Arreplegats!

Hola a tothom,

Things have been starting to feel a lot more normal around here recently, which is nice - I'm busy, but I have a regular schedule (it took long enough!). I spend a lot of time in transit around the city and out to UAB, but that's OK, largely because a). the UAB decided to pay for my metro tickets, so I now have a monthly pass, and b). I finally got a bike on Wednesday! I got it through bicicampus, the program I wrote about earlier. It was so exciting! It's kind of challenging to find the best routes around the city on bike, because a lot of streets are one-way and/or, as happened to me yesterday, have huge demonstrations randomly occurring on them and blocking all traffic, but I'm still able to get places much more quickly, which is awesome. Plus, it's really fun to be able to ride a bike again! I have really missed it all summer.

OK, here's my big news of the week (although most people who read this blog probably already know it): I've joined a group of castellers! Yes, the crazy people who climb on top of each other and make human towers - there's a picture of them in an earlier post! The group (in Catalan it's called a "colla") is called Arreplegats de la Zona Universitària. "Arreplegat" basically means "piled up," so I guess I'm part of the pile! Normally, the colles are from specific neighborhoods or towns, and include a wide variety of age groups, including little kids who climb up to the top because they're the lightest. My colla is a bit unorthodox because it's entirely made up of people associated with the universities in Barcelona (any of them) - students, faculty, etc. Because we don't have young children, our towers are heavier and tend to be shorter, so we don't really compete against the other groups as much. I'm glad, though, because it lets people like me who have no idea what they're doing participate! All of this came about because of an event I went to last Saturday called "Català means feeling!" (so corny, I know) designed to promote Catalan language and culture for foreign students. I went on a tour of the Casa Amatller, a modernist house, then went to the Universitat Ramon Llull, where there was food, music, a wine tasting, an attempt at organizing speed dating (that was really funny to watch - I didn't participate!), and, finally, a castellers workshop. I was curious to see how it would work, and it turned out to be a small contingent of people from the group who came and did a few demonstrations, then invited people to participate. I volunteered, so I got to help with a few really small towers. Afterwards, I was talking to one of the girls in the group, and she invited me to come out to their practices! I was so thrilled.

I went to my first practice ("assaig," in Catalan) on Thursday. I got there late because I had class, and I was kind of nervous, but it was a lot of fun. The dynamic of the practice was a great mixture between barely controlled chaos and then everyone finally coming together right before they tried a tower and concentrating really hard. There were people walking around taking down everyone's names and making nametags so they could keep track of who was who, and when I said my name was Sarah, they all kind of groaned and said they would have to come up with a nickname because there were too many Sarahs. Then I didn't see the people with the nametags again for a while, and when I found them and asked if they had a name for me, they said I could just be Sarah after all, and all the other ones would have to come up with nicknames! It was still confusing, though, because they kept calling another one Sarah (or Sara), even though her nametag said Sareta.

I got to practice climbing up someone at the beginning (I still need to practice more - there's a very particular technique...), and then I spent most of the time helping form the pinya, which is the group of people at the bottom that provides support and spots for the people climbing. Quick vocab lesson on castellers: the group at the bottom is called the pinya, then the people who make up all the tiers are called the tronc (like the trunk of a tree). Then there are three specific positions that make up the top part, called the pom: the dossos, which are two people who stand on the top tier of the tronc (called dossos because there are two, or dos, of them), then the acotxador, who kind of crouches on top of them, and finally the enxaneta, who stands on the very top and waves ("fa l'aleta") to signal that the tower is complete. As I said, I was in the pinya the whole time on Thursday. Basically I would stand around and watch as the people in the tronc and pom got into position, then one of the captains, either the cap de colla or the cap de pinya, would grab me and place me somewhere, explaining quickly in Catalan whom I was supposed to support and how. I spent a lot of time holding my arms up in the air! We actually had one castell fall, which was scary, but it reassured me because we were able to catch everyone really easily and no one got hurt at all. The tactic of making a human cushion actually seems to work really well!

I think we're going to start having practices on Tuesdays as well as Thursdays, which is good because I won't have to be late on Tuesdays and that way can learn more quickly. I'm so excited to be in the colla, though - it's a lot of fun, all the people seem really friendly and welcoming, and it's a great way to practice my Catalan. If I'm ever in any big castells, I'll put up pictures! Haha, I have a lot of practicing to do before I get to that point... In case anyone is curious, here's the website of the colla (it's in Catalan, but it might be fun to look around anyway): www.arreplegats.cat.

Hope everyone is doing well - I'll try to keep you better updated!
Una abraçada,
Sarah