Thursday 28 October 2010

El Otoño


The autumn season in Spain is celebrated differently. Halloween (or Hallobeeb like one pub by my apartment named it hahaha) is celebrated in some bars and discotecas but otherwise people don't really dress up. Instead people celebrate Samhain. 

Samhain is an old Gaelic tradition in which people celebrate the harvest season and summers end.  The Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin on Samhain; because some animals and plants were dying, it thus allowed the dead to reach back through the veil that separated them from the living.

At my school the kids celebrated the harvest by picking the kernels off corn husks and gathering the corn leaves. With the leaves and the cob they made little figurines and bracelets. 



Making corn husk bracelets


Some of the elderly came to teach the kids about the harvest time when they were younger. They explained that they use to save the corn husk leaves and use them as filling for their mattresses. Surprisingly, they made for a comfy bed.


In art class the 5th graders were assigned to take photos that represented el otoño (autumn)














One of the kids that Laura works with gave her this pumpkin. And yes that's a cigarette with smoke on the end. Oh Spain...enough said.


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