Something Typical

[Escriba]

I've had Puerto Rican pinchos (yum). Yours look a lot healthier.

And way moooore expensive

So are all those ladies in black faking their grief? (I hope so!)

Yes. Fortunately the pic doesn't show the men dressed as women that usually are present too. It's a scaring image...

Ohhh... They have erected the stage under my house for some of the shows. Among them, an Argentinian dance group and the bertsolaris.

Bertsolari in Basque means "Verse maker". It's a person that improvises verses after giving him/her a "theme", a "rhyme", some words or even a melody. You have their story here. It's very traditional here (and I can't stand it; obviously the town council must know it because they always put their performances under my house.)

[Alelou]

Can't stand it huh? You should be at our house when they run "The Battle of the Bands" (local garage bands, that is) at the park across the street.

Puerto Rico has a similar tradition, the aginaldo -- it's always full of jokes and insults, sometimes sung back and forth. A little bit of a dying art, really, like the paranda, where a band of people go to houses and serenade.

I was very amused to hear my husband and his brother start singing insults back and forth in the back yard last time David was visiting. They just needed a guitarist and some percussion and they'd have been all set.

[Escriba]

Puerto Rico has a similar tradition, the aginaldo -- it's always full of jokes and insults, sometimes sung back and forth. A little bit of a dying art, really, like the paranda, where a band of people go to houses and serenade.

Oh, thanks for telling me this! "Aguinalgo" here means the gifts that the company where you work gives to you on Christmas. You have saved me from a diplomatic disaster if I ever meet a Puerto Rican.

The"parranda" here means "a party that lasts all night", so "estar de parranda" means "being awake all night partying" I can see the connection

[Alelou]

Puerto Rico has a similar tradition, the aginaldo -- it's always full of jokes and insults, sometimes sung back and forth. A little bit of a dying art, really, like the paranda, where a band of people go to houses and serenade.

Oh, thanks for telling me this! "Aguinalgo" here means the gifts that the company where you work gives to you on Christmas. You have saved me from a diplomatic disaster if I ever meet a Puerto Rican.

The"parranda" here means "a party that lasts all night", so "estar de parranda" means "being awake all night partying" I can see the connection

I'm sure you're spelling aguinaldo better than I am -- and yes, it is also traditionally a Christmas thing. As is the parranda (again, I'll take your spelling!). It sounds like pretty much the same thing, except that music is the key to a PR parranda. Waking people up to party is also a Puerto Rican tradition. I can remember a brother-in-law who had just arrived from the island waking us up as a 'surprise' in the middle of the night, totally freaking out a guest who was sleeping downstairs. Personally I just don't care to greet guests from my bed, in a t-shirt, while thinking, "Wait a minute, I'm not wearing any underwear."

[leslina]

Puerto Rico has a similar tradition, the aginaldo -- it's always full of jokes and insults, sometimes sung back and forth. A little bit of a dying art, really, like the paranda, where a band of people go to houses and serenade.

In the larger cities perhaps, but in the country there are still plenty of jíbaros and old timers that keep the aguinaldo tradition going during Christmas and Three Kings Day. Aguinaldos are similar to Christmas Carols and the parranda is the gathering of friends, family, neighbors making the rounds to peoples homes.

A tradition amongst pentecostal churches in Puerto Rico is the midnight prayer march. I was startled out of bed in the middle of the night when I was visiting my family the summer I was 12. I heard wailing and crying, I peered out the window and saw all these people carrying kerosene lamps, marching in the middle of the road as they prayed for the town. FREAKED ME OUT.

[Alelou]

Well, my husband's family IS jibaro, believe me, though I guess that's changing too. Where is yours? My husband's family was pretty itinerant but mostly stuck near Real Anon outside Ponce.

[leslina]

Well, my husband's family IS jibaro, believe me, though I guess that's changing too. Where is yours? My husband's family was pretty itinerant but mostly stuck near Real Anon outside Ponce.

My mother's family are very much "city slickers" having been raised for the most part in the capital region in Rio Piedras and Santurce, but they've traded their urban ways for the quiet simple life on a mountain top--literally--in Canovanas. It amazes me how anyone can even begin to construct a house on these steep hillsides. I'm talking STEEP where you swear the car is going to fall backwards. My father's family is from Aguadilla, a fairly large city in the Northwestern part of the island, but I don't know them very well. My aunt's husband's family is from Morovis and I throw up every time we drive to his family's house. It's a series of twists and turns as you're going up hill that would make even a crack fighter pilot up-chuck.

[Alelou]

Oy, I know. Jaime is continually blowing the horn before taking curves when we drive on those roads. It's pretty countryside but once you're on one of those winding things you feel like you'll never ever find a straight road again. And you can't help wondering what happens if it rains for 5 days ... why doesn't everything just slide down the mountainside? Which actually it sometimes does...

He wants to retire to the mountains there, to a second house. I don't. I'd be willing to spend some time on the island but I don't want to worry about a second house even if we could afford one and I definitely don't want to have to drive on one of those country roads in my old age. I don't even like driving on the autopista in PR, where driving is so much more of an art form than a science.

It's one of those interesting marital debates...

[justTripn]

Puerto Rico has a similar tradition, the aginaldo -- it's always full of jokes and insults, sometimes sung back and forth. A little bit of a dying art, really, like the paranda, where a band of people go to houses and serenade.

I was very amused to hear my husband and his brother start singing insults back and forth in the back yard last time David was visiting. They just needed a guitarist and some percussion and they'd have been all set.

It's NOT a dying art at our house Slinging jokes and insults back and fourth with music. It's called ripping (with just the insults) and rapping if it's set to a beat! And it IS an art form. LOL My twins are great at it. The rips are twice as funny when you realize these two are IDENTICAL twins. Ever watched identical twins rip on each others looks? It's hilarious!

[leslina]

Oy, I know. Jaime is continually blowing the horn before taking curves when we drive on those roads. It's pretty countryside but once you're on one of those winding things you feel like you'll never ever find a straight road again. And you can't help wondering what happens if it rains for 5 days ... why doesn't everything just slide down the mountainside? Which actually it sometimes does...

He wants to retire to the mountains there, to a second house. I don't. I'd be willing to spend some time on the island but I don't want to worry about a second house even if we could afford one and I definitely don't want to have to drive on one of those country roads in my old age. I don't even like driving on the autopista in PR, where driving is so much more of an art form than a science.

It's one of those interesting marital debates...

I don't know what it is with these Puerto Rican men! My poor aunt, whom I adore and love and have missed for ten years has been pining to come back to the mainland, but, her husband refuses to return. He's quite happy and content with his little house on the mountain top, but she's all alone! None of our family lives near by, they're all down in the low land. Meanwhile, ALL his family lives right there on the mountain. I tell her if that's love I don't want it! LOL.

[Alelou]

My pobre Puertoriqueno made a fatal mistake and married me. I'm not nearly as accommodating as I'm supposed to be.

On the other hand, my mother-in-law so deeply resented her role in life that when she died she left her half of the money to only the female descendants. And oy, what a mess she left behind by doing that.

[Escriba]

My mother's family are very much "city slickers" having been raised for the most part in the capital region in Rio Piedras and Santurce,

Santurce? There is a city called "Santurce"? Like the Basque Santurtze, famous for the song "desde Santurce a Bilbao (vengo por toda la orillaaaa...)"? That's too funny

It's NOT a dying art at our house Slinging jokes and insults back and fourth with music. It's called ripping (with just the insults) and rapping if it's set to a beat!

You know, since Basque doesn't have insults, we don't have those funny traditions

On the other hand, my mother-in-law so deeply resented her role in life that when she died she left her half of the money to only the female descendants. And oy, what a mess she left behind by doing that.

I like your mother-in-law My grandma is always complaining that his younger brother kept the family farm and the girls only have the dowry. I tell her it was right according to the Law, but she complains anyway. At least she has the consolation that her father died in the most weird and embarrasing way.

[Alelou]

At least she has the consolation that her father died in the most weird and embarrasing way.

I'm sorry, but you think you can leave it at that????


Actually, what Dona Lupe did was NOT very nice for family dynamics after she passed. Pissed her surviving husband off really badly at the worst possible time, too. Didn't help the others feel fondly about the eldest daughter who'd conspired with her on it either.

[leslina]

At least she has the consolation that her father died in the most weird and embarrasing way.

I'm sorry, but you think you can leave it at that????


Actually, what Dona Lupe did was NOT very nice for family dynamics after she passed. Pissed her surviving husband off really badly at the worst possible time, too. Didn't help the others feel fondly about the eldest daughter who'd conspired with her on it either.

Oh there's plenty of "death/inheritance" drama in my family. But it's too long and convoluted to even summarize, but I did write a short story that somewhat depicts the events.

[leslina]

Santurce? There is a city called "Santurce"? Like the Basque Santurtze, famous for the song "desde Santurce a Bilbao (vengo por toda la orillaaaa...)"? That's too funny

Yes, Santurce is a district of the Puerto Rican capital San Juan. And a rather violent one at that. The only other relative of mine that still lived in the barrio was my great aunt who passed away last year at the age of 98 or maybe 99. She was nearly 100 years old.

It's very likely that the Santurce in Puerto Rico was named for the Santurce in Spain. Puerto Rico was a former colony of Spain (as you know ) and many of the place names are named for existing places in Spain when Columbus and the other Spanish 'explorers' settled the island.

As I understand it from various Caribbean and Spanish History courses I've taken a majority of the sailors that sailed with Columbus and the other Spanish explorers to the island colonies were from a region in the southern part of Spain that were considered outcasts and degenerates and the Spanish they spoke did not have the characteristic Spanish lisp you hear amongst Spaniards.

Escriba are you Basque or Spanish? I know that Basque is nothing and sounds NOTHING at all like Spanish. In fact the differences are quite remarkable, I was quite shocked when I first heard it spoken in a Basque soap opera several years ago.