Author: Gracetopher Kirk

Happy America Day fom Not America/the Fourth of July vs. Homecoming Football Games.

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Well, happy fourth of July everyone. Here of course it will be just another day, no fireworks, no parades. At least here the lack of parades on the most patriotic day of the year isn’t underscored by a parade for a silly American football game (cough cough Glenwood….).

Ok… Just going to spend a moment on this, but what self-respecting American town can get away with having parades and fireworks for a football game, but not for the fourth of July??? Not that I’m particularly patriotic or anything, but throughout my time in Glenwood, Iowa, I had even less school spirit. For my readers who have never been to Glenwood, what you need to know is this: every single year there is one football game that is more important than the rest (I’m not entirely sure why, but it is). The day of said game, school children are released four hours early, all the shops temporarily move locations to stands on the square, and there is a massive parade. Since every single class from kindergarten on up has their own float (it’s not required to ride on them of course, but I only opted out once), and I later spent six years in the marching band, I only watched this massive spectacle once. 

After the parade there’s always a party at Jim Hughes’s real estate offices. There are ponies, face paint, clowns making baloons shaped like whatever you like, watermelon, hot dogs, potato chips, soda, dancing, a mini train ride…. 

Everyone spends a few hours wandering about the town, hanging out with friends, and altogether being completely useless. If you’re in the marching band, you have to report to the practice field by five pm with your instrument (alto saxophone in my case), and run through the field marching a few times while Mr. J yells from the sidelines…. This is one of our biggest shows of the year, in some ways bigger than the state competition, because we have massive amounts of alumni who will be sitting in the stands to watch us.

By six pm we are getting dressed in our awesome uniforms to line up and head to the field where we will spend the first half playing pep songs during time outs and then go do our thing during half time. In my opinion, we’re the only thing worth seeing at the whole football game (unless you want to watch 14-18 year old girls dancing around like sluts in the cheerleading squad and dance team). The football team usually loses (though recently they have brought in the very worst teams they can find specifically for the purpose of winning homecoming). Then, win or lose, we have fireworks. As a member of yearbook I loved taking pictures of that part, even if it was overdone. 

Is that all? Of course not, that’s just one day! In Glenwood we have to celebrate our mediocre football team for at LEAST 48 hours. The Saturday after the game we crown the Homecoming Queen and King, and then follows one of the two most important dances of the high-school year. I have actually heard it argued that this Coronation dance is more important than Prom. 

Somewhere in all this mess is also when all of the class reunions happen, plus another dance for the adults. It is THE craziest weekend in Glenwood.

So what happens on the fourth of July? A few people light off small things in the street (though not many, fireworks are illegal in Iowa). Some people have small private barbeques I suppose…. But compared to Homecoming, the Fourth of July is extraordinarily quiet in Glenwood.

Moral of the story: I don’t believe I’ll feel incredibly sad missing Independence day. It’ll be just like the times I spent it in Glenwood.

Euskera: Endangered Language

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The language of the Basque Country is called Euskera, and it is currently on a list of endangered languages. It is slowly making a come-back thanks to nationalist sentiment but  is still spoken by less than a million people. Although it is the co-official language of the Basque Country, Euskera is actually spoken by less than half of the residents of the region; where I am you wouldn’t guess, but I suppose all the city-dwellers offset those of us in the boondocks.

It doesn’t help of course that dialects of Euskera are massively different, even in very small areas. There is a standardized language used for publications written in Euskera or for movies and television shows, but it is not the normal Euskera spoken by real people. When you can’t necessarily communicate with other people who are supposed to be speaking the same language as you… perhaps it is understandable that some people choose convenience over preserving a beautiful ancient language.

Despite the trouble involved in communicating in different dialects however, as little as 80 years ago Euskera was “very widespread and inescapable in daily life” (http://www.unc.edu/~sdteeter/basque.html). What happened in the past century then? The Spanish Civil War. When Franco assumed power, he banned all of the languages aside from Castellano.  When he died in 1975 and Spain finally became a democracy, the four provinces making up the Basque Country were allowed a large degree of autonomy, and the Basque language was once again allowed.

Now schools in the Basque Country are taught in one of 3 models: Model A in which classes are taught primarily in Castellano with Euskera as a separate subject, Model C in which classes are taught in both languages, and Model D in which classes are taught primarily in Euskera with Castellano as a separate subject. There are also night schools offered to give adults the chance to learn their ancestral language. Hopefully these measures can save the oldest language in Europe from extinction.

Languages

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As you may have noticed, I keep referring to Castellano instead of Spanish. This is because I have been informed that I do not speak Spanish. I speak Castellano. Castellano is the language of Castilla, a central region of Spain, but since the Castillians took over everything a few hundred years ago, everyone in spain Speaks Castellano now. But not exclusively.

Castellano is the only official language for Spain as a whole, but in the various different territories there are various more languages that have official recognition as well (and some that aren’t official but are spoken nonetheless). In addition to Castillan the current Romance languages spoken are Catalan in Catalonia, Aranese in small parts of north-western Catalonia, and Galician which is spoken in Galicia (basically the midway point between Portugese and Castellano). And then there’s Euskera. The language of the Basque country (where I am). It’s not a Romance language and doesn’t resemble Castellano at all….. It is in fact the last remaining pre Indo-European language in existance.

If I may be pardoned for using wikipedia, there is a graphic which beautifully illustrates the languages spoken in the Iberian peninsula over the past 1000 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linguistic_map_Southwestern_Europe.gif

Good Thing I’m Not One of Those People…

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You know. The people who sit around complaining “Yur in ‘Murica. Speak English” Because I’ve been in Catalunia, the Basque Country, and France without knowing the languages of said countries. I do make the effort whenever possible; at least in Catalunia and the Basque Country I can speak Castellano, but the world is a massive place full of so many languages that I do not speak. I feel as though my world would be so much smaller if I only associated with people who spoke English in countries where English is the primary language. Even if I were to include all the languages where Castellano is spoken, my world would be so much smaller.

Add to that the fact that it is stressful and scary to go somewhere where you don’t speak the language, and far from being angry at people who come to the USA without knowing so much as a word of English, I have developed a great respect for them.

My Thoughts on Blogging

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This post could also be called “Grace’s Excuses For Not Writing About Farm Life For So Long” but that title would be slightly over the top in it’s length. I just feel that blogging is an unfair medium in some ways. I want to be taken seriously by my readers, and to do so it is best if I post as regularly as possible. I also however want to be taken seriously by the people I live with at Pikunieta, and while we aren’t working non-stop from dawn to dusk, there is never a set time when I am allowed to do exactly whatever I want to do. Reading a book is seen as being lazy, and being on the internet almost a complete waste of time. Add that to the fact that there is only one computer in the house connected to internet, and said computer must be shared between all seven people living in the house, and perhaps you will begin to understand how difficult it has been for me to keep up writing this blog.

No matter how many times I tell them that this blog is for school purposes (I will be using my experiences in the Basque Country to create an independent study class and therefore take care of the study-abroad requirements for my Spanish major), if talk about writing my blog, they assume I am keeping it for social purposes, and therefore it should not be a priority, and I am therefore forced to choose between seeming to be serious about my responsibilities as a WWOOFer and my responsibilities as a student.

Paris

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It’s what I’m sure you all want to hear about right now…. I must apologize however because I have decided to give myself a two week vacation. You may wonder why I need a vacation… I have after all been in another country, and while it’s been difficult at times, I have at least not been slogging through my normal course load at UP.  I’m in Europe as a tourist after all (at least according to all the official paperwork).

While this is all true, it is also true that I happen to have been working on a farm…. not exactly your usual vacation. Until the 7th of July, I am on my real vacation for the summer. But don’t worry, in the mean time I have scheduled some blog posts about more general farm life and my random thoughts on Europe, the Basque Country, Spain, languages, and blogging.

Pay it Forward

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When I was nine years old I happened to borrow a movie from the library that was called Pay it Forward. If you’ve never seenImage it then A) You should, but B) to understand this blog post know that the premise of the movie is a social studies teacher giving an impossible assignment to change the world, and the 7th grader who actually did it. How said 7th grader changed the world was through a concept that has existed for centuries. In this movie 7th grader Trevor McKinney creates a model wherein he does 3 good deeds, and tells each recipient to pay it forward with 3 more good deeds, the multiplication of good deeds will eventually change the world for the better.

Like I said, I was nine when I watched the movie…. so perhaps I could be excused if after briefly looking around and wondering why nobody was actually paying it forward, I ended up forgetting about it and going back to my everyday life.

Now however, the concept has ceased to be simply an idea for me. It is real, and I have been the recipient of a very generous gift that has allowed me to go to Paris!!!!! In fact, I am leaving the Basque Country this very day!

To everyone who has been part of the chain leading up to this, I don’t know you all, but you all deserve my thanks. And never fear, the chain shall not stop here.

 

How to Shear a Sheep

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Step one: Wait until it is warm out.

Sheep have wool for a reason: to keep them warm in the winter. They can of course be shorn much earlier in the year than we shear them here, but once shorn, the sheep are colder and therefore expend energy keeping themselves warm instead of making milk. Since Pikunieta is centered around cheese-making, the quality and quantity of milk is the first consideration in every decision made about the sheep.

Step two: Wait until it is dry out.

This year is a bit rainier than average, but even an average year in the Basque country is wet. When sheep are raised for their wool, shearing them wet can lead to discoloration, rot, or even in extreme cases fire in the bales of wool being shipped elsewhere. Here though, the wool is shorn for the health and comfort of the sheep and once shorn is nearly useless. The reason we shear the sheep dry here has more to do with the comfort of the shearer.

Step three: Get your sheep together and shear them.

Generally you want a professional to shear your sheep (especially if the sheep are raised for wool). It’s much faster and therefore less stressful for the sheep, and it is also much safer; cutting a sheep with an electric shearer is quite easy.

In the past, Spanish sheep shearers would tie the legs of the sheep, but now the Tally-hi method is the most widely used. This method of sheep shearing was developed in Australia about half a century ago and is currently used throughout the world. By holding the sheep in a certain way they struggle less, and therefore shearing goes smoother and quicker. To learn exactly how to shear a sheep in the tally-hi method, you can watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKXww52dD3s

 

“Working Like a Negro”

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Apparently this phrase is 100% acceptable in Catalunia and the Basque Country (and the rest of Spain as well I imagine). I suppose when your country’s history isn’t marred by racism and slavery, it is easier to get away with flippancy around said issues. Anyways, I sincerely apologize to any Americans out there who take offence to said phrase, but recently those of us here at Pikunieta have been working like negroes. The weather has finally given us a glimpse of what summer might be like… sun and heat in the 20s (aka 70s and 80s for those readers who, like me, are used to measuring such things in farenheit not celcius). I say all this in order to excuse how lax I’ve been lately about writing about keeping everyone updated on my farming adventures. Tomorrow I promise to talk about the exciting job of sheep shearing! (spoiler alert, I got to shear one sheep myself, it was so super awesomely cool!)

Sheep Cheese!

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Perhaps it’s time I actually talk about what I’m doing here in the Basque Country?

As I mentioned in my very first post, I’m WWOOFing. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and it is an international volunteer program in which people are given the chance to experience life on an organic farm. I am of course acquainted with the workings of small non-organic farms in the United States since my family owns Marquam Meadows Fruit Company (see their website here: http://www.marquammeadowsfruit.com/), so it seemed natural that I should take advantage of WWOOF. I get to travel, experience a whole new culture, practice my Castellano, and learn bits and pieces of a whole new language (Euskera), all while keeping the farm life I already know about as firm footing in a new world.

I registered with WWOOF Spain and sent e-mails around to some of the farms in the Basque Country that sounded the most interesting, and eventually ended up here at Pikunieta Baserria. A farm in which we raise sheep, then milk them and make said milk into cheese. Yup, that’s right. Sheep cheese. It’s actually quite tasty, I’d definitely recomend you try some if you ever have the chance.