Peruvian Christmas

Hi there!

I have been absent for some weeks, but today I retake my blog with new force! I want to tell you about Peruvian Christmas. For some minutes I hesitated if I should write about it because I have never passed Christmas there. The only thing I can do is to present what I read about Peruvian Christmas' traditions. It's a good lesson for me too, because if I didn't need to write a post here, I wouldn't read nothing about this subject, I would still remain ignorant! (Recently, I became quite... lazy. I hope it's only the Christmas time, food and a lot of free time...)

So here we go. First of all, we have to remember that in December in Peru there is between spring and summer. The temperatures in Lima oscillate around 18-24 grades, so the wheather is warm. For this reason, we will never see snow in this part of the Earth. That's the first and the basic feature of the Peruvian Christmas that I used like an introduction.

Plaza de Armas, the very central place in Lima

The Peruvians go to a mass celebrated around midnight, or to a mass of December 25. For them the second day of Christmas, December 26 when we remember saint Stephen, Christian martyr, is not holy day of obligation.

Plazas and parks are not only places to decorate with Christmas Tree of lights, but also to perform carols. Children or adult choirs sing there to share with the pedestrians a little of happiness. It's also very common that children and adolescents go with their school groups to visit hospitals, retirement homes or orphanages.

In many companies the employees receive something like Christmas basket that contains the basic products they eat in the Christmas dinner: champagne, panettone (sweet bread with raisins), rice, tables of chocolate, walnuts, raisins, etc. Their employers can give them also peacock, to prepare in home the most important dish of the dinner.

At midnight they are all hug one another wishing "Feliz Navidad", Merry Christmas! The head of the family give a speech and after they drink a toast. They distribute the presents and watch fireworks.

In some houses people have Christmas tree, in others the Nativity scene that is more common than in Poland. It reamins without the figure of Baby Jesus. At midnight the smallest child put it in the manger. It can very small, symbolic, but in a lot of cases it has very local, traditional character.

 

Of course, there can't miss typical music in form of Christmas carols! In this one, the children sing that they will bring to Mary and the small Jesus typical products of Peruvian handicrafts: chullo (a type of hat), coloured poncho, charango (a Bolivian and Peruvian instrument)... And, obviously, they ask where he was born? The answer is that in Peru! Because they call him traditionally: cholito (a person with indigenous heritage, indian and Spanish blood).

I don't know you, but I learnt a lot writing this post! :)

Brisas del Titicaca

In Lima I went with some friends of my boyfriend, Fernando and Rosa María to a show of folk dances of Peru. The association that make it possible is Brisas del Titicaca (Breezes of Titicaca lake). It was a pleasure be there! Apart from see the show we ordered delicious pachamanca with pisco, the national alcohol that tastes like vodka but is made from grapes. The drink we exaclty orderes called pisco sour is pisco with lemon juice and white of eggs.

With my boyfriend, Rosa María and Fernando in the dancing floor

Drinking pisco

I only introduce this place because in base of what I saw there now I can share it with you and say you about other dances that Polish people have never seen. I will start with festejo that is the unique one with African roots. Nowadays some modern artists use it like a base of mixes, for example with electronic music.

 

The primitive version

Mix of festejo and electronic music, very trendy nowadays

Other dance I want to present you is saya. I had known it after I went to Brisas del Titicaca. In the family I was living with, Sarahit, the daughter, told me about her experience in primary school where she performed with her group exactly this dance. I found interesting a detail that she commented me. And it's that the skirts of the girls are very very heavy, although they seem short and light. They have a few parts made of metal! And the dancers should move them all the time! Sarahit recommend me a song she likes a los "Soy caporal".

Sarahit and me in Plaza de Armas, the principal plaza of Lima

 Rosa María and me with saya dancers

The last dance I would like to show you is danza de las tijeras (dance of the scissors). The dancers don't have real scissors in their hands. What they hold is two pieces of the scissors, bigger that the normal size, and not so sharp. They use them like an instrument. The choreography is complicated, unrepeatable, in my opinion (and I haven't a lot in common with the dance, almost no practice :P ).

Rosa María and me with the dancers of danza de las tijeras

I know what you will say: that I love put videos in my posts! :D That's true, in my opinion the videos are the best samples of cultures faraway that we can't see, touch or experiment by ourselves, directly. So, relish them! :)

Cumbia: not only Colombian music

Some posts before I talked about a Colombian folk music called cumbia. That's right, it rose in Colombia, like a fusion of Spanish, African and Indian characteristics that, mixed, gave what we know like the folk version of this genre. What is typical for it are the dress and the primitive instruments used, for exemple, during the most famous Colombian carnival, Carnival of Barranquilla.

So, why I want to write about cumbia from other countries? How it passed to be part of popular music of Argentina, Mexico or Peru? Well, between 1940 and 1960 famous musicians like Lucho Bermúdez or Luis Carlos Meyer with their orchestras went to give concerts in all Latin America. For this aim they needed to make from these "wild", folk songs something more accesible for stranger public. Thanks for this operation, in the countries I've already mentioned, the interest for cumbia appeared and new, local artists started to record. They put local instruments like charango, panpipes, etc. to the rhytm and in this way changed a little its basic form. In general, the genre turned to be more modern, popular, danced in discos.

In Peru, because right now is the country thar most interests me, there are two more listened groups. One of them is Los Hijos del Sol (The Children of the Sun) that interpets a well-known song "Cariñito". It has two version: one is cumbia version, and the other, that hasn't any official author, can be played and sang by anybody, is with zampoña (panpipes) and charango, the typical Andean instruments that made so popular Peruvian music.

Cumbia version

folk interpretation

The other group I need to talk is Corazón Serrano. Their songs are everywhere! They are always trendy! Any radio, any bus you go up, they are there with their songs! I decided to compare them with our Polish disco polo, because they can be considered quite... kitschy. It's so ingrained in the society. There are Peruvians that protests that it's very low culture, and in part they are in the right. Just listen yourself and judge.

"Como pude enamorarme" is one of the current hits. How can you observe, it's an easy rhytm... Maybe too easy for some people :D

If you have a few minutes, you can take a look at one of my articles in a student page about Latin America, Iberoameryka.com. This one is exactly about cumbia. The link: https://iberoameryka.wordpress.com/kultura/muzyka/cumbia-kolumbijski-dar-dla-ameryki-lacinskiej/ .

Such a funny dance!

It's a good moment to change the topic, so this time I will present you a folclorical Peruvian dance called HUAYNO, that in Spanish sounds like Polish ŁAJNO (the English translation is DUNG)... Yea, but it has nothing in common with animal excrement... I'm sorry, I started with the bad side, but the truth is that this similarity introduces a humorous element. And it's good, because huayno is very joyful dance and when you see the people dancing it, you just can't stop laughing or, at least, smiling. They are enjoying so much!

So the stage version, with folclorical cloths is like in this video:

It looks good, basically it's jumping and hitting the floor with your feet. This movement is called ZAPATEO, from zapato - shoe. I tried to learn it with the video below, just have a look if you want to try. It's quite tiring for your legs, but when you catch that, it's a pleasure to dance!! Because if you don't know this step, you can only jump from one leg to the other :D But it's nice too, it's always a good beginning.

Ok, and now just see the popular way of dance huayno :D It's a totally improvisation! But they feel so free when they dance... It surprised me!

As you can see, there are no couples. You can dance lonely, with somebody of your sex or not, or in a circle, with your hole family. Normally you don't hold the hands of others. I saw my boyfriend's family dancing like that and I fell in love, definitely! I also danced in the middle of the circle listening to my favourite song of huayno, "Qué linda flor" (What a beautiful flover).

When I danced, my Peruvian friends immediately considered me a part of their family, hahaha! It's a pity that I can't practice in my flat... If you read my blog from the beginning, perhaps you remember I have a neighbour that hates noise, so I have to be as quiet as a church mouse...

Now I only introduce the topic of dance, although huayno is the most representative one, I think. See you soon! :)

Fruit world

This week I want you to know something more about fruits that you can get in Peru. From among all the fruits we have in Poland, the unique one the Peruvians didn't know when I asked them where apricot. They have listened about it, but not eaten. 

I've tried some new fruits like granadilla, mangopapaya, lima, chirimoya, aguaymanto, tuna or lúcuma and I've also seen carambola, guayaba and cocona. Just have a look at the photo of a stand in a local market.

There are a lot of common fruits like strawberries, pineapples, apples, mandarines, grapes, pears or bananas. However, they distinguish more than one types of bananas. Normal, yellow bananas are two types: isla and seda. Other two types don't ripen, they are always green. Their names are palillo and bellaco. They sirve basically to fry. Bizcochito and manzanito are names of baby banana, smaller than the anterior mentioned.

But I will come back to the unknown fruits, because that's the principal subject of this post. Granadilla tastes like gooseberry. You need to break the peel or shell and a white layer to eat dark pips in a gelatinous transparent substance. It's delicious! And very fast to eat. Yo can use a teaspoon or suck the pips.

Mangopapaya, how you can see, is a mutation of mango and papaya. It has size of a papaya (bigger than mango) and colour of mango (not only it's yellow, but also red and green). It appears only in Peru.

Lima seems lemon, but it has shape of a mandarin and is more sweet. It's peel is like of an butterly: bright yellow with some green spots.

Chirimoya is one of my favourite fruits. It's green, big and with white flesh that doesn't remember any other fruit. It contains black stones (I should have been stolen them and planted in Polish ground! haha).

Aguaymanto looks like small yellow plums. Inside it has a lot of pips. It's quite acid. In the photo you can see aguaymanto (left side), carambola (the green one), cocona (the orange one) and guayaba (two yellow fruits). They are all used to be drunk in juices.

Tuna is fruit of a cactus. Out it's green, but the inside is red. It has pips very difficult to chew.

The last one is lúcuma. As in the case of mangopapaya, is the vernacular fruit of Peru. There are cookies and yogurt with this flavour. In Starbucks you can buy a coffee lúcuma too. It's my peruvian number one!!

Ohh... I am seriously thinking about import these delights!!

Ceviche: Peruvian sushi?

I've never tried sushi so in this post I'm not able to compare it with the most typical Peruvian dish. However, the name sushi always appears when somebody describes you what is ceviche. Few seconds after say this comparation normally you can hear that they are totally different and that the person who speaks doesn't understand how somebody can see something in common between these two dishes. When I heard the word sushi, I immediately thought ceviche had to be awful. I wanted to try it, but only try, only a little. So I asked my boyfriend to eat it when we will be alone, without witness (I didn't know how I would react). At the end... we finished one Sunday in his house, with all his family. And everybody was watching me and asking: what about ceviche? Did you like it? :D

 

The ingredient that both include is, of course, raw fish. But there is a basic difference: in ceviche you have other important ingredient that "cooks" the fish. I put the word cook between inverted commas because the Peruvian lemon, which I'm talking about, can't cook anything literally speaking. It's so acid that it coagulates the protein of the fish. In general, they abused the lemon!

Ok, but the fish is not all. It needs to be accompanied by the raw onion, which in contact with the lemon gives out a sap. The dressing that consists of lemon and onion sap is called leche de tigre that means tiger's milk. As you can see in the photos, in the plate they normally put also camote (sweet potato) and corn (which is huge there!! They said me that the corn we eat in Europe there is given to porks, cattle and village birds... Great.). The ceviche goes very well with a typical drink made from corn too. In this case is other type of corn, violet corn used only to prepare chicha morada (the name of the drink). For a better flavour it's good to add peel of pineapple, apples and quince.

      

What I've already described is the simplest recipe. Other variations of ceviche can consist, for example, of seafruits in stead of fish.

Perhaps right now you feel exactly what I felt just before try ceviche, a disgust. But I assure that it's not so terrible like you fell it, really! And, an important thing: ceviche is not a dish to eat every day. Mostely is a dish sirved for a special occasions or meetings with friends or family you have not seen for a long time.

Enjoy your meal! ;)

An introduction to the Peruvian food: Mistura

If I want to tell you about Peruvian food I should start with Mistura, which is the most important and well known gastronomic fair in Lima. It's name means in Peruvian Spanish "mixture" and it's because for a few days restaurants from different parts of the country get together, to the same place, with their flag dishes. There is a great variety that the organizers divide into sections: a section of sweets, another of tipples, another of seafood...

So you have a lot of stands. You pay with tickets that have their value, like banknotes. They sell them in kits, I could say. It means that it's only possible to pay 25, 50 or 100 soles (one sol, local currency, equal one zloty 20 grosz), although after you can buy only the tickets you need. When you enter crossing below a huge fork, you receive a map of the place. It helps you find restaurants you are looking for.

 

Of course, the queues used to be quite long, as in the case of the stand with pachamanca. It was the unique one with this dish. It consists of two types of meat you choose between chicken, beef and meat of alpaca that go with broad bean, potato and a sort of cake made with milled, hot corn with raisins enclosed in the leaf of corn. The preparation is very important: it should be made in the ground, ringed with stones. I have to confess that it's still a mistery for me whicha the details of the preparation, I didn't know them at all. You can see the dish and its preparation below.

 

We also tasted local beer Cusqueña, the tipple Ayahuasca (whose name refers to a strange plant that Peruvian indians use in their medicine rituals) or desserts like queso helado (frozen cheese). We spent a lot of money! But there were an aim in spent it and eat so much... It was that my mother challenged my boyfriend to make me put on weight. The result? They both lost! My genes didn't allow them reach this goal :D

That's all for today. Bye!

How Peru stole my heart

Hello everyone!

I'm back here, with a new concept of what is the folk. How you can see, I changed the graphics at the top of my blog. It's a typical peruvian folk design. In Peru you can find a lot of products made of fabrics like this: bags, t-shirts, pencil cases, blankets, backpacks, tablecloths, earrings, aprons, wallets and purses... Even shoes. I know it, because I came back from there three weeks ago and brought a lot of gadgets.

The first impression of Peru is that the folk is everywhere. And, of course, it's something that makes you fall in love in this country, but not the most powerfull factor. In my humble opinion what I willl never forget after the journey is how people treat you there. In Peru, althought you shouldn't trust in nobody (I mean, not only foreigners, but also Peruvians), you can feel that the Peruvians are very polite and they are able to do for you a lot when they know you a little. They are always eager to organize something, there's no bad ideas or things impossible to do. This nation is very sociable and spontaneous. 

 

Like says a rock song from there: "There can be poverty, but never solitude". That's truth - signs of poverty are more visible than in Europe, but you will never see them in your... plate. The Peruvians of our times inherited from their inca ancestors a belief according to which the gold hasn't got any value. The most valuable thing is the food. I will need another post to describe it for you, because the variety is extraordinary.

So, I mencioned three factors that made me fall in love in Peru: the omnipresent folk, great people and delicious food. The fourth one is my boyfriend who come from Lima. Sometimes I can't believe how it's possible to find somebody that hold the same believes and ideas that me, help me to be a better person and that doesn't care about the distance there is between us, doesn't consider it an obstacle. I feel very blessed and hopeful that it goes in good direction.

See you next week!

Folk is in fashion

Did you realize that lately it's quite popular to wear clothes, to have jewellery, bag, watch or school accessories patterned upon folk elements? And I'm talking not only about Polish folk, but also about the Mexican, for exemple. Maybe there is possible to find folk motifs from other countries or cultures (from Africa?), but they aren't so spreaded, well-known or direct. Mexico is one of the most famous nations with rich past and everybody recognize and associate it immediately with the mayans and the aztecs.

Two weeks ago I went to Cracow and I was surprised that there people cultivate so much the tradition of manufacture folk stuff, the majority hand-maded. Necklaces, earrings, skirts, neckerchieves... All that things are so beautiful! And so expensive! Haha! Of course, the price depends also on the fact that in the Old Town of one of the most visited Polish cities are a lot of foreign tourists that can pay for souvenirs like that. But on the other hand, I always remember that the money I spent in the local products stay in my country and give the possibility to the small entrepreneurs to develop. For this reason... I bought some pretty things that I hope hang on more time than their Chinese equivalents ;)

In general, I like folk motifs and I have more and more folk gadgets, if it's a good word. I just want to put you some photos. Maybe they will show you how awesome is our folcloric art and encourage you to acquire one of this.

Poland for begginers map

A few weeks ago, in one of the Facebook's fanpages called in Polish Kartografia ekstremalna (Extreme cartography) I saw a map that can be useful not only for those who learn Polish, but also for all that people who think visit Poland and will need to move from one city to another. It's a map with names of Polish cities written in the way that an English speaker can articulate it correctly. Let's have a look (when you click in the photo, you can see it bigger):

 

I must admit that I wasn't able to recognize some of them... In my case the problem is that many time I don't know which is the ponunciation of words I had never heard. I imagine that there are a lot of funny, I don't know, may I say "collocation"? I mean, that the two or more words that someone put together give the pronunciation, but I'm sure in most cases they have no sense, like for example "Gel on Agora", "Be A Poodle, Ask Her" or my favourite: "π Wow".

Do you think that it's a good idea to try to memorize very difficult words in this way? In my opinion it can be the solution for many of us, although, we have to remember that it can happen that when we see the name or word written originally, we won't recognize it! Is it possible...? I tried a lot of strategies to remember strange nouns, adjectives and verbs in different languages and it turned out that the trick to associate them with something that sounds familiar just works. What's your experience?

Which is the lyrical situation of the poem?

The question I put as the title of this post is one of the many questions that were given in the other class of my studies, called "the icons of the Polish culture: literature". It did me come back to my Polish lessons in the high school, where there weren't already linguistic subjects, but only literature. And the poems are the worst. I don't know if it works in English, buy in Polish, when we analise some poem, we are in the habit to asking "What the author meant?". For me it was and still is quite mysterious. How can I know it???? 

I won't make deeper this train, I just wanted you to understand me that it wasn't nice memory for me. However, the new course started with a poem of Stanisław Barańczak, a famous Polish translator. Unfortunately,  "Wrzesień" ("September") is not available in English. It's a pity, but on the other hand, I can imagine how difficult should be translate it. The mencioned lyrical situation of the poem is that some foreigners from different cultures are participating in a Polish class in USA. But the subject of the class is not grammar or vocabulary. It's literature. They're reading Adam Mickiewicz's "Ode to Youth"!! I can identify with them because it seems that they are suffering doing that!! The point is that, actually, I ought to identify soon with the role of the teacher... In this case, I know since now that I will never treat poems like this one in me classes!

I will put the poem below, but before I need to add that it represents that it's not an easy task to teach Polish literature if we really want present to our students Polish icons (that Adam Mickiewicz is, there's no doubt). That's the conclusion we came to.

Stanisław Barańczak - "Wrzesień"

W pokoju z biurkiem, tablicą i nie dającym się otworzyć oknem

(klimatyzacja) wyjaśnia znaczenie zdania

"goniąc za żywiołkami drobniejszego płazu"

grupie złożonej z Mulata, Japonki, dwojga Anglosasów,

nowojorskiego Żyda i kalifornijskiej Irlandki.

Po chwili skupionego milczenia Japonka podejmuje czytanie,

brnąc po kostki przez Bałtyk spółgłosek. Za oknem wieżyczka Lowell House

złoci się w słońcu, jak co roku świeżo odmalowana.

Skończyło się, dawno temu. Co? Młodość. W promieniu

co najmniej mili (1609,31m)

jeszcze przez dobre pięć minut oprócz niego nie będzie nikogo,

kto by wiedział, co znaczą słowa "spólny łańcuch" oraz "ziemskie kolisko".

Paso doble and corrida

I don't know if I said it here, but I'm Spanish teacher. My students are children between 2 and 13 years old. I give privite lessons and teach in kindergartens and in a day-care center. The last one is my favourite work place. I just love the children from there! They are really cute, direct and not yet crafty like their oldest friends from the kindergartens. They give me kisses, hug me, do a swing from my legs when I'm sitting on the floor... They show me theirs little scratches, new clothes or toys. They tell on other child which kick or hit them... The girls also comb me. Of course, many times they run around the class shouting and aren't obedient, but they never complain about the contents of the Spanish lessons.

However in the kindergartens it happens that the children aren't interested in the materials I prepared. I should follow the outlines that my boss delivered me, I can't do whatever I want always, although sometimes I change it and I add or omit activities. I have to be flexible, because my work depends on each group, on how they work. In one group I'm able to do all the activities, in other not. At the beggining it stressed me a lot, I'm a person who like to do things that are completely planned. I wasn't very spontaneous, but it changed thanks to this work.

And now is the time to explain what have in common my work with folk. So, in one of the kindergartens where I teach only three children (two three-year-old girls and one six-year-old boy) I couldn't do the contents from the outline, because the children didn't collaborate. They always want to draw, but when they are bored with the drawing too, everything turns more complicated... Then I have to invent something extraordinary that catches their attention. In the last class I invited them to dance flamenco and do a corrida that is a bullfight. With my jacket and jersey I did skirts for the girls and using the castanets I imitated a paso doble rhytm. Although the jersey wasn't red, I did with it the rug for the bull that was Max, the unique boy. We enjoyed the lesson a lot and I convinced that culture and folk elements really works!! Maybe they are stereotypical, but it have to starts with something.

Oh, my lovely cases!

 

Three weeks ago I participated in my first class of Polish for foreigners . It was a nice experience. Maybe I had expected something extraordinary, like we say in Polish, fireworks. But it didn't happened. However, I enjoyed it and I felt more aware of my own language and culture. One of the strange things was that there almost weren't people of my age. We were 23 students and maybe only 4 of them was still studing (like me) or just graduated. The majority of the students were mature women. Yes, we were all women. The unique men was the professors.

Today I would like to talk you about one the subject that was typically linguistic. Grammatical system od Polish language against the background comparative, that was its name. It was 12 hours of lecture. One hour here is understood like 45 minutes. 

At the beggining it resulted quite diffult and boring. You can imagine what does it mean analize case by case (nominative, genitive, etc.) and their exceptions. Actually, there are more exceptions that words that keep the rules. Slide by slide I was feeling pity on all the foreigners, my future students included, treating learn it... It's necessary to have very strong motivation! That's my conclusion.

We talked about all the parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc., and about their funtions in the clauses. It was like a Polish lesson in primary school! I remember I loved it! But this time I saw it with more awareness, like a linguist, I can say. How much changed everything! The situation, my knowledge... but not my interest in grammar :D

My other folk preferences

Although I am Spanish linguist and I love latinamerican world and music, I have also other interests. In the topic of the music I'm quite open and try to find good points of everything I'm listening to. 

Thanks to my parents, since I was a child, I really enjoy Russian music. My mum has a CD of Alexandrov Ensemble, the official army choir of the Russian armed forces.

And, of course, I can't ommit the dance! You all should know it: the famous kasatschok. I think every Polish recognizes it and tried to dance like that, especially the boys.

Other influence I owe to my mother is that I like Greek music. She did me see the movie "Zorba the Greek" and then said that the dance that all the people know about didn't have the name of Zorba, but sirtaki. I remember that when I was 8, she took me also to the National Opera in Warsaw to see the ballet with the same title. Please, look at this video. For me the most surprising thing is that I know all the music they put...! Without want it, it's the inffluence of my mum, definitely. She went to Greece and left her heart there. And before did us fall in love in Greece too! :)

The last type of folk music I would like to mention is the Chechen dance that I saw thanks to the Polish mass media. It's so amazing!! So lively and, at the same time, difficult!

There are so much diversity in the world! Every one of us could enumerate me other three or four dances or genres that inspire you... From India, China, Denmark, Hungary, wherever... Conclusion? Our lifes are too short to discover everything :)

Some pages to recommend

Hi, everyone!

Today I would like to share with you some web pages which talk about Polish culture and language and they are addressed to Spanish speakers. I found them in differents periods, when somebody asked me about details I didn't know or about a site where they could learn Polish, also with recordings, they are quite important at the beggining. Let's start! They are four.

1. The first one is AmaPola which in Spanish means poppy. But the name has also other hidden meaning. The first part, Ama, can mean to love (he/she loves, an order or incentive: Love!). The second part, Pola, can be a abbreviation of polaco, Polish or of Polonia (we omit 'oni'). So together it's like an invitation: Love Poland/Polish! AmaPola is a project of Polish people who live in Mexico. They spread our culture, informe about events connected with Poland and Polish there, first of all in Mexico City. If I'm not confused, they collaborate with the Embassy of Poland in Mexico City. They organize also language courses, cooking workshops and others.

http://amapolamexico.blogspot.mx/

2. One of my favorite is the site Habla Polaco (Speak Polish). There you will find 35 lessons with recordings. Some of my friends learned a lot already with the materials of this page. It's for this reason that I recommend it very much. The pdf archives are professionally prepared, the students count too with an introduction which consists of pronunciation rules of Polish letters and groups of letter.

http://www.hablapolaco.eu/

3. The worst one maybe is Polaco.net. In my opinion is an unprofessional project with some curiosities and basic data about Polish grammar, literature, dialects, history, sign language and jargon.

http://www.polaco.net/

4. The last page is a blog. It's an excellent source of Polish grammar. Aspects like adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbials, pronouns and articles are described there. One of the hardest to learn, the cases, are there too. The truth is... That sometimes I peek at it too, I never remember the order :D

 http://saberpolaco.blogspot.com/

Soon I will put the links also in the right part of the blog, maybe they will useful for somebody :) Have a nice Wednesday!

Let's know Poland and Polish for the WYD Cracow 2016

First of all, I want to tell you I got a message from my new carrer's dean's office with some info about the first meet. It will be the 28 and 29 of March. I knew it would be like that, but... It astonished me that the classes take up a whole day! Saturday they last from 8.30 a.m. until 19.15 p.m.! With some rests of 15 minutes... Great :D The names of the subjects are also interesting for me. I don't know if I'm able to translate them well. Polish language among languages of the world. Grammatical system od Polish language against the background comparative. The icons of the Polish culture - literature. For me, it sounds great, really! :D

The official logo of the WYD Cracow 20216

And now, let me talk you something about an activity which maybe pushed me into thinking about the career I just start. In July of 2013, in Rio de Janeiro, the pope Francis said to youth of all the world that the next World Youth Day, in 2016, would take place in Cracow, Poland. You can imagine how much it made me happy! My country will be flooded by believer of different continents showing theirs faith, being testimony that God is love, that Jesus Crist rised from the dead for me, for you, and we can go ahead despite your sins, because he had overcame all the sins before we commited them.

For this reason, with some friends we decided to prepare a blog in different languages where we describe Poland, our language, traditions, gastronomy, patrons saints. The main objetive was to help to the pilgrims to know the culture of Poland and give them some instructions of what to do, how is more easy to organize themselves here during the event. The fruit of our early involvement is this site: 

www.wyd2016-polska.blogspot.com

You can find it also in the right part of this blog. Actually, I said "early involvement", because now we don't have time to still write there. My last post is from the end of August od 2014... It was like a flash in the pan. I really would like to publish more texts (I'm responsable for the version in Spanish, of course), but I have got too much duties at the university, in my job... I just hope the posts already published will be of use for somebody :) It was a nice experience, we colaborated in group, we invited other people to write and we promoted the blog in other pages and in Facebook. In this way I knew foreigners from Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and other countries of my interest. Nowadays we exchange opinions, know ourselves more and more, and, of course, we wait together for the WYD. We hope meet in Cracow! :) This project teached me that all the good you give, will come back with double power! :) From the people I knew I got more that I gave (it was especially thetime necessary to write). I recommend you to do something that nobody demand you. You will see it's fantastic :)

A new folk adventure

I'm disappointed with myself. After Cristmas I went only one time to the dance class and I saw that I had already backlog. I didn't know the new steps... And, as I hadn't other dance experience before, I didn't know mobilize me, convince that it was nothing, that I could catch up. I gave up...

Happily, there is a new opportunity for me to still have a contact with Polish culture, folk culture too. As you remember, I study Spanish philology and I love my studies, belive me. However, always when I talk with my latin and Spanish friends I realize that they know a lot about their culture and that I don't know answer their questions about my country and my language. At the University I read and learn all the time about Hispanic world. I consider myself a person who is very involved in the classes, so in the house I spend my time in talk in Spanish, know more facts, dates, curiosities in the field of my interests. And when is the time to know my own culture?

For this reason I decided to start a postgraduate studies in teaching Polish to foreigners at the same University, but in other department (how you can guess, it's the Department of Polish and Classic Philology). The inconvenience is that I should pay for every semester... But I don't care about it. Fortunately, I have a job and my parents don't have to pay it instead of me, I always knew I didn't want they to help me in it. I'm sure it will be an awesome adventure. On the one hand, I can explore the Polish grammar, learn how to teach it (many people ask me to teach them, but I have no bases to do it, it is not enough to be a native) and on the other hand, I will have classes of Polish literature, folk dances, maybe history... All the subjects I think I neglected a little bit in the high school.

I know I want to teach Polish to foreigners for many years and finally me dream come true!!! :) The first class will be in the last weekend of March. After, the group will meet every two weekends.

Other folk adventure starts!! :)

How different people treat folk

When I started to assist folk dance clases, my friends was looking at me surprised and almost...  shocked, I could say. I can understand it because nowadays it's more popular to go to the zumba classes or to a hip-hop dance course. I remember that some years ago the dance was very in fashion. In the television appeared programmes like You can dance or Dancing with the stars and movies, international and Polish productions about dance: Kochaj i tańcz (Love and dance), Step up (1,2) or Take the Lead. Sure, any of these movies and programmes support of promote folk dance. Ok, tango from Take the Lead can be considered folk dance, it's connected with the Argentine identity, but in general, the idea is to give the chance to the dancers that practisise jazz or another modern form of dance.

In this context, you can aware that folk dance is consider pretty old-fashioned, especially in the developed countries. It's only a minority that consists of freaky people who love what they do and at the same time they cultivate national culture that step by step... Is disappearing.

On the other hand there are countries where folk is just breathing with the air. I'm sure you have everybody an image of Cuba, Mexico or Brasil. In general, latinamerican countries are more willing to be near to the tradition and theirs roots. And it's for this reason that samba or salsa are so famous. They are also folk dances, but they are cultivated so they neither needed promotion. It's sufficient to go there and see that people live dancing their own, local dance, try to learn it and take it to your country. Undoubdetly, it was the factor that helped spread of salsa, samba and rhytms like bachata from Dominican Republic.

In my huble opinion, if Polish oberek or krakowiak were danced with the frequency of disco polo or other typical genres from a Polish disco, musically speaking we would conquer other continents!

Polish folk dances map

Today I would like to share with you a map that a colombian friend sent me. I was quite surprised when I saw there are so variety of our Polish dances! And that I know only few... Krakowiak, polonez, kujawiak, oberek... 

There are something I want to comment. I don't know where should I place all the polka's we learn! We have polka of Nowy Sącz, Rzeszów or Lublin and a ten or more other: polka dzwon (polka bell), polka kucana (squated polka) can be examples of that. In the case of polka from Lublin, it may be in included in Lubelskie tańce ludowe (Lublin's folk dances). It seems that the region is pretty important when we talk about dances, not only in Colombia, but in Poland too.

I really invite you to watch the videos that offers the map. You can find them when you click in one of the white points. The most spectacular one is  zbójnicki, where the men jump with, I don't know, a type of axe, I think, called ciupaga. I recommend you also the video of kujawiak. The group that show it, Mazowsze, is one of the most popular in Poland. And of course polonez... In the middle of the map, in the letter O, there are other point with one of the most beautiful scene of the movie Pan Tadeusz.

I hope you enjoyed :)

Christmas tram

 

Can you see the photo? Now, imagine that I would be there... But it wasn't possible. The 14th of December Zespół Tańca Ludowego "Poznań" participated in a Christmas event called Świąteczna Bimba. During all the day the dancers... No, they didn't dance! They song carols in a special tram that circuled by the town. In folk suits, with the accompaniment of musicians who played the violin and the accordion, they introduced a Christmas atmosphere.

The most sad is that I couldn't go with them... Because of the cold! I couldn't belive that few days before I catch the flu... I recently started my new job of Spanish teacher, so probably the children infected me... Nice beginning! - I thought. Trust me, I was really excited about put me the folk suit... One week before I could choose one of many suits there are in the storeroom of the group. I felt in love, if I can express it in this way, with the suit typical of the region of Łowicz. It's so colourful! Look! Isn't it just beautiful!? The exemplary I choosed in the majority were red.

It could be my first possibility to put it, paint my lips sharp red and feel like a professional... But it turned out that it wasn't my time. I have moments when I think that it was my last opportunity, because nowadays I find it very difficult to go to the class because of the exams. For this reason I don't learn new steps, I retreat and I fancy less and less return to the class when I know I won't be able to dance everything like before... But at the same time I don't want to lose it, finish my adventure... Noo, it's impossible! I leaved my heart in the red suit I tried on! :) :) :) :)