Spanish views from a small town

It's been a rainy midwinter, so far. It hasn't been cold, except yesterday morning, and only because the night before had been so clear that valley fogs formed. It has been a strange vacation, though, because our daughter has taken a job so that she can help pay for the next few months she has left of her vocational course. That means she's not home except for the holidays themselves, since the job is in Santiago, so she stays at a friend's apartment. The job is in a bookstore. Her main job is to package presents and help out customers. Her coworkers are nice people, but she is amazed at the amount of customers that could very well be labelled "karens." Sometimes because they're rude, other times because they act entitled, others because they treat the store clerks like lackeys. She's surprised at how few people are actually empathetic towards her and the others.  She's also surprised at how badly children read. Our daughter has always been a reade...

Yesterday was a very blue day, and when eight o'clock rolled around, I still had no idea what to write, except the refrain going through my head. The news about contagion was also depressing, and nothing new. And that wasn't at all interesting. So, I left it for today. An article this morning, in the blog  Thoughts from Galicia, Spain, on the British scions of the sherry trade in southern Spain kicked off a memory. The article mentioned a mix of sherry, egg yolk, and sugar that was given to children once, a long time ago, in the area of southwestern Andalucía, in the area where sherry is produced. It was (and still is) called candié , a corruption of the English candied egg . But this brew goes back quite a ways.  It was mentioned in a dictionary from 1729 as a way to season meat. But sixty years later, it was no longer mentioned as a seasoner, and simply a delicious drink. What is its possible origin is that it was thought up as a way to use left over egg yolks from sherry m...

Children under 14 are now allowed one hour outside. There are rules. Only one parent with a maximum of three children for a maximum of one hour. Social distancing must be practiced. Toys can be brought outside, but balls are frowned upon because of all the surfaces they bounce on. Children's playgrounds are still off limits. Depending on the town, its location and its policies, they may be able to play on the beaches, but not swim nor stick feet in the water. The maximum distance allowed from home is one kilometer.  Of course, the first day this is allowed being Sunday, in some cities and towns it looked like the day after Christmas or Epiphany, with all the kids and all their toys out in the streets. Not everyone kept to the rules, and in some cases, adults chose the hour to socialize while their youngsters were running amok in the neighborhood. This first day, the police were merely warning. After that, they'll be writing, and you'll be paying. It sometimes feels li...

October has come, and with it, classes have begun again. Not that it's been easy, scheduling everyone who wanted at least an hour. Every year it seems that a child's after school schedule resembles that of a CEO of an international corporation. 4 o'clock: swimming classes 5 o'clock: art classes 6 o'clock: tae kwondo 7 o'clock: football practice 8 o'clock: theater classes 9 o'clock: roller skating I could continue, but I'll stop. Apart from these, there's rowing, ballet, tennis, other support classes (math, etc.), dancing, computer classes, etc. Children nowadays have no time to get bored. I don't even know how they have time to do homework and eat supper, let alone play.  Was I remiss with my daughter? She only went to one after school activity at a time. She went to an art class once a week in the first years. In later primary school years, she went to roller skating classes. Then, in high school, she went to math support classes....

Yesterday, a little boy was rescued from a narrow well he had fallen into thirteen days earlier. Unfortunately, the height he had fallen from (he was found at close to a hundred meters underground), had caused his death in the first hours after the incident. It happened in Totalén, Málaga. A family had gone to a patch of land owned by a family member to make a paella in the open air and have a general picnic. The boy, around two years old, wandered off, and either discovered the open hole, or uncovered it. Cats and toddlers are both known for their curiosity, and that, unfortunately, led him to look in the hole, and he fell into it. It wasn't very wide, but two-year olds can fit almost anywhere. The accident reminded me of Jessica McClure back in 1987. Jessica was a year and a half when she fell into a well shaft in Midland, Texas. But her fall was only about six meters. She was singing and crying while rescuers had to mine a parallel hole and a mine shaft to connect it to the we...

A ten year old boy is asked by his mother to put breakfast on the table. He says no and continues listening to music and playing a game on his €800 phone. She insists, and he smashes the phone against the floor in her general direction. She slaps him. That same boy, a year later and now eleven, goes to the door, announcing he's leaving home. His mother grabs him by the neck, inadvertently scratching him. Who's in the wrong? The boy or the mother? According to strict interpretation of Spanish law, the mother. Which is why the boy's father (separated from the mother) and the boy decided to denounce the mother for abuse. What the state attorney was asking for against the mother was thirty-five days social jobs, a year and a half prohibited from owning or carrying firearms, and a restraining order of fifty meters from her son for six months. The judge, however, absolved her of all wrongdoing. According to him, the child, in his testimony, was cold and calculating, and showed ...

I talked to my daughter about drugs, alcohol, and tobacco when she was around five years old. Some have called me a brute for doing it so early. But I used language she understood and she took the lesson very seriously. In effect, I brainwashed her, because what we are taught at that age we remember for life as fact. Many parents prefer to wait until the kid goes to high school at twelve, or even prefer to leave it to the school. I suppose each parent knows his child best, but, in my opinion, if the subject is brought up, it should be broached and not stuffed away in a closet to wait "until they understand." Hopefully, there should be a lot of talking going on in a lot of households these days. Unfortunately, at the expense of a young girl's life. A young girl whose parents probably thought it was too early to talk about these things.  In San Martín de la Vega, just outside Madrid, young kids got together last Friday to celebrate Halloween with their own kind of party. ...

The little girl, around five or six years old, was spending the evening like most other evenings. Playing in the living room while her parents were sitting and watching the television. The only light was the flickering silver blue light from the black and white television between two front windows, opposite the open archway leading to the dining room. The parents believed in saving energy and keeping the electricity bill as low as possible. Through the archway, the girl could see through the dining room to the little square hallway off which opened the bathroom, her bedroom, and the kitchen in front. She wanted to go play in the kitchen, under the table, pretending it was her little house, as she had been doing earlier, until her parents had turned off the light and gone into the living room. She had followed them, but now she was bored and wanted to resume the earlier play.  She started to walk into the living room. Her mother asked where she was going. The girl replied with her...

Tonight is a magical night for children all over Spain. Tonight, while they're all abed, the three Magi will come and leave presents for them, just as they brought three special presents all the way from the Orient to Baby Jesus over two thousand years ago. That is the tradition. And just as a stocking is hung for Santa, shoes are left out for the Wise Men. Though most presents don't even fit under a tree nowadays, much less in a shoe.  And this evening Their Majesties (for the Wise Men were Kings) will visit cities and towns where parades will be held, welcoming them and their helpers. Floats have been prepared ever since last summer in some cases, and they are ready to carry Melchor, Gaspar and Balthasar through the streets. Pages will collect letters from eager children wishing for special presents. The Magi will throw candy from the floats, trying to keep a rhythm so that the candy lasts through the last street. Some children will cry with fear, others will open their eye...