martes, 14 de xullo de 2015

Bolos Celtas / Celtic Bowling

Hola! My computer was down for the count for a while and then I went on a long trip, which is why I haven't been blogging up til now. But there are stories to tell, so I'll get right down to it. Starting with a fieldtrip way back in May with my youngest students to try Celtic bowling...

There are actually a few different types of bowling still actively played in Galicia and Asturias. Well perhaps not so "actively." We went to a town near Navia where they have a type of alley set up in the street, and they play it during certain festivities. In this version of Celtic bowling, the balls are made from wood, the size of a coconut but denser. Then there are 10 pins made of branches. First you stand a few feet behind the pins, and throw the ball however you can to knock the pins down. It's more of a toss/bounce rather than the rolling of our typical American bowling. How ever many pins you knock down is how many points you score. The catch is, after knocking down the pins your ball has to go past a certain line probably 5 meters away. If not they say "te cagaste," you crapped yourself haha. Also, upright on the middle of that line is a little stick, which you get bonus points for knocking over. But if the ball doesn't even go past that line, you aren't able to make a rethrow, which is from behind that line towards the now far-away pins.


When it was my turn to represent Ohio, I only knocked down one. And since the ball passed the line I was able to throw again from further away. And I actually knocked one down!! Ole! I was the only person besides another teacher to knock any down from a distance. Granted, the students are 13 years old, but still, it feels like some sort of accomplishment. On another try, my ball didn't even pass the line, so one of my talkative students called me constipated, because of the crap yourself terminology. Little punk! But it was all in good fun, even if they all repeated the few phrases I said in Spanish for the next weeks of class (this is the class that always tries to get me to speak Spanish, and since it was a fieldtrip and there were other non-English speakers there I had to do it in their presence).

After Celtic bowling, we took a stroll around Navia de Suarna, which has a Medieval bridge. Cool. And a park where I got to ride the see-saw with some students like back in the day. Then we took a very short hike in the woods, accompanied by some dogs who followed us from their house. Oh also this trip was the source of the greatest student quote of the year. Translated into English: So your family speaks English? And you understand them? Wow, that's so cool! Later on I realized I had confused her by saying I live in Lugo, but since I've been the American the whole schoolyear, I thought she'd've known the difference...