El día de la marmota

Yes, I have done it. As the primary cultural advisor to the Lázaro Cárdenas high school in Collado Villalba, Madrid, Spain, I have fully taken on the task of introducing the youth of Spain to the most important, relevant, and necessary aspects of US cultural studies. This week, I took this responsibility very seriously, especially after the shenanigans of my earlier post, where I was told I don't do enough preparation (read: they want to work less, so they want me to work more).


It was, after all, the Día de la marmota. Groundhog Day. The funny thing was, my class of juniors all knew about the holiday to some extent, and some had seen the movie! I told them what happens on the morning of the 2nd, shadow vs. no shadow and how we all rely on this for our predictions of winter's end. I mentioned the top hats and tuxedos and pronounced "Punxsutawney Phil" about 13 times for them to hear the nuances of the name of our beloved little rodent friend. Then came the good part.


At the beginning of the year, I gave many more cultural presentations, in hopes of getting these 16 year olds excited about learning English by hearing about real culture from my life stateside. In doing so, my teacher and I discovered blank stares and a generally overwhelmed sensation in the class, but we wanted them to ask questions. We formed some for them, ones that worked most of the time because we were discussing American holidays (the autumn has so many of them!). Groundhog Day is also a holiday, so inevitably the most eager students were interested in proving their question-posing ability. Here is what happened:
Natalia: [with her hand raised] Are there any typical foods that you eat for this holiday?
Me: [silence....] ummm.... no, not really. There's just a groundhog that comes out of his hole. Maybe in Pennsylvania they eat something? Yeah.
Natalia: [raises hand again and gives a cute smile] Are there typical clothes that are worn for this holiday?
Me: [more silence...] Well... the old men that live in the town in Pennsylvania wear tuxedos and top hats... That's about it.
Pablo (who never participated before he met my sister and now winks at me every day and asks when Maggie is coming back): Is it... holiday... do work?
Me (understanding what he asked only because I have been working with this class every day for 4 months): Unfortunately, most of the country has to work. In Pennsylvania they might be crazy enough about it that they don't work. It's very important to them. We just watch it on the news.


Obviously I have impressed them with my knowledge of Groundhog Day and now they are thoroughly prepared for dating and impressing an American boy or girl in the future, which is what they all dream of. 


But here's something you probably all didn't know... The tradition is of German origin where they used to use a badger to predict the coming of spring. It also has pagan origins, of course, like all of the good holiday celebrations we have... THE MORE YOU KNOW.