Catching Up

I've been mainly absent from the blog for several weeks, and wanted to try and get back into the swing of posting on a semi-regular basis.

It's certainly not from lack of activity that I haven't posted; rather, it's more the opposite.  Above all it's been my focus on my writing that has caused me to put the blog on the backseat--it may not seem so, but writing some of these posts actually takes up a lot of time, and on days where I am not as productive as I would have liked, I often feel guilty about having spent time blogging earlier.  As for the writing, it's going fairly well: I'm working on my first feature-length screenplay, which is coming along quite nicely and should be finished in first draft form before Christmas.

Other than that, Emily and I have been a bit out and about as of late.  I didn't mention it at all in my blog last month, but we spent a few days in Lisbon, Portugal, which is a really lovely city.  We initially made the plans to go see Arcade Fire perform on a concert there (I'm a big fan of theirs, and love the new album), and decided to turn it into a three-day opportunity to see a new city, since I had heard lovely things about Lisbon.  Unfortunately the concert was canceled due to a NATO meeting being held in the city that weekend, but the city was lovely anyway, and the trip well worth it.  And we just got back last night from spending a week in Vigo with some cousins; Vigo is the biggest city in Galicia (with a population a bit bigger than Buffalo), and though it's still only small-to-medium size in terms of population and area, it feels much more metropolitan to me (possibly because you've got many of Galicia's "best and brightest" living condensed in a small space).  The week was a treat, it was lovely to be with family (as always), but particularly nice to spend some time in a more-bustling area than Raxo (especially during the dreary winter time here), and enjoy the things only a city can offer (namely, sushi).

Not much else is new since I was blogging more frequently.  We have a tiny little Christmas tree, which helps normalize the holiday season, even while the rest feels nothing at all like the holiday season I have come to know (such as being away from primary family, not being inundated with "Black Friday"/holiday shopping insanity, and the weather [ohh, the weather, how I love thee...I could definitely get used to mid-December lunches on the balcony, overlooking the ocean, when it's 70 degrees and sunny]).

Well anyway, I'll try to be more active from now on, including on some details regarding the trips I mentioned, including photos and such, in the future.  Also, if you're a reader, leave a comment some time, it's nice to hear back from everyone.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving definitely has a different vibe in Spain.

First of all, nobody knows what Thanksgiving is.  It's a distinctly "New World" holiday, and once the Protestants fled Europe I think most of the folks over here kind of checked out on their status (this was, after all, some time before Facebook).  Everything is open, its a workday, and people are going about their business with no excitement over 4-day weekends or special meals or anything.

 

 Secondly, there's the weather.  Not that I'm complaining (whatsoever), but it just doesn't feel quite like Thanksgiving when this is the morning view out your window.  It touched upper-60s yesterday, with full sun, and we ate lunch with the balcony door open.  I will take this over New York Thanksgiving weather for the rest of my life, but like I said, totally different vibe.


 Then, there is the food.  I'm not naive enough to believe that Thanksgiving dinner in most households is anything like what the Pilgrims ate hundreds of years ago (whenever you take stuffing out of a box something is amiss), but at its heart the meal that is the center of the holiday remains a celebration of (generally) American indigenous, seasonal, and homemade food.  In that way, it's a little tricky planning the meal when you are living in a different continent, within a country with a different climate and in a part of which where imported and/or out-of-season foods are rare, hard to find, and often very expensive.  Generally, though, I'm very pleased and excited about the meal we are expecting to eat today.

First and most important for Thanksgiving dinner, there is the turkey: turkey is rare in Spain (particularly whole turkeys), but fortunately we were able to specially order one from the local supermarket, which came fresh yesterday--and I mean FRESH.  It still had some stray feathers all around the feet!  The turkeys here (like everything in Spain) are smaller than the ones in the United States (ours was just over 6 kilos, around 13.5 pounds), and a bit more expensive (ours was somewhere around $3.69 per kilo, more or less $1.67 per pound...if memory serves, that's about twice what the standard bird costs back home).  Even at its small size, it still barely fit into our tiny oven.  I'm hoping the cooking conditions are suitable for a bird this size, because I have very high hopes for this turkey: judging by how fresh it appears to be, it's small (read: normal & healthy) size, and it's (for Spain's standards) very high cost, I'm thinking this is a free-range, organic bird that probably bears a lot of similarities to so-called "heritage turkeys" that go for around $150 in the States.  At least, that's what I'm convincing myself.

For sides, we'll be preparing mashed potatoes, broccoli au gratin, homemade chorizo stuffing, and corn.  Cranberry and such are harder to find, but since neither Emily nor I are big fans, we didn't search very hard and decided to leave it off the menu.  For my part, I most miss in-season apple cider.

For desserts we've prepared homemade macaroons with chocolate ganache, and Emily's homemade apple pie a la mode.  

Giving Thanks

It's been a little while since I posted, so I thought Thanksgiving would be a nice occasion to get back on here.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love the simple perfection of (tons of) great food, family, and remembering the things you are thankful for.  Even though this year I am abroad for this most-American of holidays, Emily and I are very happy to still be able to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.


Emily and I are happy to welcome some new family to celebrate Thanksgiving with us: Chelo, Gonzalo, Amelia, Manolo, and Margarita will all be coming to join us.  It will be their first Thanksgiving--they're a little unfamiliar with the idea, but it didn't take much explanation to get them excited for it.  More to come on the dinner, with pictures and all, after it's done.

For my part, I have a lot to be thankful for this year.  For starters, it is another year of health and general well-being for my family; I am tremendously blessed to have this time in Spain with my incredible wife; and absolutely fortunate to have a net of family to care about us here while we are away from the rest.  Lastly, it's still a few days before application deadlines, so no schools have rejected me yet, haha.

I hope you and yours all have a tremendous Thanksgiving today.  Remember to consider the things that you are thankful for--most us are luckier than we ever really stop to realize.

Call It, Cerdo (Part 3)

All the videos from the slaughtering process are now up, all in full HD.  ***Graphic Images***

The Execution of Chirrichin

Hair Removal, Part 1

Hair Removal, Part 2

Washing & Scrubbing

Removing Chirricin's Manhood

Emily "Tiene un poco de miedo"

"Este puede comer un Arabe."

Call It, Cerdo (Part 2)

 Fernando proudly showing off his handiwork (I think this is a gall bladder...but I never went to med school, and cheated on my pig lab in high school)

 The whole cardiopulmonary system...from the tongue all the way down to the lungs.  (Note Gonzalo smiling in the background...he always gets a kick out of Emily and I photographing/filming things.)

 Cleaning out some excess blood

 One of my favorite shots: cleaning out the snout and head...notice the blood dripping through the hole in the skull from the cattle gun.

...and from the mouth.

 Group effort to prepare it for hanging.

 Final product...that's a dead pig.

 Blood dripping from the tail.

 The head wound.

And, finally, Gonzalo disposing of all the viscera/unusable parts into the field.

Call it, Cerdo (Part 1)

I really dislike the food industry in the United States, pretty much from top--the White House decides what gets planted every year on a huge portion of American farmland, and offers subsidies to encourage/discourage the growth of certain crops on the rest of America's land--to the bottom (the way animals are raised, fed, killed, packaged, et cetera).  For this reason Emily and I have for a few years now been very invested in the food we eat: where we get it from, who is producing it (and how), and how we cook it.  We are big advocates of farmers' markets, and were proud member-owners of the Lexington Co-op in Buffalo, and also jumped at the opportunity to get any of Larry's (Emily's father) venison to use in lieu of beef.  Such habits have always made us feel healthier and closer to the food we eat; also, it happens to taste a whole lot better.

One of the things I really love about the lifestyle in Spain is that people as a whole have a much more intimate relationship with the food they eat.  Emily has written about this more extensively on her blog, but suffice it to say it's something we are both very enthusiastic about.  Today we witnessed the slaughtering of Chelo & Gonzalo's pig (cerdo), Chirrichin.  I've never watched an animal get butchered in person before, so I relished the opportunity to have a more intimate experience with the food that I will be eating.  I'll post several pictures and links to videos below...***WARNING - Many of these images are graphic***  If you are squeamish and/or offended by images of conventional, humane animal butchery, you should probably turn away (I would recommend checking out Disney's website, perhaps, or else here is a link to the classic meat industry propaganda film from The Simpsons--the joke from The Simpsons really kills me, because it exposes the hypocrisy of people who love to eat meat, but who are upset by the reality of how it all arrives so neatly packaged at the supermarket, opting instead to pretend it's something other than dead animal flesh [I'm looking at you, Mom]).

Chelo and Gonzalo used to slaughter the pig themselves, but it was recently made illegal to slaughter and bleed it with a knife, so they pay a friend with a cattle gun 40 Euro (about $55) to come and kill and dress it (remove the innards).  They also had a few neighbors come by and help, whose children were towed along for good measure; the group atmosphere really added a kind of charmed sentiment to it in my eyes, taking the grotesquerie out of it and really normalizing the idea that, hey, I'm going to eat this food so I ought to have a hand in it's life & death.

It's a pretty simple process: first, the cattle gun shoots a small bullet (not a piston-action bolt as in "No Country For Old Men") into the pig's brain, then, while the pig is stunned and seizing, the slaughterer slits the carotid artery to bleed it out; then the hair is removed, it is dressed, and hung until tomorrow, at which point it is properly butchered (I forgot to ask why they hang it for a day, but I will be sure to ask when I return tomorrow for the butchering).

 Fernando, the slaughterer, suiting up for the job.

 Gonzalo happily showing off the cattle gun (hence the inevitable "No Country For Old Men" references...sorry, couldn't help myself)

 Immediately post death

Using a makeshift flamethrower to singe all the hair off the pig's body.  I had never seen or heard of this step, but it's quite a sensory overload: loud, hot, bright, and produces an interesting burnt hair/skin smell.

 Group spectator shot.  Emily is not sure how she feels about the flamethrower...

 Then the pig is placed on the table, washed, and scrubbed clean of burns/charring.

 Initial incision.

Kill the Pig

Chirrichin, Gonzalo and Chelo's pig, is going down today..."No Country For Old Men" style.

I'm off to watch it.  Report later.

Super lluvia

It was an incredibly rainy weekend here, which was fun to watch from the comfort of our balcony with a tall glass of wine.  Here are some photos:

I like the way the water forms tiny streams in the sand here.

"In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country."

The quote that serves as the title to this post is from Federico Garcia Lorca, the famous Spanish poet & playwright who was assassinated by agents of Francisco Franco in the first half of the 20th century.  It is a quote I reflect on often, one that in my experience is true, one which seems to have shaped a large aspect of how I view life and death.  Or I could have just as well named this post in honor of an equally appropriate quote, a favorite of my brother, by Antonin Artaud: "Those who live, live off the dead."  (Those who were at my wedding may remember Jamerson fit that very beautifully into his best man speech; also, if we are friends on Facebook, you can check the "Notes" section of my profile to see a textual version of Jamerson's speech [which still makes me cry whenever I read it].)

Both quotes were on my mind these last few days, as Emily and I observed one of the most important holidays in Spain..  Today (technically) ends the celebration of El Dia de los Muertos here in Spain, a very important, sacred holiday that coincides with All Saints Day.  The holiday serves, as I mentioned in the last post, as a formal way for families to gather and mourn their deceased loved ones, paying both emotional grief, but also physical gesture (in the way of the cleaning, maintaining, and adornment of resting places) to their family both old and recent.

I don't have a lot more to add to the reflections I posted Saturday, other than to say I was left with a warm feeling by the touching, solemn observance, which I think, ultimately, is a beautiful way (if not the only, or necessarily, best way) to mourn the dead.  The mass was ultimately very anticlimactic, both difficult to hear (the microphone did not work, so the priest simply spoke in a low voice that hardly reached us in the back) and understand (he spoke mainly in Galego, which I don't understand as well as Spanish).  What I did understand was, to me, a bit trite, and did not speak to me personally (he spoke about how this life is short, this world in small, and that on this day we should remember Christ's death, as he died so that we can be reunited with our loved ones in heaven).

It was a cold, rainy few days, which seemed fitting for the mood.  Here are a few last pictures, taken by Emily, that show some of the turnout at the cemetery and awaiting mass.

The couple facing the camera are the Castros, close family friends of my grandparents.

 Waiting for mass to begin.

 With family

Once again, my grandfather's grave.

And here is a link to a video  of the candle being lit.

All Hallow's Eve

Happy Halloween to all my friends back in the United States.  Based on Facebook photos, it looks like you all had a good time.

Noel: El Fantasma de Miedo

In Spain, Halloween is not a cultural tradition, and thus there is very little semblance of the celebration here.  (Due to the influx of American media, there is an awareness of it, but the only ones who seem interested at all are very young children.  In our family, the youngest ones [Noel, 8, and Mario, 4]) had a friend over, and their Halloween fix was satiated after about 10 minutes of running around in makeshift ghost costumes [literally pillow cases with eye-holes cut out] and "trick or treat"ing [trico-truco!] for whatever candy was around the house.  It was very cute.)  Instead, what Spain does celebrate is what might be known as All Hallow's Eve, or, the day before El Dia de Los Santos (All Saints' Day).

El Dia de Los Santos is a very special and important holiday here (everything, pretty much, will be closed), particularly since in Spain it coincides with El Dia de Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), usually thought of as a Mexican holiday but also observed here.  For those unfamiliar, El Dia de Los Muertos is far less grisly than it sounds; the "celebration" is, essentially, a solemn and bittersweet day for family to visit the graves of their relatives and loved ones, which are traditionally cleaned and especially-ordained with tremendous bouquets of flowers, candles, and whatever else might be deemed appropriate.  My grandfather, who emigrated his family to the United States and spent the last half of his life there (serving in many ways as a second father to me), is interred here in Raxó, and so Emily and I spent our Halloween 2010 observing, instead, All Hallow's Eve.  (Some of the cleaning/grave-decoration happens today, so that when the graves are visited tomorrow they already look sufficiently kempt.)  It was at once the least "scary" or "frightening" Halloween in memory, and yet, paradoxically, the most macabre.

Here are some photos of Chelo and her daughter Marichelo cleaning the mausoleum of my grandfather's family (interred there as well, most immediately, are his brother and nephew [Chelo's father and brother, respectively]).  Chelo took this job very seriously; after everyone else had done seemingly enough, Chelo, wiping down the entire mausoleum, made sure to stand on a rag while she finished tidying up, sure not to track in footprints of any kind on this rainy day.  Marichelo joked: "There may be some prettier graves, some better decorated, but none are cleaner."  Tomorrow is the major part of the holiday: a big family dinner; important church service; another trip to the cemetery.  I'll be sure to blog about that, after its done.

This oil & water mixture will burn for a particularly long time.

My grandfather's newly improved grave, cleaned & decorated.

Pauper's grave, with flowers

I'm not quite sure yet how I feel about El Dia de Los Muertos.  On the surface, it's difficult to be anything but enthusiastic about it; here is a holiday that reminds people to honor and cherish their dearly departed, brings together families to remember and celebrate their loved ones, and closes down work and businesses as a reminder to slow down and focus on the things that are most important in life.  Furthermore, I personally am particularly attracted to the holiday's inherent acknowledgment of, and focus on, death and the nature of dying; I can think of no American holiday that does this, and moreover I think it's something, amazingly, that most Americans seldom (if ever) think about.  And that, I think, is a shame: I think of my death frequently, and though it may sound morbid or perverse, I actually think it's the opposite--thinking of and acknowledging my inevitable death allows me to remain grateful for my health and the time that I do have, refocus my energies on living & accomplishing my goals in life, and takes the terror and mystery out of dying (as much as possible, anyway).  I think Americans' reluctance to go there psychologically and emotionally is a large contributor to some of the characteristics (selfishness, vanity, materialism) I would categorize most unfavorably about the American soul.  At one point tonight Marichelo guided me to something in the back of the cemetery that I had never before noticed: it was an unmarked plot, which generations ago (nobody apparently knows when) served as a pauper's grave.  Marichelo had an extra vase to place there--filled with the same fresh, beautiful flowers that she had graced at her family's graves--for the soul(s) of whomever might rest there.  It was a deeply moving gesture, made even more so when I noticed how many other people had felt the same impulse.

At the same time, as someone who has had a unique history of loss and grief, I am dubious of a custom that contrives to have everyone grieve in the same way, as El Dia de Los Muertos does intrinsically.  Grief is a complicated and deeply personal experience: I, for one, suppose a lot of people might find it shameful that, in the almost 14 years since he died, I have only been to my father's grave twice; while that physical space has very little significance to me (I felt nothing either time I went), I think of my father constantly and have my own ways to honor him and make sure his memory never dies.  I have found it, and find it still, preferable to grieve in that specific manner, and in the same vein I don't intend to have a conventional funeral or "resting place" when I die (personally, I've always found the conventional Western approach to death appalling).  Ultimately, I wonder if the public spectacle of El Dia de Los Muertos doesn't have a negative effect on some people--people like me, at least--who might rather emote privately.

Lost in translation?

Window dressing in a popular fashion store in Pontevedra.  Your guess is as good as mine.

Spain Loves "The Wire" Too...

People who have watched (and without fail, loved) "The Wire" form, at least in the social circles I'm part of, something of a geek-cult in which discussions of favorite characters, seasons, and moments/quotes are the norm.  It was truly a great show, a piece of American culture that captured a place and time, and highlighted many of the most perpetuated social problems in the country.

How on Earth, you might wonder, does something like that get translated and dubbed into Spanish?  I don't know either, but apparently it's quite popular here (judging, at least, by this book of essays we found in the library).

 

Moral of the story?  Apparently great art translates, period.  That, and: "Omar no asusta."

The Immigrant Experience, 2.0

I've written earlier in this blog about how, due to sociopolitical and economic causes, many Gallegos were forced to move out of Galicia in (primarily) the second-half of the 20th century.  Many of these men (and women) moved for a few (or sometimes many) years, returning when they had earned enough money and/or the situation in Spain had improved, and many of them (like my grandparents, mom, and aunt) emigrated permanently, never to return to their native country.  (Before moving to the United States, my family lived for many years in Buenos Aires; in fact, so common was it for Gallegos to immigrate to Buenos Aires in particular that there was a time when, in Buenos Aires and Argentina, "Gallego" was a synonym for "Spaniard.")  While Spaniards saw a number of their brothers and neighbors emigrate this past century, they have only recently begun to see a large migration of immigrants into their country--another way in which Spain and the United States differ greatly.  In the classic pluralism metaphor, Spain is definitely a "salad bowl."

Because of my personal family history, I've always been very interested in the concept of, and political debates surrounding, immigration and multiculturalism.  While I have had a lot to get worked up about lately regarding American discourse on the matter, I'm afraid that the situation is not much better (and perhaps worse) in Spain.  I've been particularly interested in these issues in Spain since reading this NYTimes article from 2008, about the struggle Spain's burgeoning population of Muslims have had in building mosques in their new country.  Spain has also gained a lot of other negative publicity in recent years for the loud, boisterous demonstrations of racist soccer fans at major games and arenas across the country.  Clearly, this is a country that is struggling very disgracefully with its rapid rates of immigrations and multiculturalism (not unlike, perhaps, the United States throughout its major waves of immigrations, though this time in a modern, globalized society where such things could never be publicly condoned; this article, too, highlights how the terrible economic times have meshed with racism here to create pressure on workers who live in Spain legally [either legal immigrants and/or European Union residents], which reminded me a bit of the sentiment that likely led to American prosecution of Sacco & Vanzetti and Bruno Hauptmann in the 1920s and 30s).

Ironically enough, for the first time in her life, Emily herself (and in certain ways, despite full citizenship, I as well) is an immigrant here, and as her husband I have become intimately aware of the immigrant experience in a way I never have before.  Sitting with Emily several times in the extranjero (foreigner) section of the national police department (where immigrants register in Spain), we were sufficiently "other-ed," acutely aware of the glares and whispers of the Spaniards at the other side of the small room, where I had waited just days earlier for my DNI card.  Emily in particular, clutching her American passport and envelope of important documents, told me how strange and objectifying it felt, for a white American, to feel so outside the norm.

On a few separate occasions here, some family members have expressed opinions--generally in the form of cringe-inducing generalizations--that show a mode of thinking which, if not racist, per se, is certainly shaped by a history without exposure to, or assimilation with, people of other nations, races, or creeds.  Even when Emily and I walk around in public speaking to each other in English, I feel that we are the subjects of several stares (some of them glares), and the more emboldened strangers will often take it upon themselves to ask where we are from (or, occasionally [and more pointedly] "What are you?" followed the inevitably incorrect guess [generally, oddly enough, Italian, German, or English]).  In the interest of privacy and decorum, I won't say exactly which family member said what, but suffice it to say it was nothing terribly scandalous, merely, rather the kind of feeling you might get when you hear someone's 80-year-old grandparent refer to "negroes" or "colored" people.  My hope is that, in the immediate future, Spain's economy can rebound to the point where current immigrants can earn tolerance, acceptance, and ultimately assimilation, both for their own benefit but also for the betterment of the nation; in kind, Spain will learn what a wondrous and beautiful thing it is to live in a diverse nation.

As for the voice of actual immigrants here, we met a Bangladeshi family a few weeks ago and were able to get their opinions on the matter.  Emily and I decided we needed a change of palate one day (as rich and nutritious as the food is here, it could benefit from a bit of flavor diversity), and grabbed lunch at a falafel/halal restaurant in Pontevedra.  The owner asked us where we were from, and we began to chat for a while.  He spoke a little bit of Spanish and even less English, and though his accent could make his Spanish almost impossible to understand, we were able to carry a conversation for about a half hour, in which we spoke mainly about what it was like to move here.  He has been living in Pontevedra with his wife for 12 years, and absolutely loves it.  He had moved from Madrid, which, in spite of a social net of other Bangladeshis, he hated; Galicia, he said, was a lovely place, very peaceful, and he was happy to live and stay there (he even convinced his brother to move to O Grove, where Emily was taking language classes [though he insisted people from O Grove were ignorant and old-fashioned, as opposed to the modern people of Pontevedra]).  His daughter was born in Pontevedra, is now 10, speaks fluent Spanish and is happy and assimilated, with friends.  He told us his wife had learned Spanish almost fluently, all for free through the Spanish Red Cross and other non-profit organizations, and for the first time in her life felt safe and comfortable walking the streets alone at night.  He told us that he had invested a lot of money and energy into a failed Indian restaurant (we laughed about how Spaniards cannot handle spicy foods), but that his current, smaller restaurant was doing good, steady business.  I asked if he was Muslim, which he confirmed he was; he told me there was a mosque very nearby, about 15 minutes, which was well-attended and always respected/left in peace by Spaniards.  I asked him if ever felt the subject of racism or religious intolerance, but he insisted he did not, neither as a dark-brown-skinned man nor as a Muslim.  "The only thing I get," he said, smiling, "is 'Hey Apu,' you know, like from The Simpsons."  We laughed.  I was glad to hear that, from the horse's mouth, things maybe were not as bad as I had feared after all.

Rainy Beach, With Dogs

Today was a nasty, rainy day.  Obviously, nobody showed up at the beach, except...two dogs?

From the window I noticed a black dog and a white dog, with no owner in sight, playing and running with each other on the beach, amidst the rain, and snapped a few pictures.

 One dog goes one way, one dog goes the other way, and the photographer is thinking, "Hey, whaddaya want from me?"