Part 2 (1/2)
Little girls jump rope, play with jacks and dolls. Or they play singing games which act out the parts of kings and queens and princesses. Little boys are most interested in games with b.a.l.l.s, like jai alai or football.
The favorite game of most little boys in Spain is ”Torero.” In this game they pretend they are bullfighters, who are called ”toreros.” Every boy in Spain dreams of growing up to be the greatest bullfighter in the world. Bullfighting is one of the most exciting things in life to every Spaniard.
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Every big city has a great bullring, a round building with many steps of seats and no roof, called the ”Plaza de Toros.” ”Toro” is the bull. The bulls are especially bred for the ring, because no ordinary cow or bull would be able to take part in this colorful pageant. Almost every Sunday afternoon throughout the year, and at holiday times, there is a ”corrida” or bullfight, and everybody goes to see the toreros fight the bulls.
Bullfighters in Spain are the same heroes to Spanish boys and girls that baseball players are to American youngsters. This is the reason why you'll see all the little Spanish boys playing Torero. One pretends he is the toro and wears a basket over his head as he charges at the one pretending he is the torero with a red cape and wooden sword.
Although Spanish children like to play, they are also very serious about schoolwork, because they know that if Spain is to be a wise member of the family of nations, she needs educated citizens. During the Civil War it was very hard for young people to get an education, and some of the schools and universities were destroyed by bombs or fires. Now the universities have been rebuilt, and more schools are being built every year.
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Some boys and girls go to schools run by their church, and they are taught by priests and nuns. According to law, everyone must go to school until the age of fourteen. Then, if the family can afford it, they can go on to higher schools and the university. If the family is poor but a boy is very bright, he may win a scholars.h.i.+p by getting high marks.
Because boys are more likely than girls to go to a university, they study more science and mathematics in school than their sisters do. Of course they all study reading, writing, history, arithmetic and good manners.
When a Spanish boy grows up and has a university education, he may become a doctor, lawyer, banker, newspaperman or government worker, just as any of you may. If he is going to be a farmer, a fisherman, or fas.h.i.+on things with his hands as a carpenter or wrought-iron maker does, he probably won't go to school after he is fourteen. If he's going to do the same thing his father does, his father will teach him. Otherwise, he may become an apprentice, which means that he will work right along with grownups who already do what he wants to learn. He learns by doing it with them.
Little Spanish girls, who wear pinafores to school and do their hair in pigtails, are more interested in learning how to be good mothers, because every little Spanish girl dreams of marrying and having lots of children. They learn how to read and write, and the history of their country, but they also learn how to cook and sew and bring up children.
Recently some Spanish girls have started learning how to be lawyers, doctors and teachers. These girls, like their brothers, go on to universities. Some girls also learn shorthand and typing so that they can work in offices. Before the Civil War there were no girls in offices, but today they like being secretaries and typists just as girls in America do. Still, even these modern Spanish girls don't have the freedom to go to parties or on dates with boys, the way American girls do, unless they are engaged to be married. When they go out at night for the paseo or to attend the theater or a movie, they go with other girls or with their whole family.
A strong family bond unites all Spanish people. Fathers and mothers and children spend as much time together as they possibly can. If being together means that children must go with parents into the fields at harvest time, then they go, even if they only play around and don't really help. In the evenings when the father and mother go to the paseo or sit in a cafe to talk with their friends, their children go with them.
Always the whole family goes to church together. One of the most important days in a Spanish child's life is the day of confirmation.
Then the family and relatives and friends from miles around come to celebrate. All over Spain, on a Sunday morning, you'll see the little girls in their long white dresses with white gloves and veils, looking proud and happy as they walk to church with their beaming mothers and fathers for their confirmation. When boys are confirmed, they wear white suits, with a cape lined in scarlet or blue satin and trimmed with gold braid. If the family has enough money, they may hire a horse-drawn carriage. The driver wears a tall black stovepipe silk hat and the carriage doors and horses' bridles are decorated with white flowers.
The church is very important in Spanish life. The Apostle James himself came to preach in Spain, and later, after he had been killed in Palestine, his body was brought back to Spain for burial. His tomb is in the beautiful Cathedral of Santiago--which is the way Spanish people say St. James--in Compostela, in northern Spain. For thousands of years people from all over the world have come as pilgrims to Compostela. Many little Spanish boys are named Santiago, or perhaps Jaime, another way to say James in Spanish, for Santiago is the patron saint of all Spain.
Every city and village also has its very own private patron saint. Once a year there is a village festival or ”fiesta” in his or her honor. If you were to travel through Spain you would find a fiesta somewhere every day of the year! These fiestas start in the morning when all the people go to church, which is always decorated with hundreds of flowers and candles. Then in the afternoon or evening there is a long parade from the church through the main streets and back to the church again, with the figure of the saint standing on a flower-draped platform which is carried on the shoulders of young men.
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Choirs sing, candles and incense burn, and all the people stand in reverence along the route. A bullfight is usually a feature of a saint's day too, with the whole town going to the Plaza de Toros to watch. The paseo will be especially gay at fiesta time, and as darkness falls, the guitars will start to tw.a.n.g, castanets will click and all the young people will gather in the main square to take part in folk dances until morning. Sometimes the saint's fiesta will last a whole week, with bullfights every afternoon and a fair every night.
One of the most unusual fiestas in all Spain is held every March in Valencia in honor of St. Joseph. It is called the ”Fallas de San Jose”
because of the huge, grotesque figures called ”fallas” which are the main feature of the celebration. Every club and religious group in the city spends weeks in advance of St. Joseph's Day building these figures out of papier-mache, and each group tries to keep its design secret until the fiesta takes place. The best falla wins a prize, and at the end of the three-day celebration, all the fallas except the prize-winner are burned in a big bonfire while the people dance around it and fireworks are shot into the sky.
Of all holidays, Christmas is one of the merriest in Spanish homes.
”Noche Buena,” or Christmas Eve, is a time for families to sit down to a wonderful feast. The mothers and older sisters of the family have been preparing this feast for months, and fathers have been collecting the best Spanish wines to store away until now. Turkey is the traditional dish at Spanish Christmas dinners just as it is here. But Christmas is one of the few times turkey is ever served in most Spanish homes, so it is really a special treat.
Spicy hams, stuffed roast lamb, and special fish dishes are also served with the roast turkey. And no Christmas table would be complete without ”turrones”--a candy made of honey and almonds, something like our nougats. Dried figs and grapes, walnuts and hazelnuts load the table even more. After dinner, the family goes to midnight services at church called ”Misa de Gallo”; then they come home and celebrate until morning.
There are no Christmas trees in Spain, but each family makes its own Nativity scene, which is set out in time for Christmas Eve. In some cities contests are held for the most beautiful ”Belen” scenes, as they are called, because ”Belen” is the way Spanish people say Bethlehem. On Christmas Day everybody goes calling to see the Belens in other people's houses.
Sometimes grownups exchange gifts on Christmas Day, but Spanish children don't receive their gifts until January 6, Three King's Day. Instead of Santa Claus, the Three Wise Men, Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar leave gifts in the children's shoes. The shoes are set out in a window or near the fireplace, filled with hay so the camels of the Three Kings may feast. In the morning the hay is gone and toys, nuts, fruit and candy have taken its place.