Culture and Customs

Breast feeding

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

We saw this sign on the coast path near St Feliu de Guixols on the Costa Brava.
There was a tunnel with various viewpoints looking out at the bays

The Mirador is named for wet nurses – Dides in Catalan

A Dida was a woman who breast-fed someone else’s child. Perhaps because the mother was ill or incapable of feeding her baby.  Many women died in childbirth so the Dida was also needed to help those babies survive. Or perhaps the mother was from a social class that could afford to pay someone to take over a task which she didn’t want to do. In the days before reliable contraception it would have freed some women from an unending cycle of reproduction and feeding.
For centuries wet nursing was common all over the world and only went into decline with the advent of artificial baby milk.
Here in Catalunya some wealthy people had a Dida who lived in the house for years, feeding the babies as they arrived.  I hadn’t really thought about wet nursing before but although nowadays it seems strange or even distasteful, I can see how practical it was and perhaps a better idea than feeding babies something created in a factory. Apparently you don’t have to keep having your own babies to produce milk – if you keep feeding, the milk can be produced for years. I suppose this also protected some of the women who worked in this way from unwanted pregnancies.
I wonder why this bay was so named?

Cinema V.O.

~ Kate Wilson ~ 8 Comments

I don’t know what I’d do without the Cineclub in Granollers.
At the top of the new programme you can see it says Cinema V.O.

 That is the magic code for Original Version (the other way round in Catalan) and means the film will not be dubbed.
Dubbing is something I’ve had to come to terms with here. It can be quite cleverly done with the lips seeming ….almost…. to move at the same time as you hear the words spoken. It can also be completely askew and you have to enter a special part of your brain which can ignore weird behaviour such as someone mouthing silent words, or continuing to speak with their mouthes shut, while taking seriously the content of the actual speech.
Also there seem to be no more than a couple of women who perform the dubbed parts in Catalan and one of them in particular has a very strange dramatic slightly creepy way of talking.
Watching a film that is clearly set in Scotland, or Australia, or, as a few nights ago in St Trinians school for Girls, with people speaking Catalan while their mouths move independently is interesting but not always relaxing.

On the television is one thing and in the cinema is another. There are cinemas that specialise in V.O. like the Alexandra in Ramble de Catalunya in Barcelona.  Or the Verdi in Cardedeu which is a small cinema in a lovely town about 10 minutes drive from here. But Granollers although it is the capital city of the Valles Oriental with a large and prosperous (take a look at the shopping street) population has only a cinema complex with films either dubbed or in Castellano. I think there is one day every month or so when they show a film in V.O. but have never been able to find out when it is.

So, big thanks to the people who run the cine club, which shows films every Friday and Sunday.
Obviously sometimes I am watching a film with Spanish subtitles, or a Catalan film with no subtitles at all but still I prefer this to dubbed versions. It’s usually pretty busy and when the film ends sometimes I come back to consciousness and think I am in the film club in Penzance.  There is a similar feeling of like-minded people streaming out onto the street and discussing the film.

Of course as English is my first language I have been sheltered from the dubbing experience. So many films are in English that historically there was no need to provide another language. Those of us who want to see films from different parts of the world were happy to both read and listen although I am sure there are still many people in the UK and USA who wouldn’t watch a film with subtitles.
But here it was a different story. The dominance of English speaking films has created an industry of dubbing to allow the majority of people to watch British and American films and TV programmes.
And then there is the question of Catalan language films, with or without dubbing into Castellano. And should films in castellano have subtitles in Catalan?


All very interesting and I will write more another day.

ONCE

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been fascinated for a long time by those little kiosks that look like Dr Who’s Tardis and that are all around Spain with the word ONCE written on top.
ONCE (Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles ) is a large organisation which started in 1938 selling lottery tickets to raise money to provide services for blind people.  The people who work in the Kiosks are also usually blind or partially sighted.  The tickets are called Cupóns and are drawn daily for tax-free money prizes

There is one in our plaça Verdaguer and I pass it several times a day as I take the dogs to and fro. The woman who works there can’t get too bored as she always has visitors outside, chatting to her and smoking and watching the world go by.  She goes across the road to Manu cafe for lunch and sits with several friends talking and laughing at the top of her voice.  When it was very cold here I worried she would be freezing but was told they have heating and everything. 
Sometimes in the middle of the night I’ve caught the little van that comes round with two men who wash and polish the whole thing inside and out.


Sometimes you see people selling the tickets without the shelter of the little kiosk.
I’m working up the courage one day to go and buy a ticket. Why do these things seem so daunting?


The Burial of the Sardine

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

I noticed on our calendar that today was marked as the Enterrament de la Sardina.
This means the Burial of the Sardine.
It is the festival that marks the end of Carnaval and the beginning of Lent.
I forgot all about it until I passed through the Porxada today on my way home from the dentist.
View from the dentists surgery

Worth a visit just for this!
There was a band playing

and lots of people milling around.
A table with black net and fabric for making funeral hats

A large coffin with a giant figure inside

“He’s sleeping” one little boy said.
“No, he’s dead” said his mother matter of factly.
“But he’ll come back to life next year for Carnaval”
I think people were signing a book of condolence.

Here’s a site with an explanation of it all.
There is also a famous painting by Goya of El Entierro de la Sardina
This is a ceremony which I am sure would work well in Penzance – what about starting to celebrate Carnaval in Cornwall?

Waiting

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

I was waiting at Plaça Universitat last week and noticed all the other waiters.
How many of them were British I wondered?

When I first arrived in Spain I spent a lot of time waiting for friends. I would arrive 5 minutes early and still be there, standing alone, or sitting drinking my second coffee anything up to half an hour later. Sometimes even more but usually then there would be a text explaining that my friend was delayed.
It is a cliche but I think there is truth in it – people here are more relaxed about time.
But not everyone.
I also have Catalan friends who arrive on time and sometimes they have to wait for me.
The trick is to know which ones are which because usually it is the same people who make you wait, and the same ones who are there waiting.

I don’t have a pattern so sometimes I am my usual punctual self, and at others I decide to relax and I don’t leave home in time to get somewhere at the agreed hour. It’s a bit random and sometimes I get there on time for the latecomers – as I did last week in Barcelona – or I arrive late for those who are punctual.


I need to get more organised and just be late for the latecomers. But will they then surprise me by arriving on time?  Or will they somehow know and arrive even later?

I live with someone who makes people wait so unfortunately I have got into the bad habit of not getting ready to leave in time. If I try to leave the house punctually with him then I am doomed to at least half an hour of frustration –  waiting , waiting, waiting for him to be ready.