I did quite a bit of traveling between April 4 and April 19th. I started out that first weekend going to Iruñea in Nafarroa for what I would describe as a small folk festival, wherein there were various Basque dance groups in the streets and in plazas, traditional sports that the kids participated in, a Catalan dance group, and an Irish dance group, as well as finally getting to see some joaldunak, which are described in the blog about crossing the French border. The next day we went to Gasteiz, where there was to be the termination of the Korrika, which is a week and a half long relay race around Euskal Herria to raise money for education in Euskara. However, we slept too late in Iruñea and missed the Korrika, but were still able to see the concert and the parties afterwards. I had first planned to take a train from Gasteiz to Granada, but the last left at 6pm which was too early, so I decided to take the morning one the next day from Donostia. However, I managed to turn off four alarms without being conscious and wake up just about an hour after the train left, and the next one wasnt until 5, which meant I had to take that to Madrid, sleep there, then take the morning train from Madrid to Granada, which also meant using two days of my rail pass rather than one. The only thing notable from this trip to Madrid was eating in a Kurdish nationalist Kebap joint that I found near the hostel. Finally arriving in Granada, I had to find my hostel which I had heard was difficult to find. I had good directions though and made it fairly easily. The hostel was a beautiful old Spanish house with an open air parlor in the middle. Granada was great, although I wish I had talked to more people, which is partly my fault, but I think also partly the fault of it being Semana Santa and having so many (english speaking) tourists in town (that I didn´t want to talk to) that it was difficult to just run into Granadinos and talk to them. I walked around the Generalife Gardens, about which I know nothing of the history, but were brilliant. From the top of this mountain or hill of the garden I could see almost all of Granada as well as the mountains around it, some still snow covered, and look down on this garden of trees and fountains and flowers and people. I tried to go to the Alhambra but it was sold out of tickets for the afternoon, and I was thinking of returning that night for the night tour which was still open, but decided to try and catch some Flamenco instead, which I also didnt do. I ended up just doing another night of wandering around drinking beer and eating the free tapas that come with it and watching the processions, which is really the thing to be doing in Semana Santa anyways. These processions are of figures of Jesus and Mary that the groups take out from their various churches and parade around the street with marching bands and people wearing outfits that to all citizens of the U.S. can only remind us of the KKK (google semana santa pics). The next day I wandered all over Albaycin, one of the old neighborhoods on the hill, half looking for the part of the hill in which the gypsies live in caves, but thinking that I only wanted to find it if it was by accident or by wandering around aimlessly, so I didn´t find it. But I did find some great views, crazy streets, a street market in a plaza behind a church that is bordered by 20ft ledge in which you can buy things from street people and look over the city and the mountains. I did hear some cool looking street people (that wouldn´t have been out of place at a dc punk show...) talking about seeing each other back at the cave, though.
Ok, thats installation one of Semana Santa, next up is meeting Joshua in Barcelona and the escape from Italy. (Sorry for the writing quality so far, but with a trip of this magnitude I have to let some things go in order to get it down at all. Maybe I´ll edit things later.)
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
International Language Conspiracy
This weekend was a four day-er because Thursday was father´s day and the culmination of the fallos in Valencia, which is a giant fire festival that I wish I´d been to, but I think it was good to slow down my mentality of optimization and always trying for the best experience. I am for sure gonna try and make sure I get to do as much of the stuff that I want to as I can, but its also important not to make cramming the most amount of stuff into my time my main preoccupation here. This weekend was good for getting some valuable if not always positive life experience out of an unplanned and seemingly vacuous space of time.
Thursday night, after barely doing anything other than cutting my own hair with only scissors and my hands (which turned out pretty well, although the electric clippers are about 4 times as fast), I went out for a decent night with my housemate and some of her friends, that involved speaking plenty of Spanish with this Finnish girl (good to have another non-German) and making a whole transaction to buy beer in Euskara (we just learned numbers so now I can understand when I ask how much something is) and meeting these folks from Catalunya and trying to gather enough info from one of them, who said he had a bar in Barcelona I should go to, so that I would be able to actually remember and find it when Joshua and I are there. He told me the plaza, the bar, and his name, and suspecting I´d forget because we were at a bar, also gave me some tips on finding his facebook, which was still likely to be forgotten but I remembered one of his names that he spelled to me in catalan, the only difference being the way the x´s are pronounced (ixa(icksa), as opposed to equis in castellano, or ixa (eesha) in Euskara) but I got it, and describing that his profile picture had a dog flying through the air. I forgot some about the plaza where the bar is, but I for sure found a ridiculous picture of a dog flying in the air out of someones arms on facebook.
Saturday I went to my first real house party in Basque country. In general, people here go out to bars to party, and rarely have them at their houses. But this was a house with Germans and Americans. I went because I heard from my American friend, but my housemate also went who heard from her German friends. This house has paint everywhere, literally, the toilet was painted, the bathtub was painted, the walls had all kinds of mad poetry and drawings on them, some still fresh, necessitating caution when using walls as support. It kind of had the atmosphere of a drug house or a squat, which is not a bad thing. It was a nice change from always going around spending so much money at bars, because although they were still charging, it was much cheaper, and it was one place. There were at least two people who were born in Basque country, then lived in America, and are now back here and speak real American English and also good Basque, (although I didn´t ask if its more Batua,the standardized Euskara generally used in the schools these days, or the dialect from here), a lot of Italians, American, and Germans, some Polish folks, maybe some Finnish too. It was quite a party. Although all Germans learn at least like a working use of English, many here have as decent or better command of Spanish, and a lot of the other folk had good Spanish, too, sometimes better than their English, so there was a plenty healthy mix of languages.
Thursday night, after barely doing anything other than cutting my own hair with only scissors and my hands (which turned out pretty well, although the electric clippers are about 4 times as fast), I went out for a decent night with my housemate and some of her friends, that involved speaking plenty of Spanish with this Finnish girl (good to have another non-German) and making a whole transaction to buy beer in Euskara (we just learned numbers so now I can understand when I ask how much something is) and meeting these folks from Catalunya and trying to gather enough info from one of them, who said he had a bar in Barcelona I should go to, so that I would be able to actually remember and find it when Joshua and I are there. He told me the plaza, the bar, and his name, and suspecting I´d forget because we were at a bar, also gave me some tips on finding his facebook, which was still likely to be forgotten but I remembered one of his names that he spelled to me in catalan, the only difference being the way the x´s are pronounced (ixa(icksa), as opposed to equis in castellano, or ixa (eesha) in Euskara) but I got it, and describing that his profile picture had a dog flying through the air. I forgot some about the plaza where the bar is, but I for sure found a ridiculous picture of a dog flying in the air out of someones arms on facebook.
Saturday I went to my first real house party in Basque country. In general, people here go out to bars to party, and rarely have them at their houses. But this was a house with Germans and Americans. I went because I heard from my American friend, but my housemate also went who heard from her German friends. This house has paint everywhere, literally, the toilet was painted, the bathtub was painted, the walls had all kinds of mad poetry and drawings on them, some still fresh, necessitating caution when using walls as support. It kind of had the atmosphere of a drug house or a squat, which is not a bad thing. It was a nice change from always going around spending so much money at bars, because although they were still charging, it was much cheaper, and it was one place. There were at least two people who were born in Basque country, then lived in America, and are now back here and speak real American English and also good Basque, (although I didn´t ask if its more Batua,the standardized Euskara generally used in the schools these days, or the dialect from here), a lot of Italians, American, and Germans, some Polish folks, maybe some Finnish too. It was quite a party. Although all Germans learn at least like a working use of English, many here have as decent or better command of Spanish, and a lot of the other folk had good Spanish, too, sometimes better than their English, so there was a plenty healthy mix of languages.
Monday, March 16, 2009
bertsolaritza
The Basque langauge was not written down until 1545. Before that it was only a spoken language. For this reason, the oral tradition of Euskara has traditionally been much richer than the written one, although that is changing as people write much more in Eusakara, but the oral tradition still survives just as strongly. By oral tradition I mean stories, jokes, and riddles, but especially singing.
This is what bertsolaritza is. It is an extremely nuanced art of improvisational singing. There are three main things that are important for singing bertsos: melody, rhyme, and meter. These obviously restrict what can be said or rather how something can be said, but they also work as guides to help the person reach their desired point with improvisation. The usual technique is to think of the last line first, then figure out how to get there on the way, using the melody, rhyme, and meter as guidelines. There are hundreds of traditional melodies that can be used, as well as using those of popular songs, and this goes with meter as well. The rhyme scheme is part of the structure, but the rhymes that go in the designated places can be determined by the bertsolari or by the gai jartzailea, the person in charge of setting the subjects in a bertsolaritza competition.
Historically, bertsolaritza has been extremely important in preserving not only stories and histories, but the basque language itself. Like all things Basque, it was outlawed under Franco, and bertsolaritza itself was probably one of the best tools for preserving the language. The dual act of learning and then reciting various bertsos helps ingrain it in memory much more strongly than only by route memorization. Bertsolaritza is also a source of Basque national pride, because with basqueness and Basque country so difficult to define, it is at least clear that those who sing and like bertsos are Basques.
Nowadays it seems as if there is a pretty strong future for bertsolaritza, with probably the highest number of people possessing the art in history, there are around 1300 different bertso events each year in all of Euskal Herria, including many competitions which draw thousands of people that sit in complete silence for multiple hours on end to hear bertsos. There also exist bertsolaritza schools in which people of various ages can learn the techniques and art of bertsolaritza. There are also an increasing number of women participating in bertsolaritza. It is still a male-dominated art, but at least a few of the people that participate in the highest competitions are women.
I have seen a decent amount of bertsolaritza by now. The first time was around 2 or 3 weeks into my stay here and I went with my intercambio to an event they had downtown one saturday afternoon where the bertsolaris were singing in the street, and then later in some of the downtown bars. In the plaza there was some news coverage of the event, and the camera man and reporter came up to me and asked me what assumably meant something like "What do you think" in Basque, and my intercambio told him I wasn´t going to understand because I was from Washington, but this only made them more interested in my opinion, and they asked me the same thing again, and gestured towards the singers in a manner that I took to mean they wanted me to talk about what was happening, so I said in terrible castellano that I liked it and that I was with my intercambio who knew a lot more about it than me, or thats what I tried to say. I have since met people in Tolosa that knew me from seeing me on television, haha.
Last Saturday, I went to Beasain for an event they had there that was a mix between a celebration for a political prisoner that was recently released and returned home, and a protest for the incarceration and dispersement of the remaining political prisoners. I went with my intercambio, his coworker from Italy, and his coworkers girlfriend from Colombia. We were quite the international group. It was good to have other people that don´t understand Euskara there to relate with, and a fellow american as well. They had people playing Basque music, Bertsolaritza, and at one point some girls started doing some Basque dancing as well. After this we went to my intercambios farmhouse, which was in Baliarrain, and which was so beautiful. They have this farmhouse that is in the middle of like super authentic Basque country, surrounded by misty green hills. That was really cool. Then we went to Tolosa, a place I am starting to feel relatively familar with, and ate and drank a little and played card games. Then I went and hung out with some americans and a Cuban Basque and ate some traditional Basque food and drank bottled cider.
Last Monday, USAC had a bertsolari come and speak to us first in English, and then for more complicated things in Castellano, about bertsolaritza and why its important and how they are sung. Before he spoke, someone in the audience had told him that I had been in Beasain two days before so he pointed me out during his speech. He sang us some bertsos in English, which was really impressive because its a totally different language than they usually do them in, and one in Euskara, as well as reciting a Cuban style verse in Castellano.
The most frustrating thing in all of these cases is my lack of comprehension of Euskara, it is slowly coming along, but in the bertsos all I can ever understand are words like "and", "boy", and maybe a few adjectives now, but not nearly enough to be able to really appreciate the art of the thing. I know its impressive, but I´m not able to specifically understand why.
This is what bertsolaritza is. It is an extremely nuanced art of improvisational singing. There are three main things that are important for singing bertsos: melody, rhyme, and meter. These obviously restrict what can be said or rather how something can be said, but they also work as guides to help the person reach their desired point with improvisation. The usual technique is to think of the last line first, then figure out how to get there on the way, using the melody, rhyme, and meter as guidelines. There are hundreds of traditional melodies that can be used, as well as using those of popular songs, and this goes with meter as well. The rhyme scheme is part of the structure, but the rhymes that go in the designated places can be determined by the bertsolari or by the gai jartzailea, the person in charge of setting the subjects in a bertsolaritza competition.
Historically, bertsolaritza has been extremely important in preserving not only stories and histories, but the basque language itself. Like all things Basque, it was outlawed under Franco, and bertsolaritza itself was probably one of the best tools for preserving the language. The dual act of learning and then reciting various bertsos helps ingrain it in memory much more strongly than only by route memorization. Bertsolaritza is also a source of Basque national pride, because with basqueness and Basque country so difficult to define, it is at least clear that those who sing and like bertsos are Basques.
Nowadays it seems as if there is a pretty strong future for bertsolaritza, with probably the highest number of people possessing the art in history, there are around 1300 different bertso events each year in all of Euskal Herria, including many competitions which draw thousands of people that sit in complete silence for multiple hours on end to hear bertsos. There also exist bertsolaritza schools in which people of various ages can learn the techniques and art of bertsolaritza. There are also an increasing number of women participating in bertsolaritza. It is still a male-dominated art, but at least a few of the people that participate in the highest competitions are women.
I have seen a decent amount of bertsolaritza by now. The first time was around 2 or 3 weeks into my stay here and I went with my intercambio to an event they had downtown one saturday afternoon where the bertsolaris were singing in the street, and then later in some of the downtown bars. In the plaza there was some news coverage of the event, and the camera man and reporter came up to me and asked me what assumably meant something like "What do you think" in Basque, and my intercambio told him I wasn´t going to understand because I was from Washington, but this only made them more interested in my opinion, and they asked me the same thing again, and gestured towards the singers in a manner that I took to mean they wanted me to talk about what was happening, so I said in terrible castellano that I liked it and that I was with my intercambio who knew a lot more about it than me, or thats what I tried to say. I have since met people in Tolosa that knew me from seeing me on television, haha.
Last Saturday, I went to Beasain for an event they had there that was a mix between a celebration for a political prisoner that was recently released and returned home, and a protest for the incarceration and dispersement of the remaining political prisoners. I went with my intercambio, his coworker from Italy, and his coworkers girlfriend from Colombia. We were quite the international group. It was good to have other people that don´t understand Euskara there to relate with, and a fellow american as well. They had people playing Basque music, Bertsolaritza, and at one point some girls started doing some Basque dancing as well. After this we went to my intercambios farmhouse, which was in Baliarrain, and which was so beautiful. They have this farmhouse that is in the middle of like super authentic Basque country, surrounded by misty green hills. That was really cool. Then we went to Tolosa, a place I am starting to feel relatively familar with, and ate and drank a little and played card games. Then I went and hung out with some americans and a Cuban Basque and ate some traditional Basque food and drank bottled cider.
Last Monday, USAC had a bertsolari come and speak to us first in English, and then for more complicated things in Castellano, about bertsolaritza and why its important and how they are sung. Before he spoke, someone in the audience had told him that I had been in Beasain two days before so he pointed me out during his speech. He sang us some bertsos in English, which was really impressive because its a totally different language than they usually do them in, and one in Euskara, as well as reciting a Cuban style verse in Castellano.
The most frustrating thing in all of these cases is my lack of comprehension of Euskara, it is slowly coming along, but in the bertsos all I can ever understand are words like "and", "boy", and maybe a few adjectives now, but not nearly enough to be able to really appreciate the art of the thing. I know its impressive, but I´m not able to specifically understand why.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Carnaval, or how I crossed the imaginary border of France
This is about my adventure to Hendaye the weekend after Ash Wednesday, with my Carnaval in Tolosa having been the weekend before. The blog for that adventure is probably not gonna happen. Basically, I spent all of Sunday drinking in the streets of Tolosa with a group of Basques, and a few folks from other near parts, dressed as Andalucians, dancing and singing songs to a shopping cart with a sex doll dressed up as the Virgin Mary. The important thing to know is that Tolosa carnaval is famous because it is one of the few places that Carnaval survived under Franco, so its especially strong and crazy there, and its different than some because it is for people to participate in, not to stand on the side of the streets and watch people wearing ridiculous headdresses, although I´m sure that is quite fun also.
The Carnaval in Hendaye is not before Ash Wednesday, because it really has nothing to do with Christianity. It has to do with Basque tradition, specifically that of instituting the New Year. There is not really a separate Basque calendar (I don´t think) but in the old times before Christianity, people used to celebrate the beginning of the new year at the logical time when everything starts to come back to life. Really these festivals (at least in some towns) are somewhat intended to wake things up again, which might explain their placement in the end of winter, rather than in spring once things have already actually come to life. The celebration that I went to see in Hendaye consisted of two main things that I felt were important for me to see. The first one is the joaldunak. These are people that dress up in sheepskins and burlap fabric and strap giant sheep bells to their backs and walk through the streets making a bunch of noise. When they do this, all the animals, and assumably some of people, run away after being frightened by the terrible racket. The ancient Basque people reasoned that the ghosts and witches must be scared off by this too, which is the purpose of the ritual.
The second part I really wanted to see was the the burning of the figure of Miel Otxin. This is part of a broader legend that goes along with the festival, that is acted out in the streets of many a Carnavaling pueblocito. In the legend, there is a man named Ziripot who lives in the street. Because he is too fat to work, he makes his living by telling stories in exchange for food. One day, however, an evil giant named Miel Otxin arrives with his evil sidekick, Zaldiko, who is something like a centaur. Because Miel Otxin is so big, and Zaldiko is a centaur with a whip, he is able to control the city and keep everyone living in fear. They have Zaldiko reshoed, and then force the people of the town to lay all that they have at their feet. However, because Ziripot has nothing, he gives nothing. The two tyrants will not accept this, however, and beat him to the ground. Being so big, he is unable to lift himself, and when the townpeople try to help him, Zaldiko keeps them away with his whip. Ziripot is stuck laying in the street for all day. Finally, after nightfall, his friends return to help him up. They start to discuss what is to be done, how they can not live under these two anymore. Ziripot tells a story of how a boulder fell in front of a farmers door, and he was unable to move it from inside or outside of house by himself, but finally after asking his neighbors for help, they easily removed it. The people understand, and they gather anything they have, torches, pitchforks, etc. and go after the two tyrants. Zaldiko, being a horse-man, is able to run fast enough to escape, but they catch the giant, condemn him to a public trial, hang him, then set him on fire for good measure.
This legend is also said to have a somewhat symbolic significance for the fight of the moon and sun, which is resolved with the sun winning out, and the longer days of spring and summer returning.
However, I didn´t see any of these traditions. I set of for Hendaye with my friend Scott, around 2, from Donosti on the Eusko Tren, probably one of the best things to come from the PNVs country-building efforts, in which one can take what amounts to something like what would be a Metro ride from DC to Baltimore (if such a system existed) for 1.25€. We arrived a little before 3, and then I realized I was in France(sort of). I had not really understand that Hendaye was in Iparralde (north Basque country) until we arrived there. This meant that I was really much more out of my element than usual. Although I am still lacking quite a huge bit in Castellano, I can generally get around and buy things without too much trouble. When everything is primarily French, and secondarily Euskara, its much more difficult. Sure people speak a bit of Castellano (and English) but it felt much different.
The border between France and Spain is imaginary in this case for two reasons. Not only does it run right through the middle of a nation, but with the Schengen agreement, it functionally really barely does exist. I was able to take a train over it without realizing it.
So we get there and buy sandwhiches from a woman who understands neither Castellano or Euskara (Scott studies Euskara), but is able to ask me in English if I want mayonaise. Then after eating we went on our way to see the Castle on the other side of town, and ended up following some other travel looking kids through a hospital complex in which it was necessary to jump a fence at the end to get to the correct road to the castle, then went on a nature trail that we assumed would get to the castle. It did, sort of, but it really took us to a highway, then we walked back towards town on the highway to the castle. The trail was nice, but was shaped in such a way that if we had just gone the other direction on the highway it would have been about a 5th of the time. The castle cost 6.50€ for admission, and we weren´t convinced it was worth it. But it was pretty on the outside. I was sick this weekend, so that didn´t help the walking, but it was still worth it. By the time we were headed back into town it was about time to find the activities, but also to find more food and water, and maybe our friends that were also there. After a few failed attempts to exit the beach (hopping the fence into private property only escapable by jumping back to the beach) we encountered a supermarket in our attempt to locate our friends, and bought lots of water, some wine, cheese, meat, peppers, and a corkscrew, then set of to find our friends and the festivities. After some confusion about where best to meet, and heading to the river side of town, we ran into people playing music, and saw the effigy of Miel Otxin, but thought that we were supposed to go meet some people at a church that was supposed to be the best place to watch the procession. We also needed to buy bread, which was necessary for all the other things we had bought, but had forgotten. We wandered farther into town, found a panaderia, bought some bread and found out that we had missed the parade, but could still see the burning of Miel Otxin, where we had just been so we went back there. By the time we got there however, all we saw was the smoke that was leftover after he had been burned. Then we realized that that was actually in front of the church we had been looking for. The reason we didn´t find it very easily was because it was shaped more like your typical protestant office building american church, and we were looking for like at least slightly elaborate crosses and stuff. Oh well.
The Carnaval in Hendaye is not before Ash Wednesday, because it really has nothing to do with Christianity. It has to do with Basque tradition, specifically that of instituting the New Year. There is not really a separate Basque calendar (I don´t think) but in the old times before Christianity, people used to celebrate the beginning of the new year at the logical time when everything starts to come back to life. Really these festivals (at least in some towns) are somewhat intended to wake things up again, which might explain their placement in the end of winter, rather than in spring once things have already actually come to life. The celebration that I went to see in Hendaye consisted of two main things that I felt were important for me to see. The first one is the joaldunak. These are people that dress up in sheepskins and burlap fabric and strap giant sheep bells to their backs and walk through the streets making a bunch of noise. When they do this, all the animals, and assumably some of people, run away after being frightened by the terrible racket. The ancient Basque people reasoned that the ghosts and witches must be scared off by this too, which is the purpose of the ritual.
The second part I really wanted to see was the the burning of the figure of Miel Otxin. This is part of a broader legend that goes along with the festival, that is acted out in the streets of many a Carnavaling pueblocito. In the legend, there is a man named Ziripot who lives in the street. Because he is too fat to work, he makes his living by telling stories in exchange for food. One day, however, an evil giant named Miel Otxin arrives with his evil sidekick, Zaldiko, who is something like a centaur. Because Miel Otxin is so big, and Zaldiko is a centaur with a whip, he is able to control the city and keep everyone living in fear. They have Zaldiko reshoed, and then force the people of the town to lay all that they have at their feet. However, because Ziripot has nothing, he gives nothing. The two tyrants will not accept this, however, and beat him to the ground. Being so big, he is unable to lift himself, and when the townpeople try to help him, Zaldiko keeps them away with his whip. Ziripot is stuck laying in the street for all day. Finally, after nightfall, his friends return to help him up. They start to discuss what is to be done, how they can not live under these two anymore. Ziripot tells a story of how a boulder fell in front of a farmers door, and he was unable to move it from inside or outside of house by himself, but finally after asking his neighbors for help, they easily removed it. The people understand, and they gather anything they have, torches, pitchforks, etc. and go after the two tyrants. Zaldiko, being a horse-man, is able to run fast enough to escape, but they catch the giant, condemn him to a public trial, hang him, then set him on fire for good measure.
This legend is also said to have a somewhat symbolic significance for the fight of the moon and sun, which is resolved with the sun winning out, and the longer days of spring and summer returning.
However, I didn´t see any of these traditions. I set of for Hendaye with my friend Scott, around 2, from Donosti on the Eusko Tren, probably one of the best things to come from the PNVs country-building efforts, in which one can take what amounts to something like what would be a Metro ride from DC to Baltimore (if such a system existed) for 1.25€. We arrived a little before 3, and then I realized I was in France(sort of). I had not really understand that Hendaye was in Iparralde (north Basque country) until we arrived there. This meant that I was really much more out of my element than usual. Although I am still lacking quite a huge bit in Castellano, I can generally get around and buy things without too much trouble. When everything is primarily French, and secondarily Euskara, its much more difficult. Sure people speak a bit of Castellano (and English) but it felt much different.
The border between France and Spain is imaginary in this case for two reasons. Not only does it run right through the middle of a nation, but with the Schengen agreement, it functionally really barely does exist. I was able to take a train over it without realizing it.
So we get there and buy sandwhiches from a woman who understands neither Castellano or Euskara (Scott studies Euskara), but is able to ask me in English if I want mayonaise. Then after eating we went on our way to see the Castle on the other side of town, and ended up following some other travel looking kids through a hospital complex in which it was necessary to jump a fence at the end to get to the correct road to the castle, then went on a nature trail that we assumed would get to the castle. It did, sort of, but it really took us to a highway, then we walked back towards town on the highway to the castle. The trail was nice, but was shaped in such a way that if we had just gone the other direction on the highway it would have been about a 5th of the time. The castle cost 6.50€ for admission, and we weren´t convinced it was worth it. But it was pretty on the outside. I was sick this weekend, so that didn´t help the walking, but it was still worth it. By the time we were headed back into town it was about time to find the activities, but also to find more food and water, and maybe our friends that were also there. After a few failed attempts to exit the beach (hopping the fence into private property only escapable by jumping back to the beach) we encountered a supermarket in our attempt to locate our friends, and bought lots of water, some wine, cheese, meat, peppers, and a corkscrew, then set of to find our friends and the festivities. After some confusion about where best to meet, and heading to the river side of town, we ran into people playing music, and saw the effigy of Miel Otxin, but thought that we were supposed to go meet some people at a church that was supposed to be the best place to watch the procession. We also needed to buy bread, which was necessary for all the other things we had bought, but had forgotten. We wandered farther into town, found a panaderia, bought some bread and found out that we had missed the parade, but could still see the burning of Miel Otxin, where we had just been so we went back there. By the time we got there however, all we saw was the smoke that was leftover after he had been burned. Then we realized that that was actually in front of the church we had been looking for. The reason we didn´t find it very easily was because it was shaped more like your typical protestant office building american church, and we were looking for like at least slightly elaborate crosses and stuff. Oh well.
Monday, February 16, 2009
How the Dinosaurs Died Out
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?
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 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.
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