Spanish Culture Notes: the Siesta is not just a Nap

In Andalusia in Southern Spain, the traditional Siesta is pretty much a religion (in much the same way that olive oil is pretty much a religion, but also in much the same way that Catholicism is less a religion than a part of the culture). And while siesta is literally the Spanish word for nap, the cultural and social elements of the siesta raise it so far above just a nap. The siesta is the quintessential representation of Spanish culture, the relationship that Spaniards have with time, and the value they place on family and friends, and good food.

Don't get me wrong, there is an important nap component to this. In fact, I never ever napped before I came here, but the first few weeks I was here I had a nice nap pretty much every afternoon. A large part of it is that it until the last couple of weeks was still pretty hot here, and lunch is the largest meal of the day. When it's hot outside and you've just eaten a huge meal your body just naturally wants to sleep, so the Siesta is perfect. But it's a nap that is pretty much socially required. During siesta time (usually around 2-5pm) pretty much everything shuts down. You really can't do anything during that time, except nap or spend it with the people you care about. So naturally, the Spaniards do both.

You stop and have a good long lunch (usually with multiple courses, not including the fruit and/or yogurt and/or dessert that will inevitably follow), and then you sit around the table and talk with your family, you have a nice cafe con leche or a tea, maybe some of those delicious cinnamon cookies that I can't believe we don't have back home, and then if the mood strikes you, you take a nap. It's fantastic. It's also damn un-American. We don't do things like this in the US, mostly because we have a completely different value structure. As much as it stings to hear it (and trust me it hurts to type it too) we as a society are materialistic, individualistic, and completely consumed with having things. Those values affect our choices; we work through lunch because that's time we can bill for, which is the same reason that we work overtime, because we want that money so that we can buy nice things that will show everyone else how well we are doing financially, and that therefore our lives must be better than theirs. And of course this translates in terrible ways when it isn't just individuals, but also corporations, and also people in power. Suddenly the idea that we should work hard and be industrious and not take breaks for lunch translates into employers giving their workers only the legally required breaks (Have you ever heard of a two hour lunch break in the US? Me neither. Meanwhile, they're pretty standard here.) and expecting them to pick up extra shifts because who wouldn't want the extra money? Our drive to be individuals quickly translates into a line of reasoning where not being able to blaze your own trail becomes synonymous with being a bad American, which becomes synonymous with being a bad person. That's why college is unaffordable US, this is why we don't take care of people living in poverty, or the elderly, or really anyone: our chief value is the ability to conquer all obstacles, and that makes us blind to the fact that there are obstacles that are nearly impossible to conquer on your own. (Is this probably at least a bit of an oversimplification? Yes. Does that make me wrong? No.)

So if you've ever wondered if it has to be the way it is in the US, it doesn't. Really it only is that way in the US, and only because we all buy into it. And let me tell you, the Spanish have us beat on this one. So do I think that siestas will solve all of the world's problems? Realistically, probably not. But I do think that treating ourselves and our workers and our citizens like human beings with families and wants and interests and not just bank accounts will fix most things. But that also means treating yourself as more than a consumer, it means not being concerned about having things you don't need, it means lowering your standards. In fact, that's probably the biggest challenge out there, but it carries the biggest rewards. For starters, traveling is 100% more doable when you dramatically lower your standards: you can stay at a hostel that costs about $20 a night, and you can wear the same bra three days in a row instead of packing more. These things will not kill you. You will be fine, and you'll also get to go to amazing places and have money left over for things like fantastic crepes in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris.

Just some things to think on.
Hasta luego,
Isabel.

Language in Spain

Language is always a hugely defining feature for both individuals and groups. Language defines and blurs ethnic and national boundaries. Language brings people together and keeps them apart. And in Spain, language is goddamn complicated. Officially, Spain's solo national language is Castilian Spanish, but in reality Castellano shares that pedestal with Galician, Basque, and Catalan, plus a whole gang of regional dialects.

In this way linguistic and dialectical differences exemplify the regional identities and nationalist/separatist movements within the country. Under Franco's severely nationalist regime there were many efforts to crush the languages competing with Castellano. In fact, the Catalonians have spent most of the time since Franco's death trying to make Catalan a universally used language in the region. In this way, language is a function of identity in the would-be separatist regions of Spain. Language is one of the most frequently cited arguments by Catalan and Basque separatist movements. (Interestingly, it could be argued that the Catalan language with its dramatically apparent similarities to Castellano proves a level of similarity between Catalonia and the rest of Spain while the complete lack of shared roots between Castellano and Basque highlights just how separately the two peoples have developed. Does this mean that Basque separatist movements are more justified than Catalonian separatist movements? Not so much, mostly because I would feel antsy about ranking levels of justification for peoples' identities. As an outsider, really not my call. However it is interesting to note that when Spain was drafting a constitution during their transition into democratic governance Catalans served on the committee that wrote the constitution while the Basques refused to take part in it. But that's a story for another post.) However, only about 30-some% of Catalonians speak Catalan as their first language. They are actually pretty severely outnumbered by native Spanish speakers. 

How does this happen? How does a region that very vocally doesn't even see itself as a part of Spain end up with a majority of its citizens speaking Spanish at home? Because their economy is booming. Just like in the US, industry and manufacturing in Spain have always been based in the north. Interestingly (and probably not coincidentally) so have the two main separatist groups, the Catalans and the Basques, but again, that's an issue for a separate post. Catalonia not only does most of the country's manufacturing, it also sells most of the goods it manufactures back to the other regions of Spain, meaning that economy it hasn't suffered nearly as much as the rest of the country during the global financial crisis. And where there is prosperity in a struggling country, where there are jobs in a country with staggering unemployment, there will be immigrants. Some from other countries, but far more from other parts of Spain. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon; there has been a massive intake of domestic immigrants into Catalonia since they started to re-industrialize the region in the 1950s and 60s. One of the largest contributors to this population flood has always been Andalusia, home to Granada, temporary home to me.

That's how we get to our next category of language as social division. Andalusia has a very distinct accent. It's almost more of a slurring of words actually, with native Andalusians dropping consonants and sometimes whole syllables, whittling conjugated verbs down to their roots, and generally confusing the crap out of Americans who think they speak Spanish (read: me). However, the Andalusian accent is something of a joke in the rest of Spain; to be told that you speak like an Andalusian is a few steps south of a compliment. It's treated much like a thick Southern drawl in the United States. It denotes a region that has struggled economically for a long, long time. In this way language is also a function of class, which shouldn't be surprising because language is a function of class everywhere. Americans can tell rich kids who went to east coast prep schools from down-home country Southerners, from kids who come from the projects, from the Mid-Westerners with their near-Canadian levels of courtesy. These linguistic differences aren't just about geography, they're judgments of class and of education and by extension, often they are judgments of character. I have seen this is the US and I get this sinking feeling that travelling more in Spain will bring me back to these judgments. 

That's all for now. Until next time, 

Isabel

A Day in the Life

So I was definitely going to actually keep a blog, but then I kept getting sidetracked by how awesome Spain is, but now I'm back. I'm working on a longer post about Spanish Culture and all that but for now, here's a run down of how my days look here in Granada.

An average Thursday (because Thursdays are our Fridays and they're also the best days):

7:00 - Alarm goes off the first time. Snooze multiple times.

7:40 - Get up and get dressed, then go out to the kitchen for breakfast, which is always toast with butter and jam, and nesquik. Sometimes our host mom also brings home pastries and gives them to us for breakfast.

8:05ish - Leave for class. It's about a fifteen to twenty minute walk to the University of Granada's Centro de Lenguas Modernas, where all of our classes are.

8:30 - Spanish Grammar class. Not always the most fun, but still could be worse. Learning all about verb tenses.

10:20 - Grammar class ends and we get a ten minute pausa before History of Spanish Art starts at 10:30. That's definitely the best class offered at CLM. The professor is hilarious and manages to make the nuances of Neolithic art seem interesting.

12:30 - Classes are done, time to head home for lunch. Mama is the greatest cook in the world, and lunch is always the biggest meal of the day. Usually they are multiple courses, starting with soup, and then a maintenance course, and then some fruit or yogurt.

1:30 - Siesta time. The whole city shuts down in the afternoon for the siesta. Even if you don't take the traditional afternoon nap, it's a time to rest, and for a lot of Spaniards it's time to sit down with friends and family for a coffee or tea and some pastries. After a siesta, or at least a nice bit of down time, it's time to do some homework or meet up with friends. Really, this is just a big block of free time until dinner.

8:30 - The best tv show in the world: Boom! It's a completely amazing game show where contestants have to answer questions through a process of elimination by cutting the wires on a giant fake bomb. However, if they cut the wires that corresponds to the right answer, the bomb "explodes" and sprays them in the face with colored foam. I'm obsessed.

9:00 - Dinner time! Usually we watch the news with our host parents while we eat. Dinner is usually a much smaller meal than lunch, but it's also follows by fruit and yogurt, and sometimes also pastries or flan. God I love Flan.

10:15 - Time to meet the crew at our usual stomping ground, a Mexican tapas bar near the CLM. In addition to fabulous tapas, they have fantastic two for five euro mojitos. After a couple rounds of mojitos and tapas, we head over to Oscar Wilde for Thursday night karaoke.

2:30ish - Head home from Oscar Wilde and fall into bed, ready to kick off our usual three day weekend by sleeping in. (especially since sometimes Mama brings home churros for breakfast on Saturdays and downing that much fried dough takes all the energy you can get)

So this is Spain

Hello world!

Having only recently found out that I'm supposed to be keeping a blog to for my university to give me credit for studying abroad, here we are. I have been in Spain for just over a week so far. I'll be spending the fall semester in Granada, and the spring semester in Villanueva de la Cañada, a suburb of Madrid.

I planned on writing a longer post, but a siesta is calling.

Hasta luego,
Isabel.