Spanish views from a small town

My vacation week is here, and the temperatures have gone down to what it should feel like in the spring, after the second half of last week gave us a taste of what it feels like to melt. It seems that with the introduction of summer at full speed, someone hit the brakes and took us back a couple of weeks.  As usual, I went on one of my all-day wanderings this past Monday. This time, instead of going south, I went northeast, to Asturias. I visited its coast and its mountains. One might say it's the birthplace of modern Spain. It was at Covadonga that through divine intervention (ahem), Don Pelayo won against the Moors, and the expulsion began, only eleven years after the Moorish invasion. Though, this was more of a propaganda ploy than anything else, keeping in mind that the Moors remained in Spain until 1492.  I didn't reach Covadonga, though. That's far to the east, near Cantabria, and too far to go and come back in a day. I did reach the seaside town of Cudillero, a g...

Today is one of those few days of summer here when the temperatures reach above ninety (33ºC), and the sun is a blowtorch. It is a dry heat, and reminds me every year it comes around that I don't want to live in a desert. It's not as bad as it was back in Boston during my childhood, when the meteorologist would put up the letters HHH on the forecast. Hazy, hot, and humid. I hated those heat waves absolutely. The humidity would envelop me like a second, wet skin, and there was no way to be dry and comfortable. Taking a shower didn't help, because I could never get dry, and would start to perspire as soon as I got dressed.  The heat here is not that bad, but as I get older, it seems my body likes it even less. If I'm out in the sun for a little while, I begin to get a headache. I lose my will to do anything more than sit in the fresh kitchen, hidden from the sun. Thankfully, the bottom floor of our house is cooler, though not cool enough when it's a few days into ...

Much has been made of the humanitarian ship forbidden by the new Italian government from off-boarding the immigrants it picked up in the Mediterranean. The new Spanish government gave them the opportunity of stepping on firm land in Valencia, and processing there, and, after an agreement, in France, all the asylum petitions. Giving them a hearing doesn't mean all are going to be allowed to stay, but the alternative was letting them drown. A small group of immigrant haters awaited the ship in Valencia, with the usual arguments of "Spaniards first!" In countless pages xenophobic themes run rampant; that the immigrants get all sorts of subsidies, that those subsidies allow them to buy expensive cars and phones, that they don't have to find any kind of work because the government pays their rents, etc. In other words, that they are living off the government without paying any taxes, while the Spaniards fallen on hard times don't get any help.  But that's not t...

Revenge is sweet. Granted, the probability in Spain of being sentenced to eight months in prison for flipping the bird at a patrol doing speed control with a radar is not high, (that happend in Yorkshire, England) still, many have been burned by those little cameras. Some have been burned enough that they plot their downfall, one way or another.  Some years ago, a truck plowed into a fixed radar near Gijón, and left it moribund by the road. Someone else came along and saw an opportunity. He picked it up and took it to the nearest junkyard, where he sold it by the kilo. The junkyard owner, however, decided to turn over the cadaver, and the opportunist was arrested and charged with stealing public property.  In Navarra this past January, another pair of opportunists, saw an abandoned tripod by some garbage containers. It looked like it had been left for the trash, and that it hadn't fit into any of the containers. They looked it over, picked it up, and started to take it to ...

Nothing has really changed. The world, which has been supposed to have advanced so much, especially in human rights, is still just where it has always been. What's mine is mine, and you can't have it, but what's yours is mine because I can handle it better than you. It doesn't matter what it is, whether mineral resources, or freedom from fear. The first world had been creating fear and poverty in "inferior" countries for centuries. It will not acknowledge that, and now won't take in people it has victimized before and victimizes now. We have been their masters ever since we were directly the "mem sahibs" or the "señores" of their lands. We have allowed them to have independence in name only, while we set up our puppets in their governments, and steal their resources through thieving agreements. If they dared to expand their independence away from us, we have cracked down on them through war and manoevered uprisings. Their countries ha...

Okay, I respect soccer fans out there. Just as I go nuts over finding some historical detail in a place I know well, so you go nuts over a soccer match. But, can you keep it down? The upcoming World Cup, somewhere in Russia, is entering my eyeballs and my ear drums wherever I turn.  I don't even know what day it begins, but already they're acting with the publicity as if it's the best thing since radiation was discovered. Supermarkets have tables set up with all kinds of snacks; appliance stores have discounts to be able to see the games on a new television (and sales seem to have gone up); on the corner of the television screen, whatever it is we're seeing, a countdown is ticking; and my young students have gone beserk over the teams, the dates, and the players.  The problem? That most of the matches will be televised on open television at the hour usually reserved for the evening news. The evening news is one thing we don't like to miss. We can't just swit...

A student of mine who goes to our local high school, told me in conversation class that all the girls of his year (13 year olds) received a small box with some free sanitary pads and a coupon for their next purchase. Up to here, okay, yes, it's publicity among young people to try to capture their fidelity to a certain product that is of a necessary consumption. Still, free samples of something you need and use every month are always welcome. The problem appeared with what the boys received. They got a leaflet explaining that a few days every month the girls got their period, and that that might make them feel cranky, sensitive, and moody. The boys' obligation was to show them extra care and consideration, and treat them well, understanding that they needed to be pampered during those days. Excuse me?  Yes, the calendar still says we're in 2018. That sounds like something my classmates would have been told in 1982. Do not patronize me just because I have my period. It ...

Some of the things culturally imported from the United States are nice. One of those is the graduation ceremony. Years ago in Spain, when one finished high school or college, the only thing that marked it were the official papers, mailed months or a year later. Now, graduation ceremonies are commonplace, and provide a social completion of a stage of life. Granted, they don't come with the pomp and circumstance they're celebrated with in the U.S. There are no gowns, no mortarboards, no stadium full of people, and no band. They are merely the graduating students, the teachers or professors, and a group of friends and family. When our daughter Alex graduated from high school, it was a large group of people that overflowed the school's auditorium. But her college graduation was tiny, because in the university, graduations are held in each separate department, not in the university as a whole. Fewer than fifteen students make for small crowds. Graduations here are merely cer...

This is getting ridiculous. Okay, so back in December we were praying for rain. That was then, this is now. Now we should be basking in the warm sun, marveling at temperatures rising into the 80'sF/30'sC. I've had to light the fire this week, just to warm up the house and dry some clothes. The saying this year, Non te quites o saio ata o corenta de maio , (don't take off your long johns until the fortieth of May) is sounding like very good advice. Normally, in early June, I am looking forward to the summer. I'm getting an itchy foot, and wishing I could get in the car and just travel till I hit the Mediterranean or further. I'm wearing shorts and tank tops, and waiting for classes to end and go to the beach on a warm afternoon. I should be watching the sunset sitting on the stoop, late into the night, drinking in the fragrances of green things that have sat all day in the sun.  Instead, we've regressed to April. It may not be quite as cold, but it is far...

Memories have a way of jumping and punching you in the face sometimes. Perusing Facebook tonight, a black and white photo of an old North End street in Boston stopped me. I recognized the corner store at once. Polcari's Coffee. Into my nostrils immediately came the mixture of coffee, spices, and all the dark brown, heady smells of the store. I found myself a little girl again, waiting inside a store with alluring sacks wide open with all sorts of coffee beans and legumes, while my mother bought some mundane thing. An old set of scales on the wooden counter was in continuous use. The shelves behind the counter were filled with merchandise. On the window sills and along a shelf in the window, too, boxes and bottles of different things. On the counter a container filled with candied fruit and orange peel. Chocolate and candy umbrellas, too, beckoned to me with their bright colored wrappings. If I was very good, my mother would buy me one, or a piece of candied orange peel. At Christma...

There is a memory from long ago, when I was just five years old. It consists of me at the beach, looking across a small river to the remains of a stone tower. The tower isn't very high, and much of it is missing. It is a memory I always associated with the beach A Torre (literally, The Tower), in the nearby parish of Taragoña. That year my parents brought me here on summer vacation. I was only five years old, so my memories are few and I mix up some with the year I was nine, which summer we also came to visit. Yet that is one of the memories that remains fixed in my mind's eye.  Since then, in the almost twenty-seven years I've been living here, I have learned of an archeological site right next to the beach. I even took my daughter once, when she was in her phase of planning on becoming an archeologist and the real archeologists were there, trying to find artifacts. The Castelo da Lúa, so called because of a legend associated with the place, is now accessible from the ...

There is no question that car emissions pollute cities. Both diesel and gasoline pollute, though in different ways, with different particles. Yet, diesel cars have long been touted as cleaner than gasoline because they emit less carbon dioxide. The only problem is that they emit more nitrogen oxides and particulates, which, while not adding to the total carbon dioxide causing global warming, are harmful to people's health, especially when concentrated in urban areas. Many European cities are now legislating against diesel engines, and the older ones are being banned. Madrid and Barcelona will soon ban all diesel cars in upcoming years. So, where's the problem? The problem is that, until a couple of years ago, people were urged to buy diesel cars precisely because they don't emit as much carbon dioxide. So, while more expensive than gasoline cars at the beginning by a couple of thousand euros, more or less, diesel car owners were, and are, compensated by better mileage a...

When you think you've seen a lot, a little more comes along to tell you it's never-ending. A lot has been said lately about the justice system in Spain, the most benign that it is not as impartial as it should be. But, one thing that has not yet been said is, that a judge earns so little, they need a second job to pay the bills. A female judge in Lugo, who is in charge of penitentiary affairs for three prisons, granting paroles, etc., was found out a couple of weeks ago, going around putting leaflets under the windshield wipers of parked cars. A couple of reporters decided to call the number and investigate, because they found it strange that a sitting judge would distribute such advertisements.  When the reporter arrived at the flat, the judge's male "housekeeper" let him in, and the judge took the reporter to the table where she spread out the arcane major. Yes, the judge is also a tarot fortune teller, and she charges twenty euros per reading. Apparently, t...

If there's one thing certain about Donald Trump and his presidency, it's that he has little respect for the citizens he represents. More likely, he sees them with contempt and as milksops to be bilked of all they have. Unfortunately, bad habits are more contagious than good ones, and Trump seems to have rubbed off on our late Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. Last week, a verdict came out on the Gürtel corruption trial. Most of those accused are going away for a long time. The PP party, which has held our government pretty much hostage for many years, and of which Rajoy is president, was also pronounced guilty of running a slush fund of public money illegally, and sentenced with a fine of over €250,000. Rajoy had been called to testify as a witness a few months ago, and in the sentence, the judge called into question his veracity. So, Pedro Sánchez, president of the Socialists, PSOE, and leader of the opposition, called for a vote of no-confidence against Rajoy. This past Thursd...