Thursday, after watching Paris, Texas in my cinema class (which was very good), I went to the Parte Vieja to get some drinks with my intercambio and his friend, also from around here, who also speaks very good English, and supposedly German, although there is no way for me to verify such a thing. I thought that maybe I would just have a few and go home around 11, but it was made clear that this was not going to happen when we pooled our money together for drinking (every person gives 10€ to a designated payer, so it is only necessary for one person to fight their way to the front of each bar, rather than 4), after having also met up with my intercambios coworker, from Italy. There was quite a fluid and comfortable mix of Castellano and English throughout the night so that I didn´t feel cramped with only Spanish, but also didn´t feel lame for speaking too much English, and only a few times I was somewhat left out with the Euskera, which is still useful to get used to hearing. At one point we stopped for some coffee, then liquor, and played a traditional Basque card game called Mus, which was complicated to learn, but after a few rounds, I more or less got the idea of it, although sometimes I was betting far too much for shitty cards. (the bets were for centavos used to count points to the win, not Euros to actually leave with). Once I had figured out that I was gonna get home kinda late (actually only 2, which is relatively early), I set 3 alarms on my phone because I had to get up Friday for an excursion that had been planned by the program I am here with. Although with many doubts beforehand, I made it to the point of departure far earlier than necessary, which was ok by me.
The first site we visited was that of a historical baserria, or etxea, or caserio, or farm house. This was a traditional Basque farm house that was originally built in, I believe, the 16th century, then added on to a century later, and has passed down many generations, but is now used as a museum to demonstrate the some aspects of, and the importance of, the Basque farmhouse. This was way cool. Basque farm houses are right up there in importance with cider, with cider having once been something that almost all the farm houses (at least in Gipuzkoa), made for their own use. This is not only because apples were so abundant, but also because the water was not good to drink by itself, so by mixing cider with it, it was made safer to drink. This is why in the middle of the house there was a giant beam press which was used to smash literally tons of apples into juice at once. It is basically a giant lever press, that is in the second floor of the house, with a crank in the first floor attached to a stone that weighs something on the order of 100 tons (or something ridick, it had to weigh more than the pressure of the press on the apples in order to keep the crank from lifting off the ground when pressing the apples). The houses tended to be on hills and mountains, so there is also a door that goes from the second floor directly out to the ground in back of the house, which greatly facilitates bringing in tons of apples to that floor. It should be obvious that not all houses are the same, but they have some general characteristics in common, one of the most distinct of which being the fact that animals were kept in the house, rather than a separate barn, during the winter. This was for many reasons, including heat, the ease of keeping track of the health of the animals, and the ease of collecting their feces to be used as fertilizer once spring rolls around. Also important is the house´s role as a sanctuary, or holy place, making it better for the animals to be under the eaves of the roof. On the other side of the first floor is almost always the kitchen. This is once again for practical purposes, such as heating, with the heat from the kitchen and the animals rising to warm the second floor. Also, with the kitchen being the place that folks would spend most of the time when not out in the fields, its the easiest place to keep track of the animals (through special windows that when opened, allow one to view the stable from the kitchen). With this there is also a religious element, because fire is one of the most sacred things in Basque culture. Because the kitchen is the place that the fire is located, it is one of the most holy parts of the house. In many houses there is a second floor for bedding arrangments, and a third for storage, but in our particular house, the first and second floor were condensed into one, with the bedrooms being assumably warmed sideways-like. However, one important part of the Basque kitchen layout remained, and that was the lack of chimney. This initally seems like a terrible idea, but its actually pretty genius. Instead of a chimney, they have maybe four relatively small holes that let the smoke into an adjacent room, where are stored cheeses, meats, and fish to be smoked and cured by the smoke. At the same time, this is not enough to let all the smoke out, so the room is in fact quite black from soot, but this is on purpose in order to protect from wood worm and termites. Another random amazing thing is that, in the basin part of the beam press, where the apples are smothered into juice, there is a hole to drain the juice, but in that hole is a plant that not only serves to filter out the solids and dirt from the cider, but actually has natural antiseptic quailities that serve to help keep the cider safer.
Also important is that Basque houses don´t belong to the people, but the people to the house. This has strong implications for the way the house is passed down, which is, more or less, to the first born (sex only sometimes important). Once this has taken place, the old owners (the parents) are guaranteed the privelege to continue on in the house, with the inheritor, their spouse, and their children. Other siblings are only allowed to stay on if they are not married, as a baserria is only capable of supporting about 15-20 people. The dead (especially infants) were often buried under the eaves of the house in the yard, or nearby in the yard, and then later this was moved to under the church, and later the yard of the church, because all these places were specially connected and holy.
The next chapter of the excursion was in a place called Arantzazu, where the most famous thing is an amazing cathedral, which was designed by E. Chillida, and is probably one of the few "modern art" cathedrals in the world, or at least the first one I have seen. I can´t really explain it to you at all, but it was really amazing. You can google image it and at least see some of it. In all these amazing cathedrals sometimes I miss being religious, because it seems like it would be a nice thing to do to be able to pray at such a massive and awesome and uniquely beautiful church, but alas, as soon as the thought becomes concrete in my mind in any sense I am forced to remember what prayer actually is, or has been for me, which, unlike the communication with the massive awesome unknown of the universe that I want it to be, has always felt much more like talking to myself. Sure talking to a part of myself that some might say is really the "god" in me, but I have realized that whenever I used to pray, it was just another form of the way in which I sometimes live in my head and not in the world, and it was kind of like a schizophrenic internal reflection with myself about whatever the outside stimulus was, not any sort of communion with the supposed creator of such wonders. I´ve also figured out that when you incorporate these various elements of the fractured reflection into an at least slightly more unified thought process, its a little clearer, and much more self-empowering. Enough of that though, thats just where I am with my journey through complicated manifestations of atheism.
Dinosaur Part
The next chapter of the journey was to see the Flysch of Zumaia, which was something I actually hadn´t known we were going to. The only part of the exursion I knew about was the baserria, and the lunch. The cathedral, and all of Zumaia were news to me. Zumaia was a very pleasant surprise. It turns out this place, on the coast about half an hour from Donosti, is one of the most important geological sites in the world, and especially now. It was really important because of its contribution to the prevailing theory of how dinosaurs, and 90% of the rest of species on earth, died out about 65.5 milion years ago. The rocky cliffs of Zumaia, and really a large portion of the coast from near Donosti to maybe 5 kilometers west of Zumaia, are made of sedimentary rock that was formed when what we know as Euskal Herria was the seabed of the body of water that separated the Iberian plate from the rest of Europe. Eventually the Iberian plate smashed into Europe and formed the Pyrenees, which trickle down and turn into the rocky coasts of Zumaia, where 50 million (100-50 million years ago) years of sedimentary rock have now been pushed up sideways, and create an open book for geologists to study. The important part in all of this is that in the layer of rock that is dated to around 65.5 million years ago, there is an anomalous layer almost totally composed of Iridium. This is curious because there are not natural sources on earth for Iridium, it only comes from meteors. Scientists concluded (from Zumaia, and other similar sites, with the same anomaly, in other parts of the world) that it was likely some sort of meteoric disaster covered the earth in Iridium, and this lead to this mass extinction. Lo and behold, around ten years later, the Chicxulub Crater was discovered in the Yucatan peninsula, and was dated back to the exact time as the Iridium Anomaly, and the theory was well on its way to esteem. The idea is basically that this giant meteor smacked into the earth, and cause all kinds of ridiculous armageddon-like catastrophe, including kilometer high tsunamis, earth quakes, volcanoes, etc, but the thing that really did so many species in was the fact that it covered the earth in a cloud of dust, including iridium, for a good few years (I should really know if it was more like 10 or 1, 000, but I don´t), and this made it really cold and lightless, which killed most of the plants, which, going up the food chain, eventually killed almost all the animals that hadn´t already been gotten by the other catastrophes. Some of the few things that survived were the first small rodent-like mammals that could get by on very little and could live on the scraps of some of the other things, and eventually, these developed into all the other mammals we have now, including humans (yes! human win!). This is important information for the following discussion, about why Zumaia is important now. Besides killing dinosaurs, it is also a very good place to document global climate change, on the order of tens of thousands of years, (for which there are cycles, as well as for 100,000, and a bunch of other ridiculous cosmic cycles). It has been discovered that, for the most part, species are able to adapt to the changes in climate that Earth has experienced, the quickest (except for a few mass extinction events) usually being 10,000 years to change around 6 degrees. (Warning, global warming cliche!) However, the problem now is that the earth seems to be changing its temperature about twenty times faster than the previous climate changes, which, if true, could be devastating for the general population of species on earth. We may be approaching another mass extinction event, and it may or may not be our fault. Here´s where the first story is important, though. Why shouldn´t we care about this? For two reasons, the first being, will humans survive, probably so, and if not, oh well, we have made a pretty good run for it and eventually even the dinosaurs had to go, whose to say our mass extinction event can´t be self-imposed? Secondly, and most important, we deserve to do what we want. We (mammals collectively) survived the last mass-extinction, then evolved into humanoids (who also survived their own mini-mass extinction), then evolved to the fully dominant, in command humans that we now know. Why shouldn´t we be able to have some fun before we´re extinct?
Monday, February 16, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Txotx!
This weekend was full of experiencing Euskalkultura. Thursday I went with my intercambio to a gastronomic society, which is a traditional Basque institution wherein Basque men buy a bunch of food at a grocery store, then cook it for themselves and everyone eats a bunch of good food. This is because historically, Basque society is supposed to have been matriarchal, and evidently men got tired of women ruling everything in the house and decided to make their own societies in which they could cook and call the shots and associate with other men. For this reason, also, the societies are historically for men only. Now, however, in many if not most of the societies, women are able to come and pay to eat, but it is still only men that prepare the food. I imagine there are some where women are fully integrated, and some where women are still not allowed, or welcomed, but the one I went to I´m pretty sure was of the medium sort. It was definitely pretty much all dudes the whole time, except for about half an hour when one woman came in, who was at least friends with a few of the guys and may have been one of their girlfriends. It was really a good experience overall, though. The people were very friendly, there were bouts where people were just speaking to each other in Euskara and in which I just had to eat and deal with not understanding, but there were plenty of other times that people would speak to me in Castellano, or often in English, and as the food and drinks went on the atmosphere got more friendly.
*Sidenote: Three weeks ago, I went with my intercambio to the old part of town to see some bertsolaris(sp), traditional Basque singers, which had helped to keep the language and its rich oral literature alive over the centuries. The songs involve different set meters and tunes, into which the singers weave jokes, satire, or elaborate stories. It was very interesting to see, but probably would be more interesting if I could understand Euskara. During this time, a person from a Basque news channel came up to me and asked me something in Basque, to which I responded by staring blankly while my intercambio whispered that I would not understand because I was from Washington. After they found out I was from DC (kinda), they were even more interested in having me speak on camera, and asked me something about DC, which I responded affirmatively saying thats where I came from, and then the same question from before, with hand motions which I assumed to mean something like "What do you think of this?" to which I responded with really bad Castellano something along the lines of,
"Its good, I like it, I´m here with him, and he knows a lot more than I do", or rather
"Its good, I like, I´m here with him and he knew much better about than I"
After that, I never knew if I had in fact made onto television or not, thinking that, on the one hand, there was really no good reason to put such meaninglessness on the air, but on the other hand, Basque people would be glad to see someone from America at one of their cultural events, and it would also provide a decent laugh.
I finally found out on Thursday, when one of the people that I met said that they had seen me on television at the bertsolaris, haha.
The second chapter of my Basque weekend was Saturday, when 4 friends and I went to a cidreria, which is supposedly one of, if not the, most import things to experience in Basque culture. I can´t give you the whole history, but in Basque culture cider is one of the most important things there is. In past centuries, some of the most strict and specific legislation had to do with cider, and apple orchards. It is intersting to note that along with many other advantages that worked in their favor(experience from whale hunting, ship building techniques learned from Vikings, improved upon techniques of drying cod for long voyages, etc), another reason that the Basques had such good luck in the area of navigation was cider. While many other explorers brought harder drinks on their voyages such as vodka, rum, etc, because they took up less volume, the Basques had to have their cider. Although leaving less room, this turned out to be to their advantage. While voyages like that of the pilgrims were plagued with sickness and death from scurvy and the like, the Basques had been able to travel to North America to fish and whale with relatively few sicknesses or deaths, because the cider they were drinking provided them with vitamins, most importantly, vitamin C to prevent scurvy. The role that cider houses play is this: in the past, most people would make their own cider, and sell it in various markets at different times of the season (selling times for different regions were regulated by law), but it was common to have a decent sized house and your own cider. As population and industrialization increased, the market for cider increased, and while some people moved to smaller houses and worked in industry, others specialized in cider making, and sold their cider to the people who no longer had their own. To buy the right cider, you had to test it out, so you would go to the cider house and drink a small taste from each of the barrels (kupelas), and decide which one you wanted. To test a small amount of 70 kupelas, however, is difficult to do without catching a buzz, so the cider houses would provide food that people could eat between tastings to keep from getting too drunk. The traditional food to be served in cidrerias is tortilla de bacalao(sp) (cod), txuleta (giant steak), and cheese, marmelade, and walnuts, for which I don´t remember the Basque names, all of which is delicious. You don´t have plates for individuals, and most often, don´t have seats (although the one I went to did) because you are not there to sit and eat, you are there to drink cider, and eat bites in the process. This was really a very good time. It was 26€ a person, which is kind of up there in price range, but for all the food and cider we had, as well as the experience, I´d say it was well worth it. They don´t usually tap all the kupelas at the same time, and for much of the time there was only the same 2 or 3 ( of about 20) open, but with some vigilance and alertness I was able to catch some of the less frecuented ones, and probably tried a total of 8 different ciders in the night (when a new one is being opened, or sometimes just reopened, people start yelling "txotx", which has a literal translation that escapes me, something like the word for tapping maybe, but mostly means, run, and grab some of this cider).
Alright, yet another ridiculously long post, time to stop.
*Sidenote: Three weeks ago, I went with my intercambio to the old part of town to see some bertsolaris(sp), traditional Basque singers, which had helped to keep the language and its rich oral literature alive over the centuries. The songs involve different set meters and tunes, into which the singers weave jokes, satire, or elaborate stories. It was very interesting to see, but probably would be more interesting if I could understand Euskara. During this time, a person from a Basque news channel came up to me and asked me something in Basque, to which I responded by staring blankly while my intercambio whispered that I would not understand because I was from Washington. After they found out I was from DC (kinda), they were even more interested in having me speak on camera, and asked me something about DC, which I responded affirmatively saying thats where I came from, and then the same question from before, with hand motions which I assumed to mean something like "What do you think of this?" to which I responded with really bad Castellano something along the lines of,
"Its good, I like it, I´m here with him, and he knows a lot more than I do", or rather
"Its good, I like, I´m here with him and he knew much better about than I"
After that, I never knew if I had in fact made onto television or not, thinking that, on the one hand, there was really no good reason to put such meaninglessness on the air, but on the other hand, Basque people would be glad to see someone from America at one of their cultural events, and it would also provide a decent laugh.
I finally found out on Thursday, when one of the people that I met said that they had seen me on television at the bertsolaris, haha.
The second chapter of my Basque weekend was Saturday, when 4 friends and I went to a cidreria, which is supposedly one of, if not the, most import things to experience in Basque culture. I can´t give you the whole history, but in Basque culture cider is one of the most important things there is. In past centuries, some of the most strict and specific legislation had to do with cider, and apple orchards. It is intersting to note that along with many other advantages that worked in their favor(experience from whale hunting, ship building techniques learned from Vikings, improved upon techniques of drying cod for long voyages, etc), another reason that the Basques had such good luck in the area of navigation was cider. While many other explorers brought harder drinks on their voyages such as vodka, rum, etc, because they took up less volume, the Basques had to have their cider. Although leaving less room, this turned out to be to their advantage. While voyages like that of the pilgrims were plagued with sickness and death from scurvy and the like, the Basques had been able to travel to North America to fish and whale with relatively few sicknesses or deaths, because the cider they were drinking provided them with vitamins, most importantly, vitamin C to prevent scurvy. The role that cider houses play is this: in the past, most people would make their own cider, and sell it in various markets at different times of the season (selling times for different regions were regulated by law), but it was common to have a decent sized house and your own cider. As population and industrialization increased, the market for cider increased, and while some people moved to smaller houses and worked in industry, others specialized in cider making, and sold their cider to the people who no longer had their own. To buy the right cider, you had to test it out, so you would go to the cider house and drink a small taste from each of the barrels (kupelas), and decide which one you wanted. To test a small amount of 70 kupelas, however, is difficult to do without catching a buzz, so the cider houses would provide food that people could eat between tastings to keep from getting too drunk. The traditional food to be served in cidrerias is tortilla de bacalao(sp) (cod), txuleta (giant steak), and cheese, marmelade, and walnuts, for which I don´t remember the Basque names, all of which is delicious. You don´t have plates for individuals, and most often, don´t have seats (although the one I went to did) because you are not there to sit and eat, you are there to drink cider, and eat bites in the process. This was really a very good time. It was 26€ a person, which is kind of up there in price range, but for all the food and cider we had, as well as the experience, I´d say it was well worth it. They don´t usually tap all the kupelas at the same time, and for much of the time there was only the same 2 or 3 ( of about 20) open, but with some vigilance and alertness I was able to catch some of the less frecuented ones, and probably tried a total of 8 different ciders in the night (when a new one is being opened, or sometimes just reopened, people start yelling "txotx", which has a literal translation that escapes me, something like the word for tapping maybe, but mostly means, run, and grab some of this cider).
Alright, yet another ridiculously long post, time to stop.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Nationalism
So being here in the Basque country surrounded by nationalism, my interests have been a little peaked. I spent a decent amount yesterday reading part of an essay called "Post-Colonial Anarchism" from Jailbreak Press, which focuses on some issues that have been pointed out by anarchist people of color(APOC) in critique of the larger anarchist milieu. I can´t really say I identify as an anarchist, but it has at least influenced my thinking a bit. This essay addresses not only some very serious issues of various colonialist mindsets within the anarchist "movement", but also, I think, some of the reasons that the larger anarchist "movement" in North America can often seem to lack relevance. The point of bringing this up is, it reevaluates the role of nations and national liberation struggles within the anarchist paradigm. This did less to change my views on nationalism than it did to change my views on the compatibility of anarchist or anti-authoritarian thought with support for national liberation struggles, two tendencies of thought which I have, but have previously been held in different drawers of my brain.
My go-to news source is Al-Jazeera, because I hate America, or maybe because it offers a wider range of stories and analysis than does BBC, and more news than CNN. Because of this, I have known that for at least the past 5 months, the government of Sri-Lanka has led an increasingly intensive initiative to destroy the Tamil Tigers, which seems to also mean destroying the Tamil people, hospitals, journalists, etc.... Now the crisis is reaching truly epic proportions, and I am beginning to see it on the Basque and Spanish nightly news, as well. I don´t know what you have on CNN and BBC. With my general interest in current events and oppressed peoples, and my specific interest in nationalism, I decided I would try and figure out if the U.S. government can be blamed for this at all, given all the attention that Gaza has gotten. In short, they can. In my research process, I learned how horribly daunting a task it is to try and trace money in such a way, and this is with the help of the internet, and with only the open information available to me. So, I have decided to renounce anarchism and leave such hard work to professional bureuacrats that like to, or at least get paid to, do such research. Just kidding, I have actually just gotten a small taste of the ways in which our whole government and financing system is obscured to point of incomprehensibility for any of the public which it is supposed to be serving. Blah. Whatever, Sri-Lanka received money for military non-weapon items, military training, anti-narcotics operations, and anti-terrorism operations. However, from 2003-2007, all of this, plus development and educational aid, only totaled about 10 million dollars. This is a lot to me, but I am pretty sure that compared with the assistance to Israel, its relatively miniscule. I don´t have the ability or will to find out right now. There is also, however, an American Chamber of Commerce in Sri-Lanka, which gives money to the government, unclear how much, that is probably culpable somewhat. For information on how AmCham, and the above-mentioned development aid, as well as the 134 million that the country received in tsunami relief in 2005 may still have some sinister implications, which I can´t claim to know any specifics of, see Naomi Klein´s article "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism in Post-Conflict States". There´s also a book.
My go-to news source is Al-Jazeera, because I hate America, or maybe because it offers a wider range of stories and analysis than does BBC, and more news than CNN. Because of this, I have known that for at least the past 5 months, the government of Sri-Lanka has led an increasingly intensive initiative to destroy the Tamil Tigers, which seems to also mean destroying the Tamil people, hospitals, journalists, etc.... Now the crisis is reaching truly epic proportions, and I am beginning to see it on the Basque and Spanish nightly news, as well. I don´t know what you have on CNN and BBC. With my general interest in current events and oppressed peoples, and my specific interest in nationalism, I decided I would try and figure out if the U.S. government can be blamed for this at all, given all the attention that Gaza has gotten. In short, they can. In my research process, I learned how horribly daunting a task it is to try and trace money in such a way, and this is with the help of the internet, and with only the open information available to me. So, I have decided to renounce anarchism and leave such hard work to professional bureuacrats that like to, or at least get paid to, do such research. Just kidding, I have actually just gotten a small taste of the ways in which our whole government and financing system is obscured to point of incomprehensibility for any of the public which it is supposed to be serving. Blah. Whatever, Sri-Lanka received money for military non-weapon items, military training, anti-narcotics operations, and anti-terrorism operations. However, from 2003-2007, all of this, plus development and educational aid, only totaled about 10 million dollars. This is a lot to me, but I am pretty sure that compared with the assistance to Israel, its relatively miniscule. I don´t have the ability or will to find out right now. There is also, however, an American Chamber of Commerce in Sri-Lanka, which gives money to the government, unclear how much, that is probably culpable somewhat. For information on how AmCham, and the above-mentioned development aid, as well as the 134 million that the country received in tsunami relief in 2005 may still have some sinister implications, which I can´t claim to know any specifics of, see Naomi Klein´s article "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism in Post-Conflict States". There´s also a book.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Little more
I don´t have a whole lot more to add this week, but I figure I should try and make a habit of updating at least once a week. Last week, the same night after my first post, I ended up hanging out with my intercambio at his house, where he first showed me some Basque sports on the internet, then I stuck around for dinner with him and his roomates. This was quite an experience because, along with some Euskara mixed in, all the conversation was in much faster and more colloquial Spanish than I am used to. This was an improvement over the times that I go with my intercambio to the Basque bars where it is only in Euskara(this improvement owing to the fact that not all house members are from Basque Country), because I can understand at least a sizeable percentage of Spanish as opposed to maybe 13-20 words in Basque, but still quite a task. When they spoke to me it was slowed down a little bit, but still quite difficult. I´ve noticed my comprehension and speaking ability vary widely depending on my mood and energy level, and I think that night was one of the lower points. It was good though, to be hearing people speak Spanish for real, the way locals speak to each other in their house, which might be similar to the way I sometimes speak relatively unintelligible English.
Also, interestingly enough and pertinent to the comment made by Josef on my last, entry...
The next day after the dinner, in my Basque Language and Culture class, I learned that the word, or one of the words, for him/her, él/ella is BERA as in "bera Josef da". He is Josef. But the word Bera, unlike its English and Spanish counterparts, is not gendered, so one would also say "bera Jessica da". Interesting, no?
Alright, thats all for now, agur.
Also, interestingly enough and pertinent to the comment made by Josef on my last, entry...
The next day after the dinner, in my Basque Language and Culture class, I learned that the word, or one of the words, for him/her, él/ella is BERA as in "bera Josef da". He is Josef. But the word Bera, unlike its English and Spanish counterparts, is not gendered, so one would also say "bera Jessica da". Interesting, no?
Alright, thats all for now, agur.
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