A Catalan Christmas

There are several interesting Catalan Christmas traditions both sacred and profane. First, foremost, and most profane is the caganer – a small peasant figure typically dressed in black pants, a white shirt, and a Catalan peasant cap (a barretina) who appears in most nativity scenes, at least those not in churches – who is squatting and shitting while smoking his pipe or, in a more modern version, a cigarette. Caganer means shitter. There seems to be no documented origin to the caganer, except to say that he has been around longer than anyone can remember. Robert Hughes talks about him in his excellent book about Catalonia, Barcelona, and Joan Miro painted a little squatting figure into his famous 1922 work, The Farm. The caganer represents a natural activity and brings the whole miraculous concept of the nativity down to earth. Nowadays the caganer need not be a traditional peasant. Figures can be found (at Christmas fairs and year round on the internet) representing famous people such as the president of Catalonia or other political figures (loved and unloved), many of the soccer heroes, nuns, priests, the Pope...

Then there is the Tió de Nadal, a Catalan mythological character who also appears in Mallorca, Occitania, Andorra, Valencia, and Aragon. The name means Christmas Log and is related to the German Christmas tree and the British Yule log. But Wikipedia notwithstanding, I have never heard it called a Tió de Nadal; I’ve only ever heard it called the Caga Tió, caga, as in Caganer. Once just an unadorned log, now it has legs, a face, and the same little peasant cap (the barretina) as the caganer. It is a hollowed out log that is stuffed with small presents. On Christmas Eve, after having taken care of it – fed it and kept it warm with a blanket for several days – the children beat it with a stick while singing a song, imploring it to poop the presents it is holding within. These are small presents, candies and little toys. Bigger presents are for Kings.

Shit, tió,
hazelnuts and nougats,
do not shit herrings,
they are too salty,
shit nougats
they taste better.

Shit, tió,
almonds and nougats,
and if you don’t want to shit 

I will hit you with a stick!

I’m not sure I have ever met a Catalan who attends church regularly or who even attends the midnight Christmas Mass. But there are those who do attend the Christmas Mass in order to hear a special Christian liturgical drama sung to Gregorian chant. This is the Song of the Sibyl which has been performed in Mallorca, Alghero (Sardinia), and some Catalan churches almost uninterruptly since medieval times. Nothing of Santa Claus, presents, or shitting, it is a prophecy that tells of the apocalypse. For hundreds of years women were not allowed to sing in church so even though a Sibyl is a woman, the song would be sung by a boy. Now it is sung by either a woman or a boy. It it sung a capella with instruments playing between one verse and the next. The singer wears a tunic, and usually also a cape, and carries a sword which is held in front of his or her face until the song is completed when a cross is drawn in the air.

The chant was originally sung in Latin, later adapted to Provençal, and then to Catalan by the end of the 14^th century. The Song of Sibyl was abandoned throughout Europe when it was forbidden by the Council of Trent (1545-1563). But it was restored in Mallorca in 1575 and there it still has the strongest presence although it is also becoming popular now in Barcelona and other towns in Catalonia. The performance of the Song of Sybil in the churches of Mallorca was declared an UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

Performance in the Barcelona Cathedral.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmqiTQfVNGw

Searching for Chanukah Candles

 An excerpt from my new book, No Regrets: A Life in Catalonia has been published in The Jewish Writing Project.  This is a story called The Chanukah Candles Challenge and is about.... well, yes, trying to find Chanukah candles in an area where there are no Jews.  

You can find the story here.

You can find the book on Amazon, at other online retailers, or order it at your favorite brick and mortar bookshop.

No Regrets: A Life in Catalonia

I've written a book!  It's a memoir that begins when, at age 52, I moved from the Bay Area to Barcelona and then goes on to recount further moves and adventures.  First to Tarragona. once a Roman capital.  I was living in Tarragona when I read Maguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian and could look out my window and see the old town atop the Roman wall where he would have walked. I lived outside L'Ametlla de Mar, a small fishing village near the Ebro River, and finally Figueres, near the French border and hometown of Salvador Dali.  After the sagas of getting a phone and city gas installed, I go on to talk about Catalan culture, learning to speak Catalan, getting a Spanish divorce, getting a Spanish driver's license, adopting pets, making friends, and participating in the Catalan independence movement.  In other words, more adventures than I initially expected.

The book is titled No Regrets: A Life in Catalonia and is available at Amazon (all the Amazon sites, not just the US), Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, other online retailers, as well as your favorite brick and mortar bookshop.

Amazon.com link

Book Depository link

Barnes & Noble link

The Forgotten Soldiers

In his day, Robert Capa was said to be the best war photographer in the world. His first published photograph was of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagen. His first war work was during the Spanish Civil War where he spent some of his time traveling with Ernest Hemingway, who was working as a journalist, and who later wrote the book For Whom the Bell Tolls about that experience.

Capa was born Endre Ernő Friedmann to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary on October 22, 1913. He fled Hungary at the age of 18 when he was accused of being a communist, and he later fled Berlin when the Nazis came to power.

I recently went to the Memorial Museum of Exile in La Jonquera to see the Robert Capa exposition titled 18 March 1939, The Forgotten Army at the Camp of Argelers. This refers to the soldiers in exile who had been fighting for the Spanish republic against the Franco insurrectionists who had overthrown the elected government. One of the French internment camps was in Argelers, a small beach-side community in the south of France, just 37 kilometers (23 miles) from the Spanish-French border. Some of these men stayed in this and other French detention camps for a year or more. Some were sent to be killed in German camps, and some left or escaped and joined the French resistance.

A mother visits her son

Prisoners made their own shelters

Prisoners cooked their own food

Musicians from the Barcelona Philharmonic

Farewell to the volunteers of the International Brigades
Barcelona, October 28, 1938
Photographs by Robert Capa

Capa was the only civilian photographer who landed with the troops on Omaha Beach on D-Day. General Eisenhower awarded him the Medal of Freedom in 1947 for his work photographing World War II and that same year he founded Magnum Photos in Paris. He died at age 40 on May 25, 1954 when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.

Bandidos

 

The Bandidos is an international Harley Davidson motorcycle riding club. I ran into some of them this morning when I was at the seaside resort of Empuriabrava buying some cookies and marmalades and went to my favorite cafe for a coffee and croissant (in 90 degree weather). They were scattered around the terrace, sporting their tatoos and motorcycle club t-shirts and vests.

I approached one of them to ask about the club and where he was from. He was from Andalusia and the club is international he told me. I approached another and he told me the club originated in Texas but is now international with thousands of members including members who have come for this event from Australia. He was from France. Upon further questioning I discovered he was from Nice. I've visited Nice several times and told him that my parents had come to Nice after WW II and my mother became pregnant with me there. You were made in Nice! he exclaimed.

I didn't take any photos -- I felt too shy (a missed opportunity, I know). But I did find their club on the internet when I got home and this video. It is their formal club motorcade entrance to Empuriabrava the day when they arrived. In fact, they came whatever way they wanted from all parts of Europe, and it seemed that this was their last day and they would all be headed home.

Bandidos on the Street

If you like this post, you might like my book: No Regrets: A Life in Catalonia, available at Amazon.com, UK, ES, all the Amazon sites, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, and good old-fashioned brick and mortar bookshops.

Amazon.com link

Twosies

When I was a kid we used to sing this song on the bus headed for summer camp up in the San Bernardino mountains. I was reminded of it when I started putting together the photos for this post, which consist of various pairs I saw at the wetlands. There were couples, mother and child, siblings, and oddballs, maybe you could call them twosies.

Rise and shine and give God your glory, glory!
Rise and shine and give God your glory, glory!
Rise and shine and (clap once) give God your glory, glory!
Children of the Lord.

The Lord said to Noah, "There's gonna be a floody, floody."
Lord said to Noah, "There's gonna be a floody, floody."
"Get those children (clap once) out of the muddy, muddy!"
Children of the Lord.

So Noah, he built him, he built him an arky, arky.
Noah, he built him, he built him an arky, arky.
Made it out of (clap once) hickory barky, barky.
Children of the Lord.

The animals, they came on, they came on by twosies, twosies.
The animals, they came on, they came on by twosies, twosies.
Elephants and (clap once) kangaroosies, roosies.
Children of the Lord.

Husband and wife

Mother and child

Siblings

Oddballs

Stork Chicks

The last time I wrote about the wetland storks was in early May. At that point, the adults were tending to their nests, but there weren’t any chicks yet.

It wasn’t until the 29^th of May that I saw the first chick. There it was, a little white head. You could hardly see it because the nests are large and high up, and the chicks were small, so if you were lucky you could just see the top of a little head or a black beak. Adult beaks are orange but chicks are born with black beaks that slowly change color until, after a year, they are orange.

Tending to the nest

There's a little white head below Mom
if you look closely

Two sets of little black beaks being fed

By June 10 things had developed. The chicks were bigger and you could see them more easily. At this point they were trying out their wings, but they hadn’t fledged yet.

By the 20^th of June they were a lot bigger – almost the size of an adult. It was the beak that was still black that gave them away as youngsters. I couldn’t tell if they had fledged yet, but I think not. The nearby horses don't have to learn to fly and were not concerned.

On the 24^th, the young storks didn’t seem to have changed much.

On July 4^th, there seemed to be a change. At this point you could hardly tell the difference between the fledglings and the adults, especially from the back. The park ranger told me most if not all had fledged, but I didn’t see any of the young ones flying. Even once they start to fly the parents will continue to feed them for a while until they are more capable of flying well and feeding themselves.

They all look alike from the back

What I did see was the sure sign of summer. And it’s gotten so hot that I probably won’t go back until the fall by which time the nests will be empty. But that’s OK, there will be a whole new cycle next year.