So it was that on the 20th. September 2009 we visited the village and experienced the celebration of village life; which is known as Fira L´Horta y Poma Relleno ( Fair of the Farm and stuffed Apple).
This is harvest time in L´Alt Emporda and the fields are filled with young African men, many of whom were illegal immigrants, and who today form a large part of the hard working agricultural labour force.
From your posts I gather that you're sticking with Castillion rather than Catalan? We've opted to concentrate on Catalan as it's what everyone in our village speaks, but I think we pick up bits of Castillion as we go!
ReplyDeleteYes we have friends from The Canary Isles, as well as Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina etc. Catalan is the language spoken by people of the village, but much of our social interaction occurs with Italian, French, German and Spanish people from across the country. Those people in the village we have contact with are happy to help with our Castilian efforts and we help those who like to practice their English too. Open minded people seem to enjoy our mixture of Spanglish and Catalanish and just encourage us to try and converse. Good natured rivalry between Catalans and Spanish is often evident. The Politicos and close minded people seem to stick to their own type. We do try and respect the cultural and historical differences without becoming involved in local difficulties.
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