Spanish views from a small town

Yesterday morning, I decided to go on a hike. My daughter insisted on coming along, so we both set off along back lanes through the woods. Not that there are many woods, because the hill behind our house has been replanted since the fire a couple of years ago, and the trees are still more like sticks than trees. I climbed.  Looking back down, I was amazed at how high I had climbed. Looking up at what was before me, I despaired of ever reaching the top. Towards the end, I set my legs in short bicycle gear; short steps without stopping. Eventually, I reached the highest point of the lane, where my daughter was waiting. I am desperately out of shape. All winter, I haven't gone walking. Now, I'm paying the consequences. But we weren't at the top, yet. She showed me, through the incipient eucalyptus growing pell mell, a cement post. That post marked the highest point of the hill, 276 meters above sea level. Our house is around 60 meters above sea level, so we had climbed about t...

Yesterday was quite a full day. In the morning I went to Santiago, and in the afternoon I finally had classes in my studio. It's a good thing it was Friday. On my drive up, looking around, there was nothing discernibly new. The only thing that hadn't been there was a pharmacy that had popped up. The only thing that wasn't there that had been, were the pilgrims. Normally, driving up I can see pilgrims doing the Portuguese Way of Santiago. Either in groups, or individually, in places where the Way coincides with the road, I could see dozens of them. Not this year. It may be a Jacobean Holy Year, but the Way is empty. When the Pope announced at the end of last year that the Holy Year would be extended, with its plenary indulgences, to 2022, he merely cemented the fact that the Church has forever been more involved in economics than in spirituality. Entering Santiago at around ten, it was traffic as usual. I went first to an industrial area with large stores. First, to Decathlo...

This morning, I drove my mother-in-law to Boiro to receive her first jab of the Covid vaccine.  For some unfathomable reason, instead of people getting the vaccine at their usual health clinic, everyone from Rianxo, Boiro, and another township, have to go to the clinic at Boiro. Yet, they want people to keep their distance from one another. The good thing was that, when I got there, very few people were to be seen. I could even park right across the road from the entrance. Does that mean it will take forever to get to the next age level of vaccinations? We were early, and we left early, so there wasn't a long crowd of people waiting. My mother-in-law was told to wait either there or in the car for fifteen minutes before leaving, just in case she had an adverse reaction, though it seems it's the second dose next month that might give her some fever. So, we sat in the car for about twenty minutes, and then left, stopping along the way, of course, to run errands. It was the first ...

Today is warm and spring-like. But clouds are coming back in, and there is rain off-shore. Another day tomorrow of rain and grey, and then, on Friday, a dry period should begin. If we're lucky, it'll last at least a week. Of rain, we are right now full. At the merest provocation, our well now overflows into the yard. On my walks in the woods recently, I have had to navigate paths that have transformed to either swiftly flowing rivers, or ponds of unfathomable abyss. Just around the curve behind our house, a woodland plot that has young trees planted years ago, that don't grow, becomes Loch Ness at the first shower. The drainage is into our yard, which is now a quagmire until early summer. Whenever I drive or walk by, I fully expect a creature to raise its head from the depths.  Some trees are beginning to show buds. A thin veil of apple green will soon envelope the hills. I'm glad, because the greys and browns of late winter are monotonous and dreary. Pretty soon, my fa...

People are confused about the re-opening. A friend of my husband's chatted with him last night, talking about going fishing to a favorite spot where the fish would very likely be biting. But, where he wanted to go fishing was in a township that will still be off limits for us because it falls within the health area of Cee-A Coruña. He didn't understand, so I sent him a map I had seen, with all the townships in the colors of the level they will be on, on Friday. He still didn't understand, so I sent him an  article I had seen in La Voz de Galicia, explaining the different areas. Bummer. No fishing. To help people understand where they can and can't go as of Friday, maps are circulating with the townships in different colors according to level. One can only travel within townships of the same color, and those in red are still closed off. The problem is that most people can't read a map, or can't find their township on a map. They know exactly where they live, but...

Finally! As of Friday we can move around and get together with three other people! Normal classes! Normal shopping! Feasting my eyes on landscapes I haven't seen in over two months! Seeing people again! But not completely. The clinical committee of our region got together this morning and decided to further open the region, but according to rates of contagion. There are still seventeen townships that will remain completely closed. Then there are several health areas that will open, but not as much, those include the areas of Pontevedra, A Coruña, and Ferrol, along with the townships that depend on the hospitals in those areas. The health areas of Lugo, Ourense, Santiago, and Vigo will open a little bit more. Most importantly, there can be movement among those townships, so we can at least move around, and even go down to Vigo by highway, though we probably won't be able to go to nearby Vilagarcía, which I believe depends on the hospitals of Pontevedra. And Catoira, just across ...

There have been protests every day since the rapper Pablo Hasel has been imprisoned for speaking his mind. In many major Catalan cities, and even in Madrid, rioters have taken over the protests, trashing businesses, setting trash containers on fire, destroying bank offices, and even attacking journalists. In other words, raising holy hell. It makes no sense. I agree, the rapper shouldn't have been incarcerated for putting his opinion in his music. But, the government has declared it will change that law, to make sure freedom of speech is duly protected. Going violent won't change anything, and will turn people against them.  Those creating the violence are the self-declared anti-system groups. Yes, the system is rotten. Yes, it needs to be changed. Yes, it's very difficult because humans are selfish by nature. But destroying everything that is part of it won't get us anywhere. The system can't be changed or destroyed overnight by those methods. But, what is the ...

So, Carnival is over, not that there was much of one this year. Our township had a virtual celebration, in which everyone could send in videos of themselves dressed up, as well as of how they lamented the burial of the sardine, the Toribiño, on Ash Wednesday. I didn't participate, and don't know how many did, but there were cash prizes for the best costumes. At any rate, now onward to Holy Week. Which will not be celebrated this year, either. At least, the processions have been cancelled just about everywhere. I assume that, if restrictions are relaxed, Masses will be allowed, but with many fewer attendees allowed. At the moment, for example, funerals are only allowed to have fifteen mourners.  Restrictions will probably be further relaxed next week. I hope so, though not as much as in Madrid. There, things are very relaxed. On the midday news, they showed café terraces filled with people sitting not so far apart, and mostly without masks. This, despite Madrid having the highes...

Yesterday, scrolling through Facebook, an article caught my eye,  La hambruna española que fue borrada de la historia. It talked about what we remember in Spain as the "years of hunger" which happened in the 1940's, after the Civil War, during the Second World War.  According to the article, it was more than just scarcity of food, but an actual famine comparable to the famine of the Netherlands of 1944, or of Greece during the Occupation, or even the Irish Potato Famine. Between 200,000 and 600,000 Spaniards are thought to have died during it, either directly of hunger, or of hunger-related diseases, such as typhus. The origins were not just because of the overwhelming disaster of our war, but also because of attempted state planning by Franco which failed miserably. Here, in Galicia, it didn't hit as hard because we didn't (and don't) have great tracts of land given over to commercial farming, but, rather, small plots that feed family farms, which excedent w...

On Monday, some restrictions were lifted in Galicia. You can now shop till eight or nine, go to the library, the theater, or the cinema (at 30% capacity), or train individually in open air sports installations. Some special education classes also resume, and university classes will be going offline. But, we still can't travel between townships, nor get together with anyone we don't live with (those trips to the movies will be lonely ones), nor sip our coffee at a café terrace. There is talk that to open hospitality businesses, there first must be firm moves to determining how many people can be on the terrace with signs, and some kind of electronic registry of clients, so they can be tracked in case of an outbreak related to the establishment. Of course, this means I still continue with online classes on Thursday and Friday, after Carnival break. Next week, it will depend on what the experts decide on Monday, but I suspect that, at least until Wednesday, I'll still be doing...

There has been talk these days about whether or not Spain is a full democracy. The leftist partners of the Spanish government, Podemos, brought up that ghost in a comment. Since then, they have been criticized, ad nauseam. The Socialist half of the government even came out and contradicted the leader of Podemos, Vice President Pablo Iglesias. What is a full democracy? One view of it is a society where one can express their opinions without being jailed. Also, where there is no exaltation of a dictatorship, nor calling out that a certain minority, long ostracized, is the enemy of Spain. If that view of what a full democracy is, is correct, then, no, Spain is not a full democracy. The first problem is the rapper Pablo Hasel, who was condemned for expressing his opinion about the state and the monarchy. The second is a march last Saturday in Madrid. The march was to honor the Blue Division that fought in the Soviet Union during the Second World War. It was held on Saturday because it was ...

It came out last week that the Princess Leonor will receive her last two years of high school education at a boarding school in Wales. They are the equivalent of sixth form in Britain, junior and senior years in the US, and the bachillerato in Spain. The total cost for the two years comes out to over €70,000, which will be paid out of the yearly asignation given to the Royal House out of the national budget. We commoners will be paying for her education. At the school, the UWC Atlantic College, she will study the coursework of the International Baccalaureate (IB), as well as participate in community workshops. She will live in a thirteenth century castle and its grounds, in what looks like a version of Hogwart's, along with over three hundred other children. Some of them are there on scholarships, others on family bank accounts. The daughter of the King of Jordan studied there, as did King Wilhelm of the Netherlands.  As a journalist said on television the other day, all parents i...

Presencial teaching has certain pitfalls, especially when there are two students of different age. Yet, it has its advantages. You can always pick up what the student is writing on, take up a red pen, and point out their mistakes, explaining the issues. You can also take chalk and graphically try to explain a point on what passes for a blackboard. You can look at them as they write, and stop them when you can tell they're doing something wrong because they don't understand. When they speak, you can correct them while looking over their shoulder at the text. One isn't always sitting nor standing, either, and if something comes up in the kitchen, you can always pop out of the study to check out if the cats are breaking all the kitchen glassware. Even though on the worst day, in which I stand up almost all afternoon and my back later hurts, I'm not standing absolutely still. Online learning doesn't have those advantages. It becomes artificial, difficult, and uncontroll...

From time to time, I hit the easel with my pastels. I haven't been doing much of late, but I still like to have supplies. Last December, I ordered some from Jackson's Art in Britain, trying to get ahead of Brexit. This past month, curiosity about how it will be from now on, led me to visit its page. There are a lot of products that are out of stock. I assume that those are products that the company normally buys from European providers. I ordered a new pastel board I had never used before, and a large sheet of Art Spectrum paper I can't find in Spain, as well as a Caran d'Ache pencil in a color I didn't have. Wow. Shipping now cost around twenty-five euros. Back in December, it had cost around five. I went ahead with the order, however. These were products that I couldn't find in Spain, not even online.  I received it today, except for the pastel board, which is on back order. Apparently, it also comes from a European provider. It was always very easy to order f...

It seems we have reached the cusp of contagion. Fewer people are being reported as sick. However, the death curve is climbing. Very possibly, one of the explanations could be that so many hospitals are so saturated, that the stretched out personnel can't fight as hard and as well with so many patients. I don't know. In our township, with a population of just over 11,000, today's number is 34 infected. We hit a plateau in the past week, where the number always fluctuated in the 40's, and since Monday, the number has been going down. The surrounding townships are also slowly reducing their numbers of contagion, so, hopefully, restrictions will be lifted soon, and we can travel from here to there, and vice versa. Even if I can't get to Santiago for a while, yet, I would love to resume my regular weekly shopping routine. In the meantime, I hope with all my soul that on the 17th of this month, we are allowed to meet up with people other than those who live with us. That ...

Alternative rapper, Pablo Hasel, has entered jail to serve a two year sentence for insults and calumny of the King and state institutions, and the glorifying of terrorism. His case has brought into question whether or not freedom of speech is actually respected in this country. It's a spiny question. When does openly giving your opinion become illicit? Among the reasons for his sentence, is a song, Muerte a los Borbones . In it, the rapper criticizes the monarchy, and King Juan Carlos specifically. I agree with most of the lyrics of the song, except the title, which is repeated in places, Death to the Borbons . The song criticizes aspects of the monarchy, with which criticism many people agree and comment on in daily life. "El rey hizo lo que más le convenía a su cuenta bancaria..." (The king acted in the best interests of his bank account.) At the beginning of the video on YouTube, Hasel includes an interview ex-King Juan Carlos gave in France, while Franco was still in...

To continue the internet fiasco, I went again to the store where I contracted it. There, the assistant called Movistar, and after twenty minutes with the phone hanging on his ear, the person he finally spoke with assured him that someone would come out to see the best place to put the hook-up box.  On March 3rd.  In the meantime, they might be calling me to see if they come up with any other, temporary solutions for me. The assistant told me not to accept anything else. Of course not. If I accept a slow access to internet, it won't be temporary, it will become permanent. I will be saving them work, so they wouldn't make good on their promise to set up a connection to the fiber optic cable. Vaffanculo , Movistar.  Yesterday, on the news, they were interviewing people on the Canary Islands. Everyone is depressed because this year, there is no Carnival. Celebrations should have begun, already, in many places. Various small towns here, in Galicia, would have already had custo...

I want to smash two plates, five glasses, and a window. I want to howl in anger and frustration. My internet odyssey isn't over yet.  The technicians from Movistar came this morning. After calling yesterday to make an appointment for nine o'clock this morning, they came at nine thirty. They came, said they would check along the line to find a hook-up box, and would then proceed to install the fiber. One went down the road, and the other went up the road. After a while, they both came back, shaking their heads. There is no hook-up.  Almost three years, three years ago, they installed the fiber cable. Since then, there has been no follow-up to install the box. Nothing, zilch, nada. Movistar probably installed the cable because of pressure from the regional government to extend the network of fiber to rural areas. But they stopped at that. The rubes don't really need internet, after all. Milking cows and feeding the pigs doesn't require a computer. So now, I have to wait...