Spanish views from a small town

Getting a decent job in Spain in the twenty-first century is not an easy task. Especially if you're young. Or if you're over forty. Or if you don't have a college degree. Or if you have too many degrees, masters, or even a doctorate. Youth unemployment is now at thirty three percent, the highest in the European Union. Which explains the crowds this past Sunday. This Sunday were the exams to access jobs within the postal system. Public employment in Spain is accessed by exams. The prospective employee tends to spend more than a year studying the material, generally by paying and attending classes at private academies. Then, when an exam is held (which doesn't happen every year), they register and attend an all-day x-marks-the-answer marathon.  Our daughter joined the crowds this Sunday. Only, she didn't have much time to prepare, just about four months, on her own. Hopefully, she'll pass, which means she'll be on the substitute list. That will allow her t...

Once upon a time in rural Spain, the donkey was the king of the road. It would carry or pull anything, from a person, to a cart with a towering cargo of grass. Every household owned a donkey. Almost every household would treat it better than it treated the dog. It was another friend, and one of the most important members of the farm. Those days have disappeared, and now the donkey is in danger of extinction. I still remember coming on vacat ion as a child, and my uncle sitting me atop their donk ey. I remember holding on for dear l ife as the donkey began to move, hopin g not t o fall off. I also thought I weighed too much for the animal. Until I saw how much grass my uncle would load onto the arrieiros . This was a type of metal saddle that went on the don key's ba ck, and had two w ings that un fo lded on the sides, to be ab le to hold cargo. Some donkeys that I've seen in my childhood made me understand the saying, " traballar como un burro " (work like a donkey...

This is the story of a modern-day picaresque hero. It's only fitting that it takes place in Spain. After all, this is the country where the picaresque novel originated. The story takes place in Cádiz, down in the warm south, where life is lived slowly and leisurely.  In the year 1998 the city hall of Cádiz signed an agreement with the public water company Aguas de Cádiz, in which a city employee would take over a certain job. The worker in question was placed in that office with that responsibility. His paycheck was still coming from the city coffers. From 2004 to 2010 apparently he decided his time was better spent elsewhere. People would sometimes ask about him, but no one knew where he was. At the company they thought he had gone back to City Hall. In City Hall they thought he was still at the public water company. He was really at home, which happened to be down the street and around the corner from the office where he was supposed to be working. Eventually, when enough peopl...

Like so many other women in this world I have a mother-in-law. Imagine all the connotations of this word and now add another. She's a Spanish woman who has lived in a rural village all her life. She gossips, she hates books, she loves celebrity talk shows on television, and she's always telling you what to do. Having raised six children and buried three, she is the only one who knows how to correctly raise a child. If you do it this way, she'll tell you modern methods don't cut it because she did it that way and they came out big, strong, healthy oxen. In other words, someone to visit every few days with closed ears but not someone to live with. Sometimes, though, she'll ask me if she can accompany me on my weekly shopping trip because there'll be things she needs and she hasn't got a car. Those Saturdays my spirits fall three stories to the floor. She'll begin in the car, telling me about the latest my father-in-law did (they don't get along, but ...