"Festas de Nens," or, "Preschool Parties, Barcelona Style"

Time for me (Rob, that is) to put in my once-every-other-full-moon appearance and help clear up some of the mystery that still seems to surround the Catalan approach to Childrens' Parties.

OK, maybe we're the only ones who find ourselves mystified, but it makes for a good story, so here goes:

Today--or rather, this evening during the oh-so-toddler-friendly hours of between 6 and 8 p.m.-- the lovely (truly, we mean this part) preschool Cory and Addy attend here in Barcelona put on yet another "Festa de Nens"--literally "Children's Party." We're not entirely sure why: it may have had something to do with it being the end of some kind of "course" (though school continues on next week, and anyway, it's kind of hard to include "course" and "preschool" in the same breath), or it may have been in honor of something else--like I said, we attended and we're still not exactly sure the occasion.

Part of the mystery of these preschool parties is that we only hear about them 24 hrs. in advance, via email, which normally would be fine except that they do, in fact, involve toddlers betweent the hours of 6 and 8 and do, in fact, include the invitation to bring food, plates and cups for a crowd--or, as the invitation so fetchingly put it, "...and of course we will enjoy the food that you make."

Right.

OK, so it's all very sweet, and when in Rome, etc etc. The last time we attended one of these parties, not being from Rome, we arrived exactly at 6 and then sat around for, oh, an hour waiting with tired, hungry toddlers in a very hot, very crowded room for something--anything really--a diaper crisis would have been welcome--to happen. It finally did and included incredibly cute songs and dances that made the whole thing worthwhile, and Ya Ya (my Mom)got all teary and our kids got little shots of espresso, but as all this has already been discussed at some length in an earlier post I shan't go on and on about it.

This time around, canny things that we are, we breezed in 20 minutes late--only to discover (oh, the mystery of it all!) that, for some reason, everyone else had arrived on time and proceeded to stare us down with looks that said, "What KEPT you? These are your children and the end of the COURSE, for God's sake!"

Abashed and, of course, confused, we put our humble food offering down amongst the zucchini cakes and garbanzo-kelp balls (this is a semi-Montessori environment run by a dedicated German Ph.D in Child Development, so one has to be very careful vis-a-vis Group Snacks) and sat amongst the other adults balancing on fence posts (this time the teachers had planned ahead and gathered us in the much cooler, if still postage stamp-sized, garden out in the back) and carefully swatting away the flies that buzzed around us and around the mini-chicken coop against which we were seated.

Now, to be fair, a word should be said about the snack Matt and I brought to share. In a fit of creative output, I suggested that, in lieu of a fruit salad (which is about the only peanut-free, "whole child" snack Matt and I can ever think of) we make fruit kebabs: fun to eat, and good for you, too! Watermelon, Spanish melon, banana, apple and fresh pineapple...not bad, eh? We were going to do America proud--and only a day before the 4th of July to boot!

Alas, there was a one small hitch: the skewers we had so cleverly found at the local supermarket looked far more menacing on the children's snack table than they had in the comfort and safety of our own home. As we slunk (slanked? slunked?) away from our snack-cum-weaponry, I said to Matt, "Don't look back; let's just pretend we don't know who brought the skewers and look horrified along with everyone else when the subject comes up."

As it turned out--oh, how nice it is to live among a non-litigious people!--the skewers were a huge hit, both among the innocent toddlers and their parents who certainly should have known better. Everyone blithely enjoyed them; if a child did lose an eye or cause lasting damage, at least it didn't happen while we were there.

But enough about Snacks. It's time to get to the heart of the matter: I mean, of course, Party Games. Because it really isn't an End-of-Course-or-What-Have-You Preschool Party in the capital of Catalonia (in the VERY small garden, did I mention that before?) without a chaotic attempt at organizing Party Games. For those who know me well, you know that I am not one to shirk from a good Party Game. Or even a Bad Party Game. "Bring it on!" I always say. Those Ostrowers within earshot usually groan and then throw things my direction when the word "game" arises, so I usually end up playing charades solo. As it turns out I've got nothing on the Preschool Dept. at Kinder Barcelona. Here we were, 7 p.m., crowded among a thousand crying babies (youngest inmate...er, scholar...is 8 months old) and wildly ricocheting toddlers, and one of our favorite teachers (really, she is) begins informing us that something Muy Complicado is about to happen. Knowing just enough Latin and Greek morphs to be dangerous, I turn to Matt and ask, somewhat breathlessly, "Did I understand her to say that we are dividing into 4 GROUPS to compose a SONG, in SPANISH, using predetermined WORDS listed on that SHEET she's holding over her HEAD, to the tune of (you couldn't make this stuff up if you tried) 'LA BAMBA?'"

Matt, bless his limited though still useful Spanish, said, "I think so. Heh, heh, heh."

And that is exactly what happened. Our group--8 adults, 5 to 15 toddlers (it was hard to tell exactly how many as they wouldn't stop moving)--crammed INSIDE the 6' x 6' sandbox which was our designated staging area and, while I attempted to keep a sugar-crazed Addy somewhere in the general vicinity of my lap, worked--IN COMMITTEE, and of course, en espanol--on how best to rhyme "Escuela" and "Disculpa," and just how we would spell out "Adios!" with out bodies as the grand finale (which, by the by, involved a wild shimmy routine for the letter "S" that bordered on the pornographic--but best to save more about that for a time when you can judge for yourself in person. Only not you, Mom; you're far too squeamish.)

Let's just say that it's a good thing that Matt and I enjoy "La Bamba" so much because, by 7:30, we had heard it performed 4 times by 40 adults with varying degrees of awfulness and lots of joking around in loud, incomprehensible Castellano. Or maybe it was Catalan, I can hardly tell. Matt, I would like to mention, at this very moment, is saying over my shoulder, "Tell them how I came up with one of the lines our group performed!" A wiser man might have kept that fact to himself, but far be it from me to keep Matt from receiving what's rightfully his. One of the La Bamba/Adios, Escuela lines was his. Ole!

You may be asking yourself...well, many things, but one of them might be, "And what were all the kids doing while the parents spent 40 minutes creating their 'La Bamba' routines?" Ah, here is where you let slip the fact that, imprinted on your very soul, you are a prisoner of "la cultura anglosajon." This is the same puritanical tradition that dictates that toddlers, when a party is being thrown in their honor, should--by definition--be involved somehow in its execution. Needless to say, such is not the way to approach--nay, to savor--a true "festa de nens" in the lovely seaside city of Barcelona. What did the children do? They ran around, of course (often barefoot, right next to said chicken coop...helped me realize why our needle-sharp skewers raised so few eyebrows), fought, made love, howled at the moon, swallowed batteries...any number of things, really. I'm ashamed to say that neither of us is entirely sure, since we were packed in so tight among the other adults in our Sandbox Spanish Workshop (not a word of which I could understand, by the way, for all my Latin and Greek morphs--but I am not bitter, no, just happy to remain culturally aware and receptive) that it was nearly impossible for us to keep tabs on any of them. I was proud of the fact that I managed to extricate myself long enough to find a big package of wipes for the very nice Brit Mom sitting next to me whose 8 months old (see above under "screaming babies") had just thrown up cottage cheese or its nearest relative down the entire length of her body. Why she was there with an 8 month old in the first place is another mystery, but as she is British the question really should not be included in a commentary on the mysteries of the Catalan approach to childrens' parties, so I will leave it for the moment and move on.

Actually, that's probably enough for now. Of course, of course, for all you namby-pamby, "fair play" types reading this: there were plenty of bright spots, not the least of which were the looks of sheer delight on our kids' faces as they ran for the 19th time back to the food table (most probably because someone had managed to slip packages of chocolate milk drink boxes and mini frosted croissants onto it while no one was looking) and showing Cory and Addy how much we care by hanging out with them, sort of, at their school. And, despite all my moaning, the teachers are lovely, the school is a nice, wholesome place for children (give or take the occasional tapeworm, but hey, you can't have it all!), the terrific socialization it provides, and last but certainly not least, the lovely break it provides us 5 days a week from 1 to 5:30. Without this preschool experience, how could we ever imagine the intricacies and winsome subtlties of the true Catalan "Festas de Nens?" And I can tell you, it's not going to be easy to take Cory and Addy to one of the sad little preschool gatherings some call "parties" you still find littering the American cultural landscape. They are going to want answers; they're going to want to know who's in charge and why that someone has made everything so obvious and utterly predictable. I'm not sure I'm going to have the heart to tell them.