A couple days ago a couple appeared. A young couple, an Israeli and an Englishwoman. They both play Irish music and the Israeli talks with a very Irish accent. They have been travelling without a fixed home for something like 6 years. She has come here to study flamenco. They met a girl from Vancouver in Turkey, who previously lived in Jerez. They are staying with us till they find a place.

I have been working a little bit in David's shop. He and Carmen are very generous people.
It is such a romantic type of place to be - a luthier's shop - with violins old an new (currently being constructed). He's making a viola right now, and stops to explain what he's doing. The other day I watched him re-hair a bow. He even explained about the type of horses they get the hair from - they are not just any old horses. They live in a northern climate and eat a special diet. You have to get the hairs to all line up and not cross over each other. Then you wet them (well you comb them, while wet). When they are stuck in the ends, and they start drying, some of them seem looser than others. That is because some are more stretchy than others. They all have to be equally tensed when the bow is tightened. He took a lighter and held it under the wet hairs and the ones that were looser tightened up.

I am learning to sharpen knives. David has let me use his stones, and I ordered some along with some other supplies he got from Germany, from an instrument maker's tool supplier.

The shop has a skeleton key that closes the door. It is on the ground floor of the house. Immediately outside the door is the interior patio that is open to the sky, like normal Andalucian houses. There are some plants in pots there.

Gordo or Gorda, depending on whether you are a man or woman ("fatty") is a term of endearment in Spanish. You significant other or your pet is called Gordo/a regardless of whether they are actually fat. They may be skinny as a rail, but they can still be called "fatty". It is like saying "sweety" or "honey". They also have "dear", which would be cariño (there is only one form, no masculine/feminine for this one). People might answer the phone "Hi, fatso, how are you, dear?" Or, "oh, come here my fatty".

I have been practicing Alegrias, (out of the most well known flamenco forms, the only one in a major key). It is quick and happy. I have been working a guitarist friend, who is learning to accompany dance. It is a lot of fun and a big challenge. It is one thing to practice the same footwork over and over without music and get it really fast, but another thing entirely to make sure it actually works and fits with the music, which is not simply a 4/4 beat, but a complicated 12/8 (three twos and two threes).

The other day we were fortunate enough to have Maria join us. Maria appeared a while ago in Jerez. She is an aspiring professional singer, from Dos Hermanas, the place just south of Sevilla that saved me from missing my international flight (trains split off there to go either to Cadiz or Malaga). Maria is in her 30s and used to work in a gas station in a nice stable job, that most people would be happy to have in this economic crisis with 40% unemployment. She quit it to sing flamenco. This is not so unusual for spoilt North Americans who have the idea that they can do anything they decide they want to do. But for the Spanish, for whom life and the economy have always been more difficult than for us with the American Dream, I'd say it takes way more guts. Anyways, despite her father being an excellent flamenco singer, her parents think she's crazy. She took off for Italy with 10€ in her backpack and just knocked on doors of dance classes asking if they needed singers. She ended up with a gig singing for 400 people, and was interviewed by some kind of media, which asked her how long she had been singing for. She sounds like somebody who has grown up with it (which is true), however, this is overused to get people recognition. Foreigners and Spanish alike love to hear that a good flamenco singer has been steeped in is from the cradle, with famous flamenco people of olden times hanging out at house parties. She told them she had been singing for 3 days and used to work in a gas station, which was more or less true (she had only been attempting to sing properly for that long). It doesn't sound very impressive but she wants to get by strictly on the merit of her singing.

This morning at 7:30 am I rode my bike out to Hipercor (Hyper-cor) which is half an hour away and where a lot of my students live. I have a class with Encarni, a woman whose son lives in Toronto and wants to be able to communicate with her daughter-in-law's family and generally survive in Canada. She is an esthetician and a personal image consultant. She is a lively character who seems to have a busy mind. Her and her husband seem to have a lively and happy life. Both mornings so far, they have offered me fresh made juice after the class, while her clients are arriving for facial or other bodily treatments. Her husband is in his 70s, about 15 years older than her, and a very lovely gentleman, who insisted on bringing my bike into the apartment and then locking it in the electricity room, afraid that it would get stolen outside.

In the dark this morning, with stars still out, I looked up at a huge palm tree and felt like I was in a foreign place (which I am, of course) - I felt out of place. But the sky was completely blue when I finished class at 9:30, and as I rode back it felt amazing to ride past myriads of oranges on the trees lining the roads and scattered on the ground. When I got back home, I decided to check if Pepe was in the bar below our house. He told me he eats there every morning, but so far has been reluctant to call me in the morning. Today I went in and had a coffee and met his friend Paco and a woman my age called Maria, a flamenco singer. The bar is narrow and everybody squishes in there. It is outfitted in a modern way, without any nice old fashioned plaster or wood. It seems to be frequented by several flamenco people, as I've seen Paco Cepero there before too. The bar tender says as he pours more milk into someone's coffee "this blonde here, it's her birthday", and everyone in the bar claps. People bump into each other with plates of jamon on toast and in general talk across tables.

The other day Carmen explained the naming system in Spain. Anyone of her or my age or older (born during Franco's era) normally has Maria as their first name, if they are a woman. Priests in small towns would not allow people to be christened (which is when their name would be officially, legally recorded) unless Maria was their first name. So literally almost every woman is Maria something, often shortened to Mari (emphasis on the first syllable "Ma" MA-ree). Men were normally called Juan, Jose or one of only a few other names, followed by another name to distinguish them from the other Juans and Joses (Johns and Josephs). In fact, you were not legally allowed to name a child anything that wasn't in a list of saints names. David's grandfather was allowed to name his mother Lisabet (like Elisabeth), which was very unusual and frowned upon because it stank of foreign influence, only because the priest eventually found it in the book of saints names. Sometimes, if country bumpkins had a lot of kids, they would get tired of thinking of a new name (the second name, or first name, if it was a man). In this case, when the priest saw that another child was already called Juan, he would force the parent to think of another name for the next child. Previously, there had been families full of children all named Juan. At times, if the parent wanted to call the child the same name, or one that was prohibited (for example, in Basque country during Franco, you could not name your child a Basque name) the priest would choose a name for your child. A friend of Carmen's is called Isabel. Her mother wanted to call her something non-Castillian (something Basque), and went to christen her child with this name. The priest said no, this name is not allowed. You have to choose something else. Since he was there waiting with the water to splash over the child's head, the parent had to decide on the spot, and so the priest just chose the name he felt like.

I have met various men called Juanma or Josema, JuanLu, JuanJo ("wan-ho"), JuanPe or JuanFra. They would be Juan Manuel, Jose Manuel, Juan Jose, Juan Pedro, or Juan Fransisco.

I told Carmen some typical English names and she thought they were all really great. She was not familiar with Dorothy, Wendy, Kimberlee, Jill, Margaret, though she knew Jane and really liked it. She said Spanish people her age all know the names Peter and Mary, because they learned those names in children's books in English.

We have just finished the last of the three roadkill pheasants brought in Geoffrey's backpack on the plane from London (along with a huge bag of flour from Ireland). They were very fresh ... better than the last one bought at a supermarket, wrapped in plastic and turning green after unexpected delays in Seville.

For the first several days after he got back, there were feathers on the floor, clogging the kitchen sink, and stuck to a couple of items. I have to keep a close eye on the kitchen, or the things in it, after he cleans things like this, or fish. Nothing bothers him. Bits of feather (fish scales), or flesh, or blood on the counter (wooden, porous). I know by now the things I have to sterilize: the scissors, the tap handle...

We made the last one with mushrooms and chestnuts. None were up to snuff, Geoffrey says because he did not hang them. I said you could have left them on the road for longer. But hanging must be done in a clean environment, and cold. Roadkill pheasants, as long as a trained eye can tell they are fresh, may be more desireable than hunted ones, as you always have the piece of lead from the shot inside, he tells me.
The hunting season must not have started yet. He said near his friend's estate, they were all over the place.

I am very proud of my scarf he brought me from Ireland. I feel like Ireland is an exotic, far away place. Somewhere that is actually cold at this time of year... somewhere you could hang pheasants.

More death (or theath), though not of animals... algo a bit more sinister. My students find this a difficult word somehow - either the pronunciation or the conjugation or something...

A student of mine who works in a former convent, last major renovation the 16th century (it is now a school), told me that there is a "dead baby" in the wall "right here" (he raised up his left arm to show the location), in his office. Apparently the nuns had illicit relations with the priests. There were secret passageways between the cathedral and two of the convents here, at least. So it is said. An older teacher related that back in some previous decade, there was work being done, and the workers discovered it. Apparently there are numerous dead babies in the walls. The nuns had to put them somewhere.

I mentioned the story to another student and she told me without missing a beat, that this is a common story across Spain. Her aunt was having a house built (back during the Civil War). It was near a convent, or over a former convent. There was a secret passage under the ground, which when dug up, revealed skulls. The aunt, being a very Christian lady, took home one of the skulls, and prayed for the poor thing's soul.

And that is my pre-Halloween, Jerez news.

I was looking for Geoffrey in the fish market. Rushing a bit, I stopped short as somebody had slung a huge fish off a cart onto another cart and were slitting it widthwise... A guy said, "do you want a cheap octopus?" I was scanning above the crowd as usual for a whitish head. "Buy some anchovies, girl!" I am looking for a person, not a fish!

By now I should be able to ask them, "have you seen my boyfriend?" I think they probably would recognise him, and have probably seen me chasing around after him.

Here you can see part of my life - a lot of the people in my life - my teacher, people I hang out with, the guy I got a ride with to the flamenco competition, the old man who hangs out at the peña on Friday afternoon. Jesus, the manager of the peña, one of the first people I spoke to in Jerez, who remembers how shy I was back in 2010. And Pepe, my 78 year old dancer friend. I think some other dancer friends are in it, but I have not watched the whole thing yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5YqwH-tyEBA#t=2650

This is a documentary made by the BBC, and goes through several Andalucian cities. The part on Jerez starts at around 43:00 minutes. Right there you can see a party with all these people I just mentioned.

Then around 46:20, there is another party and this is especially so you can see Pepe El Zorri dancing. Geoffrey and I just had him over for lunch. He is the cousin of a very famous singer, Paquera, whose birthplace is beside our house. He told us at lunch, of how he went with Paquera when he was only 23, to do shows, and about a show in Ronda, where he and Paco Cepero (very famous guitarist, who I saw in black and white videos one of the first ones I knew in flamenco - I see him walking his dog sometimes now), well they went wandering around the town, and the girls coming up to talk to them, and showed up 15 minutes after the show was supposed to start, and everybody was mad, cause Paco had to help Paquera warm up and tune the guitar and all. Paco was only 18 or 19.
Then Pepe told us that they brought Farruco to dance with them for some shows, and he had to go up and dance just a bit of a duo with Farruco (granddaddy of flamenco dancers, a legend, long dead).

Anyways, I wanted to show you all.

Here is another one, a show that just happened several friday nights ago. We werent there, cause we got up next morning early to go to Extremadura. This is a great one of Pepe El Zorri dancing. He comes up near the beginning.

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

Jose Mendez, Pepe's nephew whom he travels and dances with a lot, sings at the beginning and then Luis El Zambo sings near the end.

My phone rung at 4:30 am. I picked up but missed her. It was Sachiko. I have so little money I never want to make calls, only text messages. I thought, perhaps something has happened, perhaps it's an emergency.

I should have guessed it was only a juerga. Come! she says, I'm in Jerez at Luis de la Pica with Luis!

Getting my bike out the door at 5 am, I told myself to just pretend I had to catch a plane or something.

Anyways, it was a happening juerga. Sachiko and another Japanese dancer/singer student of Luis's, had gone from Seville with him to El Puerto de Santa Maria (next town over, on the coast) for a festival and all the artists had headed back to the peña here in Santiago after.
It was full of flamencos, many of whom I didn't recognise, obviously some from Seville, one guy said there were a few from Algeciras...

It is hard not to feel like such an outsider in these events. Sachiko doesn't seem to suffer from the same feelings. Partly because she is just a less neurotic person than me, and perhaps maybe a small amount because she is Japanese. The Japanese have a lot of recognition here for their very great "aficion" (aficionados). Their serious interest and often greater knowledge than those from elsewhere (and sometimes I think the fact that they are not white) usually means they are received well.

Anyways, a huge group of people gathers spontaneously, leaving a space in the middle for whoever gets struck with the desire to sing the next letra or dance a bit. The group breaks up at some points, someone continues singing at the side of the bar with a few others doing palmas, then another big circle gathers farther over.

Being from Seville, Sachiko does not see as many fiestas like these as I do, which are not merely stocked with professional musicians, but a crowd of normal gitanos whose life involves flamenco, just being in their veins. This was a particularly good one.

Both the girls danced, something which I don't dare to do yet among such a group of pros and others who have it in their blood. Maybe at the peñas closer to home, soon, where I know more people. When Luis and the two girls had to get a taxi around 7:00, the ladies, who had been almost inactive until later on, almost wouldn't let them leave and insisted that Sachiko dance with one of the them in the middle of the current circle.

I desperately need to change the name of this blog, but I am just too busy to do it and to think of a name and all.

This afternoon was the kind of thing money can't buy.

It was Pepe's birthday. I called to wish him Feliz Cumpleaños and ask what he was up to. He is turning 78, and has recently lost his wife, so is quite alone. Some of the foreign chicas have taken it upon ourselves to look after him a bit, at least as far as going out for coffee or a walk. Pepe always is dressed very fashionably. He loves red loafers and will wear a red checkered shirt, or on special occasions, red pants. He's one of the few older men I pretty much trust. 90% of them are liable to get sleazy but not him, thank goodness. Since he comes from a family of people who sing and dance, it is natural to him and all the important flamenco people know and love him. His cousin was the very famous Paquera, whose place of birth is beside Geoffrey's house. If another flamenco is nearby and starts to sing, or keep time for a couple seconds with palmas, Pepe is liable to suddenly burst out with a brief couple of stamps of the feet that sound like music - one or two syncopated beats. Not just anyone that has musical ability can just up and do this. Those that have lived this all their life, have it burst out of them all of a sudden just standing there. It's more than a matter of simply having rhythm and being on time - there is a security in the quality of the sound, whether it is palmas (clapping) or feet, and a lack of effort in the person's attitude and demeanour. People like Pepe for whom it's natural, also do some amusing or characterful gestures at the same time, just a simple shrug of the shoulders at the right moment, a certain look on their face, and an eruption of "Ah...aaah, ...  A - sza!" accenting the rhythm.

Anyways, he said, "Are you coming?" I didn't even know what was going on, but obviously a party was already under way. So I went across through Barrio Santiago and over to the Bar Pulga (Bar Flea) which has written "Tio (Uncle) Gregorio Parilla" on the Cruzcampo sign at the side (like one of those round, plastic Coca Cola signs, except it's beer).

Several of the French student gang were there, along with a couple of men from the Peña Buleria, and Luis de la Tota (a maestro of rhythm with character) and his wife and little son, and Junquerita, our singer for our dance classes. Parrilla's daughter, Rocio, a young and beautiful flamenco singer, and her Mexican boyfriend were also there. Everyone was having rebujitos and paella made with noodles (a proper dish from a certain northern city), then plates of deep fried anchovies and rounds of some other fish.

Then Darian the Mexican guy started playing and Pepe (who's name is El Zorri - the baggage cart, or something to that effect) started singing. He is famed as a dancer but sings very well too. The two gentlemen from the peña sang, and Junquerita. Luis's year old son already imitates some of the most prominent things in his young life (putting his hands together, and raising them up in the air, as well as grabbing his shirt the way the men do, jokingly imitating the women dancing with their skirts). El Gasolina, as I believe his name to be, is an excellent singer. I don't know how long it went on as I had to leave, but I prefer these gatherings over any concert on any stage.

This is top notch flamenco. Jose 'Mijita' (little bit) Carpio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1TXcvKYmiTk#at=501

This is a show that I saw about 3 weeks ago. Jose is a fantastic singer and it was an excellent show. He is young and still improving but for me there is little better. I have the great fortune to hear him relatively often, as he is connected to the Peña Cernicalos and sings for Carmen, does shows nearby.

Listen to the audience. After he says "Cien años después de muerto, y los gusanos mi cuerpo comio" they all yell, and someone says "¡Ole, Bien!" He has just said, "100 years after I die and the worms have eaten me..."


Today I had an interesting lesson, during my English class with Pilar, a normal Barrio San Miguel girl. (Nobody from the Barrio of San Miguel is "normal" to me. They are all a little bit - more like a lot - special). Pilar doesn't have a particular interest in flamenco, but her cousin runs the Peña buleria which is my hospital of the soul. Her mother is Dolores Agujetas' mother's cousin or something like that, and she's related as well to another famous singer La Macanita, and guitarist Domingo Rubichi. She explains that she doesn't like solitude. She was brought up in a big family and she needs people around. She says, watching a movie alone is not the same as watching with people. For example, if you are watching a comedy you laugh a lot more when the other people around you are laughing too. Same if you see a football game alone as opposed to with people. I think this point is partly obvious, but you can't really understand it, unless you have seen life in a place like this. The extent to which they express themselves when in groups is just so much greater. In a particularly moving flamenco concert, as you hear the constant yelling of encouragement while the music is happening. At a football game they far outdo anything at home, despite the fact that Canadians also occasionally go crazy for major sports events. She says, your body needs to express itself. I think in Canada, your body is used to being farther away from people, so you don't have the same feeling.

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After the class I went to the market. At the fig, nut and bean stall after giving me my half kilo of dates, the guy (whom I know to say hello to) has a pained look on his face. He says "your eyes make a person fall in love", I say thank you and he says "thank you for coming here" in a tone that feels like "thank you for gracing my stall with your presence," and continues with a pained and dramatic lovelorn look. If one were to associate the qualities of his dates with aspects of himself, one might also fall in love. He usually gives me free samples of other things and today poured a handful of the most luscious raisins into my hand.
It's summer time and the Jerezanos don't act a lot different from the other Mediterraneans who I had the special fortune of knowing in grade 2 and up. In fact, one thing that can be said about them is they seem to be very consistent, not changing much as they grow up. Just the other day I was forcibly kissed on the mouth, which has happened about 4 or 5 times during my entire time in Jerez. At least there was pleasant conversation first this time. I'm not sure if the person really meant to do that as he will have to face me in the future.