parties, I met with some friends and we went to a small town called Santona which is known for its Carnaval celebrations. Typically, groups of friends dress in the same costume but we didn’t get it together to make it happen so we all went as different things. I borrowed a costume from a teacher at school that was supposed to be a 20s flapper girl. After putting it on, I realized that I felt like a man in drag. So I decided that my character would be a dirty piano bar singer. I spent the entire night saying to Spanish men, “Hey big boy” in a raspy, too-many-cigarettes voice. Among the other costumes in our group with had a cowboy, a pirate wench, a pink girl kootie, an actual flapper girl, and a nerd statue.
Besos
Kisses, dahling! We paraded with the people in the town who’s costumes proved to be far more elaborate than ours: I saw a Ghostbusters truck donned with several Ghostbusters, the entire Simpsons family, a small army with a tank, a NASA astronaut fleet, different types of fruit, Pink Panthers…the list goes on and on. It really was a fun time despite the nasty weather, rain and temperatures in the 40s…ouch! I definitely would do it again.
The next weekend I decided to go to Barcelona to give Marta a visit and to see a Jason Webley show. For those of you who aren’t familiar with him. I urge you to check out his website and his videos on YouTube. I’m not going to go into a long explanation of his performances, but they are definitely worth seeing.
That’s it for this travel blog. I’m starting to get tired. I probably won’t write another one until after Semana Santa/Easter/Spring Break. Take care of yourselves. I miss all of you lots.
Much love,
Danielle
Advertisement
Tot: 0.289s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0956s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb