Culture and Customs

Nativity Scene Live from Navata!

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Navata, a town near Figueres, has a Living Nativity Scene tonight

I totally misunderstood the publicity and so we arrived at 7.30 and were almost the only people passing through and had to hurry along as the living statues were getting tired and chilly and wanted a break. I still don’t understand what was the correct time to arrive but in the end gave up trying to get to the bottom of it. Sometimes these problems with TIME happen here and you just have to shrug and walk away.
It was a bit surreal walking through the narrow streets, peering into rooms and trying not to catch the eyes of the statues who were obviously trying to pretend they existed in another dimension. It felt a bit rude to just stare or take a photo but when we tried smiling and saying hello, they would ignore us.
It’s a really pretty village and there were lots of scenes, very interesting in a surreal sort of way.
The sheep were great but there was no donkey in the stable.

Here is our walk through the live but not very lively nativity scenes of Navata.

It was amazing and interesting – but also slightly weird.
There was a Caganer of course but guess what?

He wasn’t a real person!

What a disappointment!

Call Jesus for Help!

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

I saw this van in Port de la Selva – I’d like my builder to be called Jesus!

Happy Christmas everyone!  I hope you have a day full of smiles and laughter and good memories as well as the inevitable sad ones that arise at this time of year. I am happy to be at Sant Nicolau, sharing Christmas for the first time with my little family – Pep and the Resident Adolescent and Bonnie!

Bon Nadal!  And a constructive and reformed New Year to you all!

Bon Nadal

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

Phew!  A marathon of card making and writing and posting is almost over.

I send fewer since leaving the UK.  People here don’t have this custom and as time passes I don’t get so many from ‘home’.

I enjoy the process and it always feels like a special day remembering friends and family while writing messages.  But it is also a moment for thinking about those who have gone – some because they have actually left the planet or others who have just slipped out of my orbit.

I’m getting much better at letting go of those people who never reciprocate.  I used to send cards to all my old friends, hoping to keep contact even when they were obviously trying to shake me off.  But I am pleased to find I now am much more philosophical – and I can even send them love as I scratch out their names from the list!

And I have finally stopped trying to write little personal notes inside each card. It was all – too much!
Today I sent around 30 cards – there was a time it could be as many as 150!  I expect to receive about 15 if I am lucky.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be any different even if I was still in Cornwall?  Times change.

I went to the Correo at 8pm and found it empty!

Swanned in, got served straight away and  it was all done in 5 minutes.

It cost 33euros to send three parcels and those 30 cards. That seems reasonable to me and I like thinking of how nice it is to get a real envelope popping through the letterbox – sending pleasure!

On the way back through town there was a bell tolling and I looked up to see a little chapel that I’d never noticed  before.

It is squashed in between two houses.

Santa Esperança is a tiny chapel  which was moved from the old medieval walls and re-erected here in the shopping centre

As we get closer to this exciting and powerful solstice I wish everyone lots of hope and send my best wishes for a Happy Christmas and a very wonderful New Year.

 

Small things

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

Sometimes little things make a huge difference.
I was complaining to someone about how people walk along the pavement in Granollers, seeming to come straight at me, never giving way, forcing me to avoid them. My friend suggested I walk on the right-hand side of the pavement instead of the left and of course since then I have had no problems!  People walk like they drive!

And when my Catalan teacher gave us a lesson on how to pronounce the letter ‘o’.
There are two ways, depending on whether the ‘o’ is in the stressed syllable or not.
If it is stressed then it sounds more like a familiar ‘o’ but if it is not, it sounds like the ‘oo’ in ‘food’.

This has totally transformed how I speak. It is so easy to understand and she didn’t confuse us with explanations of open and closed vowels.  Suddenly it all fell into place.
I now realise how many words I was making a mess of.
Montseny – our local mountain –  ‘oo’.  The accent on the second syllable
Moltes gràcies –  ‘o’ as in ‘lot’. The accent is on the first syllable
Montserrat – the womans name or the mountain – ‘oo’ because there is no stress on it.  But the diminutive Montse is stressed on the first syllable and sounds like ‘o’ in ‘lot’.
Josep – how can I have been getting that one wrong for so long?  It is not ‘Joesep’ but ‘Joosep’
Comprar – Accent on the last syllable so the ‘o’ is ‘oo’

I walked through the park with Bonnie one day practising all the words I could think of.
I even decided that when I next tell someone my name – Wilson – I should pronounce the unaccented ‘o’ as ‘oo’. Perhaps I can then avoid having to say it over and over and over again.

Family Life

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

A little change of subject.
One of the hardest things about The Catalan Way for me – in fact THE hardest thing – is having to cope with life in the same house as an adolescent who isn’t my own one. I am trying to act as though he is but of course the reality is different. We don’t have the shared history that would make me feel secure in myself. I am the intruder.

Right now, in the kitchen, he and two friends eating toasted sandwiches and drinking milk/juice.
Harmless of course – and nothing bad is happening. None of them are rude or bad mannered.
But I feel awkward and ill at ease. I go in there and the room goes silent. I come out and they start talking and laughing. Am I sure they aren’t laughing at me?  They close the door so I know I am not welcome

I know I know. Everyone finds this age quite difficult to deal with.
 But when it is in another language, in a house that is more his than mine, in a family that I only joined three years ago, it makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable.  I am always walking a thin line anyway, trying my best to feel a part of this world but this situation, and of course this is not the first time, always makes me feel sick with nerves. I do not feel confident and who better to reveal this in its nakedness than a group of 17 year olds.

I tried to chat – but what language do I use?  Do I fumble around in Castellano or Catalan?  Do I just speak English and know that they don’t really understand me or they feel I am ‘that weird British woman’?   Do I ignore them and make my tea in silence while they wait for me to go? 

I feel my body tighten up. I struggle anyway to communicate but this situation really puts me to the test and, as so often, today I fail.