because you really want to know more about mallorca

a few personal discoveries:

Fact #1: 1 out of every 13 girls in my town is named María (according to the government).  Those figures include anyone with a 1^st or 2^nd name of María: the most popular are María Carmen (Maricarmen), María Antonia (Marian), and Ana María.  In and around the town of Santanyí, there are 1,037 Marías, out of a total resident population of 12,823.  I’m pretty sure I’ve met most of them.

Fact #2: there are 400 kids in the high school where I teach, 60 kids in the elementary school, and 40 teachers between the two.  I really have met all 500 of them, and there is no way that I can keep 500 names straight, especially when most of them probably have something to do with María.

Fact #3: the 12-year-olds at the high school told me that I was like a celebrity in town.  Warm, fuzzy feeling. 

Fact #4: the 9-year-olds in the elementary school think I’m a bit of an idiot.  I constantly butcher their names (see #2 above)—but, come on, when their homeroom teacher is María, the Spanish teacher is Magdalena, one English teacher is María Magdalena, the other English teacher is Margalida, and four of the girls are called María Victoria, Marta, Margalida and Margalida María, cut me some slack!!!

Fact #5: the kids in the elementary school like to tell me about every time they see me.  “Jeni, I saw you at the grocery store!” “Jeni, I saw you riding your bike!” “Jeni, you live in my apartment building!” and my personal favorite: “Jeni, my mom sold you those shoes!”

Fact #6: despite the fact that I’m not allowed to speak in Spanish with the kids, they’ve figured out that I speak Spanish—which is probably due to the fact that the other teachers speak to me in Spanish in front of the kids.  I’m stubborn, though, so I still follow the English-only rule, but the kids only respond to me in Spanish.  They still aren’t sure how much I speak, though, and they talk to me like I’m the dimmest bulb in the room.  The other day in the class of 9-year-olds, the shoe shop owner's son was telling a classmate, “Jo vaig a Menorca…” (I’m going to Menorca…) so I jumped in and asked him, in English, “Why are you going to Menorca?”  “Jeni,” he explained in careful, ancient-turtle-speed Spanish, “There’s another island called MENORCA.  We’re on the island of MALLORCA.”  No shit, Sherlock.

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actual historical facts (ish?) that have nothing to do with the Marías

A whole heck of a long time ago, there was a guy named Strabo who wrote a book (Strabo’s Geography—written about AD 20) describing various parts of the Roman Empire.  He dedicated a sizeable chunk to Mallorca and the Balearic Islands—which, in case you didn’t know, are made up of MALLORCA & MENORCA (the two of which make up the Gymnesian Islands) and IBIZA & FORMENTERA (which are known as the Pine Islands or Pityuses) as well as several uninhabited islands & islets.  I broke the text down into paragraphs and added fun links about pirates and slingshots; if you only want to read a part, make sure to check out the last paragraph.  Enjoy!

Source: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/3E*.html (text is in the public domain)

Of the islands which lie off Iberia, the two Pityussae, and the two Gymnesiae (which are also called the Baliarides), lie off the stretch of coast that is between Tarraco and Sucro, whereon Saguntum is situated; they are also out in the open sea, all of them, although the Pityussae have a greater inclination to the west than the Gymnesiae. Now one of the Pityussae is called Ebusus, and it has a city of the same name; the circuit of the island is four hundred stadia, with the breadth and the length about equal. The other island, Ophiussa, which lies near Ebusus, is desert and much smaller.

Of the Gymnesiae, the larger has two cities, Palma and Polentia, one of which, Polentia, is situated in the eastern part of the island, and the other in the western. The length of the island falls but little short of six hundred stadia, and the breadth but little short of two hundred — although Artemidorus has stated the length and breadth at double these figures. The smaller of the two is about two hundred and seventy stadia distant from Polentia. Now although it falls far short of the larger island in size, it is in no respect inferior thereto in the excellence of its soil; for both are blessed with fertility, and also have good harbours, though the harbours are full of reefs at the entrances, so that there is need of vigilance on the part of those who sail in.

And it is on account of the fertility of these regions that the inhabitants are peaceable, as is also the case with the people on the island of Ebusus. But merely because a few criminals among them had formed partnerships with the pirates of the high seas, they were all cast into disrepute, and an over-sea expedition was made against them by Metellus, surnamed Balearicus, who is the man that founded their cities. On account of the same fertility of their islands, however, the inhabitants are ever the object of plots, albeit they are peaceable; still they are spoken of as the best of slingers. And this art they have practised assiduously, so it is said, ever since the Phoenicians took possession of the islands.… And their training in the use of slings used to be such, from childhood up, that they would not so much as give bread to their children unless they first hit it with the sling. This is why Metellus, when he was approaching the islands from the sea, stretched hides above the decks as a protection against the slings. And he brought thither as colonists three thousand of the Romans who were in Iberia.

Referring to the conquering of the islands by the Romans—which happened in 123 BC, remember—see Florus (written sometime between AD 117-138)

Source: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Florus/Epitome/1L*.html#8 (text is in the public domain)

Seeing that the family of Metellus Macedonicus had become accustomed to the assumption of surnames won in war, after one of his sons had become Creticus, it was not long before the other received the name of Balearicus. The Balearic islanders at this period had ravaged the seas with their piratical outrages. You may wonder that savages who dwelt in the woods should venture even to look upon the sea from their native rocks, but they actually went on board roughly constructed ships, and from time to time terrified passing ships by attacking them unexpectedly. When they had espied the Roman fleet approaching from the open sea, thinking it an easy prey, they actually dared to assail it, and at the first onslaught covered it with a shower of stones and rocks. They fight with three slings apiece; and who can wonder that their aim is so accurate, seeing that this is their only kind of arm and its employment their sole pursuit from infancy? A boy receives no food from his mother except what he has struck down under her instruction. But the alarm caused among the Romans by their slinging of stones did not last long; when it came to close fighting and they experienced the attack of the beaks of our ships and our javelins, they raised a bellowing like cattle and fled to the shore, and scattering among the neighbouring hills had to be hunted down before they could be conquered.