Entroido por fin!!!

Well, I seem to have fallen behind again. I promised photos of Entroido in Ourense over a month ago, and never posted them. FINALLY, at long last, here are a few.

As I mentioned before, Carnival in Galicia is especially well-known in Spain. Of all the places where Entroido is celebrated, the region of Ourense is, according to everyone I've met here, one of the most unique, and traditionally unruly places to celebrate before Lent. Three small villages (and yes, I mean TINY villages) in particular, Verín, Laza, and Xinzo de Limia are the most widely known for the outrageous celebrations they have there. Each town maintains a unique tradition, with their own forms of street performance, traditional foods, and general debauchery.

We started in Xinzo, where the narrow stone streets were full of people in elaborate costumes, most of which looked like they had been out and about for at least three days. They never stop celebrating here. What's unique about Xinzo are the Pantallas. They are more or less jesters that run through the town, dressed in traditional outfits, with goat bells around their hips to make noise, yielding inflated, hardened pig bladders and banging them together to animate the crowd. The general mayhem cannot be explained in its entirety, nor can I describe the odd, unsettled feeling that the masked Pantallas banging pigs bladders together left me with, but I hope the photos below and the little video will help give you an idea.





And these were some of our favorites non-traditional costumes:

This mime troupe was incredible. They played music, and would stop, hold the pose, and freeze entirely before continuing on through the crowd. Brilliant.


This is the cocido we had at a hole-in the wall place. Traditional in Ourense on Carnival. Came with garbanzos and cooked cabbage. MMMM. Oh, and the piece of meat with the bone in the middle is in fact pork tail. We asked. That one was a little much.



We stayed in Verín for the night, where the local festivity was a giant flour fight in the town's central plaza. Absolutely wonderful. Kaydin and I missed the brunt of it, but arrived in time for some good flour-throwing and music. Unfortunately, the only photo I have of the experience is of the aftermath of the evening (the face paint was there beforehand, don't worry):


Next day, we headed to Laza, the infamous town of the Peluqueiros. The Peluqueiros are basically the jokers and tricksters that run through the town riling up people similar to the Pantallas, but they're known to throw horse poop, flour and ants -- yes, LIVE red ants at the spectators. We were warned to wear protective clothing and always keep an eye out. They also apparently wield giant Spanish broom branches, full of thorns, and will smack people with them if they don't look out. So yes, needless to say, I was extremely excited, and my companions were a bit leery.

We arrived at lunch time, and the town's small parade, complete with donkeys and carts, was pulling into the local bar so the participants could enjoy some wine and pulpo before heading back out. We then followed them into town, where Ali was immediately smacked in the face with a dirty rag slung at her by a welcoming local. She was too clean apparently.

Me, Ali, and Rachel:


Parade:

Burros!

Pulpo!

Central Plaza: full of all sorts of slingings of various things. No ants though.....How fun!


After this, Kaydin and I headed south toward Madrid to catch a plane to Carnival in the Canary Islands. Just for the contrast I suppose. Next post will be all about that. :-) Signing off for now.

Carnival!!! From Galicia to the Canaries.

This month has been incredible. The first week of March was Carnival, the weeks-long celebration that precedes the month of Lent, and I was fortunate enough to have a full ten days off to travel. We were given Monday, March 6th through Wednesday March 8th off. So, since I don't work Thursdays or Fridays, Kaydin and I took off for the entire week. Since we're travel crazy, we spent the first half of the week in Galicia, and the second half in the Canary Islands.




First Post: The first few days in Galicia:

So, since the infrastructure in this region isn't amazing, we decided to rent a car so we could get to the smaller towns, and natural sights we were looking forward to.

Saturday, we headed north from Ferrol to visit San Andrés de Teixido. It's a beautiful little village, surrounded by legend and folklore. The church there was built in the twelfth century. There's a saying that goes, "San Andrés de Teixido, o vas de vivo o vas de muerto." (you go during life, or you go in death) According to legend, everyone must visit the place at some point in their life. If they don't go when they are alive, they go in the afterlife. Here's a little blurb from Wikipedia:

"On the northern coast of Galicia is the village of San Andrés de Teixido, where there is a little hermitage consecrated to Saint Andrew, which keeps, according to the legend, his bones. Because his shrine was less popular than Saint James's, the saint was very sad. Jesus comforted him and said: "Do not worry, Andrés, for those who do not visit you in life will surely visit you in death"^[1]. And it is still said in Galicia "Anyone who does not visit San Andrés de Teixido when he is alive must visit after he is dead"^[2]. It is thought that the people who did not visit the sanctuary in life will have to do it after life, taking the form of serpents and lizards: because of this, the pilgrims who travel to the hermit take care of not to step on those animals. San Andrés de Teixido is located near Cape Ortegal, which according Tacitus^{[citation needed]} was the place where "heavens, seas and earth end": it was the End of the World^[3].

Some Spanish authors, like Constantino Cabal, have supposed that the Pagan inhabitants of Northwestern Spain believed that this was the starting place of the souls of the dead on their trip to the Other World. In this manner, traditions of Astorga tell us of a Rock of the Souls (identified with San Andrés de Teixido) situated on the Sea of the Dead, that is, the Ocean which surrounds the Northern Coast of Galicia. These traditions still testify the ancient Celtic beliefs in an "Other World" located beyond the Sea."

It really is a magical place, nestled below some of the tallest cliffs in Continental Europe. (Cliffs is a loose term here, they aren't as I would envision cliffs, with one large vertical precipice, but are incredible nonetheless.) We spent Saturday there, and had a picnic.


The view of San Andrés from above:


Free-ranging cows:


And a wild pony!!!


And this is the full size of the town, plus a few houses in the country:



The Cliffs from the town:

Baby goat!


I sort of got duped into buying these bland cookie things from a woman in town. I told her I wanted two of each, and she gave me twenty. Oh well. I'm a sucker.


On our way to the town, we stopped by a small church on the side of the road, near a village called Cedeira. Since it was Carnival, naturally we had to wear costumes:



Beautiful old stone cross. Galicia is full of them.


...And this is Cedeira, where we stopped on the way back, just in time to catch the town's parade.


Sad little candy in the parade:





Precious, I know. (Sorry Mom)

Bridge by Cedeira:


Ok, so that covers the first day of the break... There are much more Entroido and Carnival festivities to come, but I'll sign off for now!

Entroido at San Xoán

Hello Blogger community!
Yet again, I am terribly behind, and rather than post three weeks worth of photos, I'm going to jump ahead, and put up some pictures that I took this afternoon. When I get back from my travels this week, I'll try to fill in the gaps.

This week in Spain is Carnival, or Entroido, as it's called in Gallego. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival (for the record, I know that Wiki isn't the best source of information, but it provides a relatively decent background...and it's in English) here's another quick link with a little simple history: http://www.globaldreamers.org/share/carnival06/index.html

In Galicia, Carnival is known as Entroido, and the tradition is quite distinct. This week, Kaydin and I will be taking a car to the province of Ourense, in the south of Galicia, bordering Portugal, to take part in the festivities there. Behind the Canary islands (which we are going to on Thursday.... YAY!) and Cadiz, Carnival in Ourense is one of the most famous in Spain. I'll write more about it when I have photos and experiences to accompany the description, but I look forward to it. We're going to Laza, Verín, and Xinxo de Limia, the "triangle" of villages with the best celebrations, that are supposedly the most traditional.

ANYWAY, we had a mini Entroido celebration at the school today, and I thought I would share. This whole week, the kids have been bringing in pieces of costumes and today was the big day, full of face paints, traditional food, karaoke (or Galeoke as they called it in jest), and the burning of the character of Entroido in effigy. I didn't quite get the full story on this one, but I took pictures. I had a video also, but something went wrong with the import. So, you'll have to use your imagination to envision this guy burning to the ground, plastic mask melting, and bits of ash flying away in the wind. :-)


Here are some pictures of the mini party we set up on the patio:




Me and one of my older students, Consuelo: :-)

One of the sixth-year classes:


Susanna and I:


Yep! These are my colleagues! I got so lucky with this school!


The kids brought in typical foods to share. The traditional desserts here are orejas, filloas, and rosquillas. Orejas are fried flatbreads with sugar, filloas are basically light crepes with a little anis, and rosquillas are fried dough rings. All super delicious and healthy. There's also a desert that's similar to french toast, with baguette bread soaked in milk and fried in egg, with sugar and cinnamon, but I can't remember the name!!

And the mini burning man:



...Ashes to ashes....
Well, that's all for now, I'll add more when we get back from Ourense and the Canaries!!

Felices!
Laura