Wednesday, February 16, 2011

My Day In The Olive Oil Fields


Ever wondered where that rich tasting olive oil came from?  You know, the kind your dip you bread in at an Italian restaurant and hope to find something of equal quality at the grocery store?

Here in Spain, olive oil is just as common in the household as milk and eggs are in the United States.  Pretty much every Spanish dish contains olive oil—whether used as a topping on toast or an ingredient in pasta—with an accompanying aceitera (oil bottle) always within hands reach.   This is all with good reason: Spain is the world’s biggest exporter of olive oil.  In addition, and just recently, the Mediterranean diet (which includes olive oil) was moved to “UNESCO status” and placed on its world heritage list.

But where does it come from?   What follows is my day working in the olive oil fields, explained in pictures, in Jaen, Spain. 

It was around 8 in the morning and 32 degrees outside.  We're on our way to the field.

  

About to park and start working.  The olives on the mat are from the previous day's work. 
 

Putting together the tool that shakes the branches of the olive tree so the olives fall off.  It looks like a weed wacker with a different end. 


Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Posts Line Up

Get ready, my post-Valentine's Day posts will include:

--Working in the olive oil fields
--Spanish wedding

I will tell the story in pictures with a minimal amount of writing.  In the meantime, enjoy El Barrio (the song is called Pa Madrid). 

Monday, February 7, 2011

About Blogging

It's been a little light lately as I've been playing tour-guide for my friend who is visiting from Madrid.  Before I put something of substance up, enjoy this early morning link to a website on the top 10 Spanish swear words

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Andalusia And Accents

One of the coolest things I’ve experienced in Spain thus far has been my ability to differentiate between the scores of Spanish accents spoken.  Not only do the autonomous communities speak different from each other, like the north of the US compared to the south, but the provinces that make them up each claim that they have the most beautiful accent.  The biggest variation I’ve experienced has been in AndalucĂ­a. 

Spain’s southern region is what I know best.  The accent, Andaluz, is famous in Spain.  It is harsh, hard to understand and has been called “uneducated.”  In addition, the constant “eating” of words leaves many foreigners and Spaniards alike confused.  My host family in Santander once told me that they don’t speak nor understand Andaluz.  The biggest advantage of learning it, however, is best stated by those who live there: once you speak it, you will understand all the Spanish dialects. 

The most common features of Andaluz are the “s” and “j” that don’t exist in the pronunciation.  In addition, “eating” the last half of the word must be healthy for the body because everyone seems to do it here.  As a foreigner living in Sevilla—one of Andalusia’s eight provinces—this can be a bit tough to understand at times.  On the other hand Andaluz can be easy to speak.  Why?  Well, all you have to do is eat your words and not pronounce the “j” and “s” and you’ll be on your way to Andalusian perfection; quite the opposite of what I learned in Spanish class. 

People from AndalucĂ­a love to combine words also, if eating and not pronouncing them weren’t enough.  For example, pues no (well, no) is combined to form ponoPara el coche (let's hit the road) becomes pal coche while the word todo (all) can pretty much be added to anything, such as tobien (todo bien, all good).  To add more fuel to the fire, Andalusians like to omit words from the sentence.  The words te he dicho (I’ve told you) are never said like the way they are read.  The “he” is taken out to form te dicho.  In addition and apart from the non-pronunciation of “j” and “s,” past participles that end in ado and ido are changed as well.  The “d” in ado and ido is thrown out the window to form ao (pronounced “ow” in English) and io.  Examples include hablao from the past participle hablado and pedio from the participle pedido.  These certainly aren't the only exceptions, as the words nada and todo commonly lose the their last two letters, becoming to (pronounced "toe") and na (nah)Put this all together and you have one crazy dialect. 

On top of all this, the Andalusian lingo seems to get weirder, especially in Sevilla.  In the Andalusian capital, there are four accents that I usually here on the street.  The first is the “general” Andaluz, characterized by the normal diet of words eaten, lack of pronunciation and Spain’s famous “th” sounding “z” (thervetha).  The second, third and fourth all have characteristics of the first accent but begin to branch off with the letters “z,” “ch” and “s,” respectively.

In the second, the “z” is uttered as an “s” sound (servesa), a sharp break from typical Spain Spanish.  In a certain sense, due to the lack of the “th” sound, it’s similar to Latin American Spanish.   In this type, the “s” sounding “z” prevails and the “th” sounding “z” seems to fade away.  What’s lost in the latter is quickly made up for with the third type of accent: the “sh” sounding “ch”. 

Keep in mind that the “sh” sound, or more clearly the “sh” as written, is not supposed to exist in Spanish.  The usual way of pronouncing “ch” in Spanish is equivalent to its English counterpart, but not in some areas of southern Spain.  Just as they say English is the language of exceptions, I say Andaluz is the exception of Spanish.  In the third type, the “ch” in derecho (law) now becomes “sh,” which is pronounced as deresho.  The same goes for the word chico: shico.  Where the second type seems to “lose” some of their Spanish accent—by not pronouncing the “z” as “th”—the fourth seems to overcompensate. In this type, the “s,” just like the “z”, is pronounced as a “th.”  Some examples include cosa (thing) which, as characteristic of this type, is articulated as cotha. 

There certainly are many variations to the four accents I’ve listed above.  In fact, some natives use a combination of the four to create their own.  Consequently, words can be created among natives of a certain village that people from the bordering towns may not know.  You can read about this in a book, or try to understand what I wrote in the post, but the ultimate way of fully grasping the concept is immersion in another country. 

This might be a tough read if you don't know spanish, just to let you know.