This past Saturday I woke up pretty late and went on the “Auxiliars de les Illes Balears” group on Facebook and saw that one of the assistants from the US who is part of a “Castellers” group invited everyone to come watch him and the Palma team he is on perform with two other groups in the city of Manacor in the eastern part of the island. I sent some text messages around to see if anyone wanted to join me. Only Alyssa, from Chicago, responded that she would be interested in coming to watch with me. We headed to the Estació Intermodal (the main train, bus, metro station of Palma) and bought tickets to go to Manacor. We ended up going down to the platform 45 minutes earlier than we had to and since you can’t get back trough without making your ticket invalid we were stuck down there until the train arrived to take us to the other end of the line, to Manacor.

The train ride was nice and we arrived in Manacor after an hour and ten minutes of train. We made our way to the center of town as that is where the cathedral was located and where the directions told us to go. After asking a few people how to get there we made it to the Plaza where the “actualizacions” or performances were taking place. We saw the other auxiliar (assistant) Joel who was part of the Casteller team of Palma.

Click here or on the photo to see a larger version and description

Castell is the Catalan word for “Castle” and Casteller is the word for a person who takes part in forming ‘human castles’. This tradition of building human castles or towers started in the town of Valls near the end of the 18th century. The typical attire of a Casteller is white pants, a black sash called “faixa”, a colored shirt, and a bandana. The sash which is black, varies in length depending on where one is in the Castell. It wound tightly around the mid area to offer support to the back for those on the bottom and also as a place for climbers to grab onto as a handhold or a foothold as they climb up the tower. The bandanas are also used around the wrists of those on the bottom to offer support and tied around legs, chests, stomachs, and other parts of the body for foot and hand holds for the climbers.  The Casteller’s motto is “Força, equilibri, valor i seny”, which means Strength, balance, courage and reason.

There are different types of Castells and they are named by the number of people who make up each level and the number of levels. Some of the largest towers have been Tres de nou(three by nine) and Tres de deu (three by ten). Many of the Castells that we saw this weekend were Cinc de cinc (five by five) and Cinc de ses (five by six). The bottom level, which is just a large group of people supporting the Castell, is called the ‘Pinya’.  The top most Castellers are usually young children and they are called “enxaneta”.

It was really really cool to see this for the first time in real life. I’ve seen it on television and it was so much better in real life. I’d really like to see a huge actualizació in Barcelona sometime! There was this one group from Barcelona that did this one Castell where they built it from the bottom. The top two levels got up on the “Pinya” and then it was built from the bottom meaning that you saw the top levels rise up until there were 5 levels. Once all 5 levels were built the “enxaneta” raises his/her hand and they begin to dismantle the Castell. A Castell is not complete unless it is succesfully built and dismantled without it falling apart. Below is a video and some photos of different Castells that I saw this past weekend.

Click here or the photo to see a larger version with a caption

Click here or on the photo to see a larger version and a description

Click here to see a larger version and description

Click the photo below to watch a video I took!

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Alyssa and I had planned to go back to Palma and cook dinner and make our way to Bluesville, a cafe where a live band plays. We ended up going over to another assistant’s house to have pizza with other assistants. We finally made our way out to Bluesville and by the time we got our drinks the band had stopped playing. I’ve decided that I hate crowded bars and clubs and I enjoy hanging out and talking, than going to a place where I can’t even hear myself speak.

This post is stored in the category of Contains Images, Contains Video(s), Made in Spain, Personal Post, Written in Catalan and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Auxiliars de les Illes Balears, Bluesville, Castell, Casteller, enxaneta, faixa, Made in Spain, Mallorca, Manacor, Palma, Pinya, Valls

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I’ve been so busy thinking about going home and trying to get the most out of being here in France these last days that I’ve forgotten to give updates on my plans for next year. As many of you know (if you have been following my blog), I applied to teach English in Spain next year and was placed in my third choice location, the Balearic Islands. Last week I called my parents to see if they had received the letter I need to apply for my visa, which would also tell me where I would be teaching (i.e. tell me which island I would be on). My dad said an attempted delivery had been made as it was registered but he wasn’t sure it was my letter and thought it might be something my mom was expecting to be delivered. When I called the next day, my dad informed me that it was in fact my letter from Spain. The annoying part is that I’m in France and my parents don’t speak Spanish. Dad was too busy to scan the letter to let me read it and told me I could read it when I got home. I was too anxious to know where I was so I coached my dad into telling me what the letter(s) said. We were finally able to find the part where it told me where I’d be teaching. I was placed on the largest island, Mallorca or as we spell it in English, Majorca. I’ve been given two schools located in two different cities about 20 km apart!

The first school is located in/near Campos, Mallorca:

Centro Educativo 1: IES Damià Huguet
Direccion: Cami del Ravellar, Finca na Llarga 07630 Mallorca
Telefono +34971160085 Mail: iesdamiahuguet@educacio.caib.es
Pagina WEB: www.iesdamiahuguet.net

The second school is located in S’Alqueria Blanca, Mallorca:

Centro Educativo 2 CP Ntra. Sra. Consolacio
Direccion C. del Convent, 13 / 07691 S’Alqueria Balanca/ Mallorca
Telefono +34971654143 Mail cpmarededeudelaconsolacio@educacio.caib.es

Click on the blue balloons on the map to get more information!

View Where Derron will be living in Spain! in a larger map

After doing some research, I fount out that the city of Campos is in the municipality or region of Campos. The region itself has about 8,000 people and the city has about 3,000-4,000 people. The city of S’Alqueria Blanca as around 900 people and is located in the municipality of Santanyí.

When I first saw where I was going I really struggled with the idea. I didn’t know that I had the second school and thought I only had the school in Campos. I considered living in Palma and commuting to Campos (38km) by bus on the days I would have to teach. By having the other school in S’Alqueria Blanca, which is 51km from Palma, it would make it almost impossible to live in Palma. I’ve decided that since the bus schedule to Palma from Campos is pretty good on the weekends, I’ll just try to live in Campos and hopefully I’ll be able to get a scooter and use that to get around in my region and area.

My Ohio license will work in Spain for the first three months and then I’d have to get a Spanish license, which costs about €1,500! I figure that if I ever did get pulled over or asked, the police are not going to know that my license isn’t valid longer than 3 months. The only problem is how much the insurance will be. I’m going to have to look into that once I get there!

You can see the Wikipedia entries for the cities (or their regions actually) by clicking on the city names: Campos & S’Alqueria Blanca

This post is stored in the category of Contains Images, Contains Interactive Map, Contains Links, Made in France, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Balearic Islands, Campos, Driver's License, ESL, Made in Spain, Majorca, Palma, S'Alqueria Blanca, Santanyí, Teaching, Teaching in Spain, Travel

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