Spanish views from a small town

This morning, as I was returning home from visiting a couple of shops in our town, I saw a horse-drawn carriage backing up traffic on the incoming lane. It was a fine, light grey horse (I don't know the names of the different horse colors) trotting and pulling an open cart that would have looked at home doing the pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgen del Rocío down in Huelva. It was open, with a pole at each corner, holding a tassled canopy over the cart. The horse was wearing blinders. Nevertheless, I slowed down as much as possible when I passed it, if only to look at its splendor. The car coming behind me at a length didn't do much of slowing in the way of courtesy, but the horse wasn't rattled; it was used to trotting along with motor traffic. I have no idea where they were from, and what they were doing coming into town like that. In normal times, this Saturday would have been the first day of our festival of the Virxe de Guadalupe . Perhaps they came because they we...

What do Spain, Kosovo, San Marino, and Bosnia-Herzegovina have in common? At first look, nothing, except that they're all in Europe. If you are into trivia, however, you'll know that their national anthems have no lyrics. There are no words to sing to, just hold your hand over your heart, and go, "lo, lo, lo, lo, lo-lo-lo." It's been that way in Spain ever since the military march, Marcha Granadera , later become the Marcha Real , has been played at official acts involving the monarchy first, and later, the government. In 1870 there was an attempt to change it, and to adopt an anthem with some words to lift up the national heart. There were no suggestions, and things stayed pretty much the same until the Second Republic in 1931, when the anthem was changed for one with lyrics.  Of course, Franco was not in agreement, and when he won the Civil War, he put things back in their place. He tried to get into use lyrics written in the 1920's that called for the g...

I read an article online yesterday morning that brought back memories of conclusions I had come to some years ago. The  article is from The Guardian, and was written by an American woman at least ten years younger than me. She grew up in a bubble of an environment; a middle class white town with conservative values and no interest in the outside world, nor much historical and cultural curiosity. I grew up in a slightly more diverse neighborhood, developed liberalized values, was very interested in everything that happened in the world and the country around me, and devoured history books as if they were Harlequin novels and I a lovesick little girl. In the first years I lived here, everything compared disfavorably with America. I grew up believing America was the best country in the world, and the one with the most freedom. I believed, much like the woman in the article did, that the United States was the epitome of a civilized nation. In fact, I believed that the truth was wors...

What is a symbol? A symbol is a representation of something else. We are sur round ed by s y mbols. Our minds work with symbols every day. Even letters are symbols, properly speaking. Symbols are necessary for us, without the m our communicat ion would not be as fluid and underst a ndable. Somet imes, they are emotional , an d we are trained from babyhood to have a knee-jerk reaction to them as soon as we see them. I remember while in primary school in Boston, every morning we st ood and recited the pledge, hands over hears, facing the American fl ag in the co rn er. We were taught it was the symbol of a great country, a proud country, our country. I still remember, I pledge allegiance to the f lag of the Unite d S t ates of America, and to the Republic, for whi ch it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, wi th liberty and justice for all . Every morning, twenty-odd chi ldren and their teacher, in every class, unanimously rec iting th e same words to a symbol. We were taught...