Pedra Basta

Back in July, I was invited to travel to the Alentejo region of Portugal with my friends Isabelle and Oscar. Little did I know what a great few days it was going to be when I decided to accompany them.

Isabelle drove us which was a real treat. I don't often get to travel by car in Portugal so that made the trip even more fun! Oscar and Gabriel followed on their motorcycles. The first day we went to Portalegre, where we stayed for one night in a beautiful former convent. The next day, Oscar had arranged for us to visit his friend Rui, who is a winemaker. We had an incredible time with Rui. First, he took us to Pedra Basta, where he produces his wines. He treated us to the best wine-tasting I've ever experienced consisting of a large variety of both red and white wines. Then, we drove to a higher elevation to see the Terrenus vineyards where a lot of the grapes are grown.

It was a fantastic day due to the company, including friends from the U.S., Portugal, Denmark, and France and the chance to see parts of Portugal I had never seen before. It was a real pleasure to spend time with Portuguese people and try out my language skills too.

Our day included an amazing lunch by the Rio (river) Sever in a town called Portagem. Looking back on that weekend, it was such great exposure to Portuguese culture in terms of the landscape, wine, food, history, language, and the wonderful people who were with us.

Now, I buy Rui's wines whenever I have the opportunity to...and feel so lucky that I got to visit Pedra Basta. By the way, "Pedra Basta" means: enough stones...and it refers to the many stones found in the land around the vineyards there.

Here is Rui's website !

Macadame !!! Meu favorito grupo !!!

I am back in Portugal for the second time ! I feel so lucky to be here again. On Sunday, I got to see Macadame, a wonderful band I saw once before in Lisbon in 2015. I find their music so interesting and beautiful to listen to. I still don't know enough Portuguese to understand the lyrics as I listen to their music...but I hope to in the future. But, it's interesting that even not understanding the words, I find listening to them so satisfying. I guess a big part of music comes across through the sounds, melodies and voices even when you can't understand the language.

Now that I have both of their CDs, I have the lyrics, so I can listen and learn Portuguese as well as enjoy the music. The first time I saw them, they had an artist who put drawings on an overhead projector while they played, adding to the ambiance and meaning of the songs. What a creative use of an OHP !

Last Sunday, I got to see them perform for the second time at a wonderful museum in Lisbon, the Gulbenkian. And, they played at the beautiful outdoor amphitheatre at noon to an audience of lots of children and their parents. It was so cute to see the kids watching, listening and dancing to the music.

It was a very special day for me not only because the concert was amazing, but because I got to meet the band after and talk to them a bit. I spoke a little bit in Portuguese....and decided I want to travel to Coimbra to see them perform in their hometown. I've been meaning to go to Coimbra so this will be a perfect chance.

Some video from You Tube

Balcony TV video

Video of "Quero-te bem"

Os Meus Vizinhos :Cooking Bacalhau da Consoada for Christmas Eve

 Living in Lisboa has been such a wonderful experience for me. I was very very lucky to have this opportunity . I'm so grateful to City College of San Francisco for granting my sabbatical to come and study Portuguese and travel in Portugal. When I first started living on Rua Marechal Saldanha, and I would come back to my building in the evening, there were usually these same three men standing outside my door drinking beer. In fact, they were usually leaning against my door....so I had to say "desculpe"  (excuse me) to go in or come out of my building at a certain time in the evening. Usually, I wouldn't say very much to them. I would just quickly enter or exit and maybe say "olá " (hello)....after a while we would say "tudo bem " (how are you/ is everything good ) but I always felt too shy to strike up a conversation so we just had these quick hello and goodbyes. I think I also was a little bit disapproving of guys leaning against my door drinking. 

Anyway, on December 23, I was coming home, and one of them said something like : "amanhã e o noite de bacalhau " (tomorrow is the night of cod fish). He told me that because it was Christmas Eve, many people prepared Bacalhau and that I should get some. He explained how it was cooked and I said something like: vou comprar Bacalhau amanhã (I'll buy some cod tomorrow ). Then he said that Antonio, the man who runs a little grocery next to my building , has good Bacalhau and that I should buy some from him. So, I said, ok, and we both went in the market. The man, one of my drinking neighbors, had Antonio get me two pieces of Bacalhau from the freezer. Then he showed me the other vegetables I needed to buy to cook with the fish like couve (cauliflower greens) and nabo (turnip). He made Antônio cut The ends off of the couve so it would be easier for me to cook. He told  me the nabo or turnip should be cut into quarters. He explained how I should boil the carrots, potatoes , turnip, and greens first and then add the fish. So, I learned a really nice thing about Portuguese culture by talking to these guys drinking outside my door. And then it struck me that these guys are really sweet people. They wanted to help me celebrate Christmas in the correct Portuguese manner. This dish is called "Bacalhau da Consada" or Bacalhau of Consolation.


 http://www.easyportugueserecipes.com/bacalhau-de-consoada-christmas-eve-codfish/

So I started to see these guys in a different light...as ...my neighbors. I guess originally, I thought people drinking and leaning on people's doors was a questionable or bad thing. But really, there is nothing wrong with it. They are actually being social. That is their time to be together with friends and watch people walk by and be part of the community. I think it's better than going home and watching TV. It was a good lesson for me. These guys should have been my conversation partners all these months. I wasted a good opportunity to practice my Portuguese...I should have been talking to these neighbors every night ! Finally, on my last night in Lisboa, I brought down a bottle of Espumante (Portuguese sparkling wine or champagne) and had a really nice time drinking and talking with them. I'm going to miss these guys.

Um Anjo Dorado - A Golden Angel

In Lisbon, there are a lot of people who make money as street performers. Some dress up in costumes and stand very still, like the woman above. She calls herself: The Golden Angel. Many people like to take pictures of them. The performers like it when people give them some money. This woman has a little box to put money in in front of her on the right. She also has a small bucket with little pieces of rolled up paper that she gives people when they donate or give money to her.

At first, when she pointed for me to take a paper, I thought they were cigarette butts ! Then, I looked a little closer. Here is what mine said:

At first, I didn't understand. I needed someone to translate it for me. I didn't know the word "recear", which means to be afraid. So, in English, the quote would be: "Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you are capable of dreaming, you are capable of making it happen." I went back to the angel and asked her her name. She said it is Flor, which means "flower" in Portuguese. I told her the quote was by an American journalist from California and she smiled.  I would like to talk to her again and ask her how she finds or chooses her quotes. Maybe I'll go look for her again.

I knew that "ter medo" means to be afraid. "Tenho medo" means "I am afraid." Now, I know another way to say that...but will I remember it ? And, "recear" is more difficult to say in different tenses. But, hopefully, my vocabulary is expanding a little bit. Thanks Flor !

Chapito ! Seeing a children's play (with acrobats ) in Portuguese !

My friend Bozena and I were walking down from the castle here in Lisboa in August. We stopped in a souvenir shop to buy some things and asked the woman working there if she could recommend a restaurant nearby. She recommended Chapito. We went there and were seated at a table on a big terrace and really liked it. Bozena looked up at the building in front of the restaurant and said: it can't be an apartment building because every room has a pink light. Why would everyone have the same color lights ? Later, I learned that Chapito is not only a restaurant but a school that trains young people in circus arts like acrobatics, stage design, and many other skills relating to performing arts.

And, a big part of their mission is to help young people who are from poor families, or who don't have parents or who are having other kinds of problems. The woman who started Chapito in the 1980s is Teresa Ricou, better known as Tete, the first female clown in Portugal.

http://translate.google.pt/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_Ricou&prev=search

http://folhadeportugal.pt/10-perguntas-a-teresa-ricou-“restam-me-as-memorias-umas-boas-outras-mas-que-me-vao-alimentando-a-alma”/

Chapito has now partnered with EPOAE ( Escola Profissional de Artes e Oficios do Espectáculo ) which provides high school students from all over Portugal with a 3-year training program in circus arts and theater set design and performance arts. (A lot of the links below are,in Portuguese.)


http://epaoe.chapito.org


http://chapito.org/?s=page&p=8


http://www.dgartes.pt/pegadacultural/listagemcontactos.pdf


I finally got to go to a performance there last Saturday. My friend Emily and I saw a play called Antes de Começar , by Almada Negreiros, which featured two recent graduates of the school. It was so exciting to go to a play that featured students from the school. And, it was really fun to go to a play with a big crowd of Portuguese parents and their children (mostly ages 3-7). It was a 5:00 show especially for kids and the kids were such a great audience. They sat there in rapt attention, laughing and clapping and reacting with such joy. It was a wonderful experience for me and I got to go to a performance in Portuguese. It was hard to understand a lot of the language, as usual, but since the action was so physical, it was very entertaining. And, I definitely understood the word "boneca" / "boneco" , which means "doll", as they were the main characters. Emily and I kept hearing another word which sounded like "frigideira" (which means "frying pan") but we couldn't get anyone to verify if that word was really being used in the play.

Anyway, we,were able to talk to one current student named Antonio Jose who was helping at the door. He explained some information about the school training program and the former students who were starring in the show we were about to see . Thanks to Antonio and the nice ticket seller who let us in even though we didn't have reservations and the show was very crowded. It was a very special experience for me. I also went back to the school a few days later and got more information. There are usually about 30-40 students accepted into the program each year. They have to demonstrate physical strength and ability as well as artistic ability to be accepted into the program. The fees are about 120 euros for 3 months. All in all, it seems like an exciting program which allows students to graduate with skills that enable them to work as professional acrobats, actors, set designers, etc. or, go on to further studies. I recommend that anyone who comes to Lisbon, should go see a show at Chapito, eat at the restaurant, and take a look at the gift shop, which sells a lot of handmade things made by the students. This organization has been around for about 30 years and is a very good example of the creativity and spirit that makes Lisbon so special !

Reading...and trying to understand...

I see my friend Maria about once a month. She is Portuguese and speaks perfect English. It's hard for me to try my Portuguese with her. I feel very shy about it for some reason. So, we speak in English. Last week, we met for dinner. We stopped in a bookstore, (Lisbon is full of bookstores - the Portuguese seem to really value books ), and she bought me her favorite children's book. The name of the book is : A Menina Do Mar, which means something like "The Girl of the Sea". The author of this book, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, is a very famous writer and poet. My Portuguese teacher Rui brought our class some books by Portuguese authors and he was kind enough to lend me one of her poetry books. Her son is also a writer (Miguel Tavares). My friend Shelly lent me his novel Equator, about the cocoa plantations in São Tomé and Príncipe , which was very interesting. Anyway, Maria had mentioned this children's book before and I was surprised to see who the author was. She is so famous here in Portugal, people just call her "Sophia". Here is some information about her:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_de_Mello_Breyner_Andresen 

http://storberose.blogspot.pt/2012/06/pursuit-of-real-poetry-of-sophia-de.html

So, now I am reading A Menina do Mar, and trying to understand it. It's not easy reading for me. In fact, I haven't even finished the first page. There is a lot of new vocabulary, and grammar. It's so different to read a long text in authentic language rather than something in a textbook. But, I'm trying, slowly, to read and understand some of it. Now I know how it feels for my students to read in English. You have to have a lot of perseverance ! (Meaning: keep trying...) Thank you Maria !

Volunteering with CASA

I met a new friend here in Lisbon who volunteers every week to help prepare and distribute free food to people who need it. She works at CASA, which stands for Centro de Apoio ao Sem Abrigo. The basic meaning of that is: Center of Help for People Without Houses...in the US, we usually say "homeless people". At CASA, different volunteers come every day, seven days a week, cook, package, and drive to distribute food directly to people who come to specific locations to pick it up. Instead of people going to a church or building to eat, the volunteers at CASA bring the food to people on the streets. It was really interesting to see how this program works. I got to see a different side of Lisbon and it felt good to do something useful for people who really need it.


Every night in addition to the people who volunteer to prepare food, 5 or 6 volunteers show up with cars and drive around to distribute food. Usually three people go together in one car for each location. They deliver to about 7 or 8 different neighborhoods in Lisbon.


Here are some photos:

One really interesting thing about this experience was getting to meet and work with the volunteers. Some are Portuguese, but several were from other countries ( Poland, Czech Republic, Germany) and spoke Portuguese fluently. They had all come to live in Portugal to study or work and liked it so much they stayed. I listened to everyone speak Portuguese and couldn't understand a lot, but it was good for me to be in an environment where everyone, even second language learners, was using the target language. They could also speak English with me and told me about their experiences learning Portuguese and how hard it was in the beginning. It was good to see foreigners who have really assimilated the language successfully and are accepted/welcomed into the culture here.

It was kind of a long night. We arrived at around 6:00 and left to deliver food around 9:30 pm. I didn't get home until after 11:00 that night.

Here is an example of one of the shelters some people live in:

One thing that was pretty shocking for me was seeing where some people lived. At the first few stops, we pulled into a parking lot and people would come up to the car and we would hand each person an entree, a fruit salad, bread, cake and offer them a drink. If people wanted several meals, that was fine too. But, there were some locations where our driver walked over to some very makeshift shelters (see the photo above with the wooden boxes) and handed meals to people who were living inside boxes, or shelters made of cardboard or plastic tarps...some people were lying on the ground under blankets or sleeping bags. I've never been up that close to that kind of poverty. It's amazing that CASA volunteers do that 7 nights a week. 

At our last stop, we parked near the Ribeira market and suddenly about 30 people lined up. We had to work fast to serve everyone. I was in charge of pouring drinks and a lot of people needed to get refills for their drink two or three or four times. I could really see that they were in need of hydration. Some of the people were elderly people who are having a hard time living on their pension. They might have a place to live but not enough money to buy all the food they need.

My job that night was also to write down the name of each stop we went to in our particular neighborhood (Cais de Sodre) and what time we stopped there and how many meals we gave away. It was a very very interesting experience and I'm really grateful that my friend allowed me to come and work with her. I learned a lot !