Rainbow’s End

December 2, 2017December 2, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Hornachos. How you play with my heart! You, who the Moors adored in this land of endless fields, are indeed beautiful; the purple heights of the Sierra Grande soaring out of the earth like the broken spine of some great ship upon the shore… Home of the golden eagle and his imperial cousin, the fierce boar and the mighty griffons, the guardians of this beautiful kingdom… The twinkling lights of your houses, seen from afar to be floating in the night like the island of Laputa…

…why on earth do you only have one fucking bus per day?!

That’s right. One of the most beautiful towns of Extremadura is hamstrung by its virtual inaccessibility. Centuries after the departure of the Moriscos, the mountainside town remains as unapproachable as ever it was under the rule of the soon-to-be pirate kings, albeit for slightly more mundane reasons.

Hornachos is served by one bus line, which is perfectly suited to the Hornachego with a job in the outside world, but virtually useless for the interested day-tripper. Two buses make for the town at 15.15 and 18.45 on weekdays (with the notable exception of Fridays), and one leaves for the outside world at 7.15am. And that’s it. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were any cheap accommodation offers, but with a slew of casas rurales, 50€ per night is the standard. When nearby Villafranca – which has almost nothing to see, by comparison – has a hostel for 10€ a night, it seems a little ridiculous. Not least of all because I would happily spend as much as 50€ every month (or more) if it meant I could be in Hornachos every weekend. Because I would. As for BlaBlaCar, the distance between Villafranca is too long to walk (and then hike), but too short for a popular carshare. You can’t free camp either, because of local laws. Goddammit.

Simply put, day-tripping to Hornachos is simply not possible without a car.

Its inaccessibility, however, is my sole complaint. Because, besides a lousy bus service, Hornachos has it all: the ruins of a tenth-century Moorish castle, a Mudejar church, an enormous sierra with vast fields of rolling dehesa stretching out for miles behind, a history so bitter and intense it might have been written in lemon juice and a super-friendly Casa de Cultura. I fell in love with Hornachos from the moment I first laid eyes on it. The unmistakable silhouette of Olvera, my old hometown, still strikes a chord or two in my heartstrings whenever I see it, but the Sierra Grande has long since overshadowed its place at the centre of my heart.

I was lucky enough to hitch a ride with a couple of friends who wanted to go hiking in the Sierra, so I leaped at the chance. We didn’t have long to stay in the castle, because as we arrived atop the ruins, the shrieks and shouts of an approaching school trip sailed up the hill to meet us, like a colourful besieging army. Amber didn’t hesitate to let them know we were English. I replied to their questions in Arabic. Brownie points go to Amber for being a decent human being, where I just wanted to be difficult, I think.

It did drive home to me just how deceptive the mountains are, though. We had no idea there was a forty-strong school trip coming up the mountain to meet us until we’d reached the top, though one might have heard them for miles around. It’s a dangerous place up there, and little wonder the Moors made a beeline for the mountains when they reached these lonely parts.

I had a private lesson in the afternoon and a language exchange at the EOI, so I had to be back in Almendralejo for four o’clock, which didn’t give us mountains of time to explore (ho ho). We fitted in the usual circular route, albeit in reverse, as well as a cheeky yoga session at the end – needless to say I remain as flexible as a dinner plate – though this time I scaled the first leg of the Trasierra route which crosses the Sierra Grande and winds down into the fields below. Further exploration is definitely required.

The church, sadly, is closed to the public. Like the museum, if you’re interested, you have to ask for the key from the local tourist information office. I suppose this is the normal way of things; you take things for granted in the outside world, where Seville and Marrakesh whore their finery to the lowest bidder. Hornachos retains some of that ancient-world mystique. As much as it bothers me, perhaps that’s the secret to its survival.

You’ve got to hand it to the old town for its tenacity. Who’d have thought that this quiet gathering of houses on the side of the Sierra Grande was once home to the men who would go on to become the infamous Sallee Rovers of Robinson Crusoe fame? I wonder whether there were any Hornachegos amongst the corsairs who took part in the equally bloody Sack of Baltimore in 1631, only twenty-one years after their expulsion from the Iberian peninsula… Rabat sure does seem like a world away from this flat, flat world…

‘We’re not in Hornachos anymore…’

I will make you famous, Hornachos. When the world knows of El Gran Hornachego and his adventures across Iberia and beyond, you will get the fame you deserve. I will write you back into history. That’s a promise.

Also, after my sour-grapes episode about cold and snow, we did actually have some frost yesterday. Not much, and only in the shaded ditches at the side of the olive fields, but it was something. I hear Durham’s been looking beautiful in the snow lately, like Spain did last year. Why do I always manage to miss the snow wherever I go? BB x

A Waiting Game

November 29, 2017November 29, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Teaching’s going fine. It’s been a misty last few days here in Tierra de Barros. After a hearty Thanksgiving Party in Almendralejo and a decent slog at the karaoke for afters (via Tom Jones and Lionel Richie under my karaoke alter ego, Bem), it’s back to business as usual for the last three weeks of term (the fourth is always anybody’s guess). My old rule – never repeat a game – is holding fast. Amongst the games I’ve played with my classes are:

Psychiatrist
The Triangle Game
I’m Going on a Trip
Chain Word Advance (Noun, Adjective and Verb)
Never Have I Ever
Kim’s Game
Mafia
Twenty-One

I’ve still got a few more in the bag before I run out of my set, but when I do, it’s only a matter of invention and re-invention. This teaching assistant malarkey is simply a case of giving the kids an incentive to speak in English, and what better way is there than giving them games they can enjoy in their own language once we’re done? Psychiatrist went down a storm – the kids play it at break-times, they tell me – and this week’s Twenty-One (courtesy of Tasha, an old hand at this game) has proven itself to be more popular yet. The Triangle Game left a good many of them boggled and more than a little frustrated, but my older classes found it immensely entertaining.

The key, I suppose, is not to think of these games as ESL activities in their own right, but as the kind of games you’d have enjoyed playing with your friends at school, or at university, or in any other setting. Parlour games are prime material, such as Psychiatrist (for which I am indebted to the French animateurs at my first summer job who rendered it Pussycat, after the French psychiatre). Campfire games are also a wonder here, and I find myself wishing that the younger me had been more sociable; an upbringing in the Scouts or Guides might have armed me with a good deal more material in this field. Last, but not least, drinking games are an unexpectedly rewarding resource, if modified correctly – especially as many of them are already corrupted games in their own right. Remove the element of drink and place a greater emphasis on speech and you have plenty of ideas at your disposal.

Of course, I have to keep this up for a full academic year. That’s thirty-one weeks of games; twenty-one, if we’re counting down (that’s as many days of games as Emperor Commodus declared in Gladiator…). As a point of pride, I will never resort to Hangman. Thus, the search continues. So help me God.

IMG_2599-1

Meanwhile, I’m finding myself drawn to the attractions of home more keenly than usual. Perhaps it’s because my old friend Biff is bound for South Africa in the new year (KwaZulu-Natal no less, the lucky so-and-so), or perhaps because it’s Christmas and – being in Spain – you’d never know it, or perhaps it’s the simple fact that, unlike the last time I was working here, I haven’t got the surety of returning home at the end of the year. The fact that this will also be my first Christmas away from home does factor into it, too.

Skyscanner went from a casual browsing affair to my most visited webpage overnight. By the end of the night I’d searched for flights to Gatwick and to Newcastle; to Stansted, Luton and even Durham Tees; and then to Durban and Cape Town; Paris, Toulouse and Berlin… With the Northern Lights’ annual Christmas Concert next week and several old friends due to return to watch, I found myself tempted to wing my way over if I could. But between an 8am flight from Málaga, a midnight bus ride from Durham to London and the knowledge that I’d have to take two days off work for it to be even possible, I decided to save the 180€ it would have cost me towards more worthwhile ventures (I could buy a decent bike for that kind of money – or even pay for two return trips to Gatwick in low season).

I still miss music, and I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into my a cappella arrangement of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, as well as tinkering with arrangements of Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody to Love, The Sugababes’ Red Dress and an Afrobeat mashup of Thriller and Fela Kuti’s Zombie and Opposite People. The musical energy within me still needs siphoning off somehow, and even if the Lights have enough material for years already, all these arrangements are, at least, a temporary solution for my own frustration.

Gala Show (35)

To keep my writing muscles flexed, I’ve been building my vocabulary daily on the sly. Whether I’ll use my learning as part of a Pasapalabra-style test for the kids remains to be seen, as some of the words are downright impossible to divine without the right knowledge, but as a writer I’m hoping it’ll do me some good. Here’s a few of my recent findings:

umbrageous (adjective): (of a person) inclined to take offense easily

nonbook (noun): a book without literary or artistic merit

earthshine (noun): the dim light on the unlit surface of the Moon caused by the Earth

A good many of them are much too specific to wend their way into everyday conversation (see bombinate), but I’m hoping it’ll increase my vocabulary in the long run. Polygon and Scrabble would be a lot easier, for one thing. And, of course, Bananagrams. Until the next time. BB x

Frost vs Nixon

November 19, 2017November 20, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

That was, without a doubt, the smoothest flight I’ve ever taken. No more complicated than getting on and off a bus. The plane was on time, there was no security check at the other end and I was on the bus to the city centre within five minutes of leaving the plane. To top it off, my entire row was empty, so I got the window seat for free. It isn’t often that you get such a slick service with a budget airline, but after my previous experience (I haven’t forgiven you for that 20€ croque monsieur, EasyJet) I consider it my just reward.

STOP PRESS: The automated American translation in Plaza de Armas just mangled Matalascañas beyond belief (Matter-lass-cun-arse). Help.

Toulouse was covered in a thick fog when I left this morning. Bella said it didn’t feel much like France, but it sure as heck didn’t feel like Spain. With all the yellow and brown trees, misty rivers and starling swarms overhead, it felt a lot more like England than anywhere else. The cold has set in down in Extremadura, but it’s not a true wintry chill like there is here in the lower foothills of the Pyrenees. Oddly enough, on our way through the city streets with salted caramel-drizzled Belgian waffles in hand, I found myself missing home.

That is, I wound up missing England whilst on holiday in France from working in Spain.

In the past it was a lot easier to say where I wanted to be. Spain had purple gallinules, bee-eaters and griffon vultures, England had woodpigeons. It was an easy decision to make. Now that I’m older and avifauna is no longer priority number one, it’s not quite so clear cut (though the vultures are still a major factor). I don’t begrudge my mixed-up ancestry in the slightest – I couldn’t be more proud of it – but if I did, it would be over the confusion it’s left me with regards to where I want to be.

England is cold and England is damp, and my lungs suffer for over half the year for it. The English are, in my experience, prickly when it comes to difference, nervy when it comes to work and uncomfortable in just about any given situation, without mentioning their appalling inability to talk about their feelings. Living is expensive, work is hard and life is lived for the weekend.

It is, however, the land where I was born. And, for all their faults, the English understand a great many subtleties that pass the Spanish by: public footpaths, music for its own sake, quality satire and coffee shops, amongst others. It’s also a land of gorgeous crispy winter mornings with frosted grass, thick mist and a promise of rain, and indoor afternoons spent reading with a mug of hot chocolate on carpeted floors. In short, England does autumn and winter properly.

Spain has everything else. Spain is hot – at least until November, when a harsh, dry cold sweeps in across the plains – and damp is a thing of the imagination, especially in drought years such as this. It doesn’t have a fantastic music scene, but it does have endless rolling hills of wild olive trees and cork oaks, overflown by kites, vultures, harriers and eagles, not to mention cranes, storks and a whole host of other impressive creatures. It has tostadas and decent olive oil. It has good food for good prices, skies so blue you couldn’t paint them properly if you tried, and a crippling addiction to ham that goes back centuries.

In addition, the Spanish are only too happy to tell you how they feel, at the expense of small-talk topics such as the weather (which most of them couldn’t give a fig about) and sport (where a lot will tell you how failed their exercise regime is/was/will be). And, for better of for worse, family is everything to them. Many Spaniards are completely hamstrung by their devotion to their families, and a good many more don’t begrudge them for it one bit.

Spain also has Spanish. The happiness machine. That’s the biggest win of them all.

Through my own strength of will (and a fair degree of my mother’s), Spain has become a far bigger part of my life than it otherwise might have been. And if I never shut up about it, it’s because Spain is not just the longest love affair of my life, it’s a family affair. It fills the enormous hole that most of my generation fill with Snapchat and social media. Just being here makes me happy.

You can’t spend your life chasing happiness, and it’s unhealthy to try. But it’s a rare kind of joy when happiness and work combine like they do out here. And when I find myself missing those autumn mornings, frost on the car bonnet and even the beautifully reassuring sound of the woodpigeons, I look around me and remind myself where I am. Azure-winged magpies bouncing out of the trees, shepherds leading their merino sheep across the fields and impressive stone castles sitting atop lonely hills. No Christmas feeling, no carols and definitely no a cappella, but no wheezing either. I can’t do everything I’d like, but at the very least I can be me. I can live with that. BB x

That Smell

November 17, 2017November 17, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I don’t make a habit of leaving my beloved Spain during a placement. Some misplaced sense of pride tends to keep me tied to this marbled rock whilst most of the American auxiliares catch every cheap flight to Yurp they can lay their hands on. And when they’ve traveled across the Atlantic to get here, who can blame them? But duty calls, and I find myself sitting in row five of an EasyJet plane bound for Toulouse. Pride is one thing, holding out in spite of your heart is another. And let’s face it, I won’t have the chance or excuse to stay in Toulouse for free again very soon, and as I rarely visit France anyway, I might as well carpe the diem.

As a gift for Bella’s host family for putting me up (not once but twice) I’m bringing some Torta del Casar, a delicious if seriously pungent cheese from Casar de Cáceres to the north. I’d have got my hands on the more local Torta de Barros if I could find it, but as the Casar is also denominación de origen and equally delicious, I do believe it’s a fine alternative. It’s a sloppy, spreading cheese, and has a spectacular tang like the pimentón that is grown in the north, or – come to that – a good deal of the dry foods that hail from the Iberian interior. The trouble with the cheese is that its smell is seriously strong. It must be, or else I wouldn’t be able to smell it so well. My sense of smell is terrible, and always has been (which must, I wonder, have a fairly major impact on my sense of taste as well), so as a rule of thumb if something smells strong to me, it could probably knock a dog out.

As sense loss goes, having a fault in the olfactory department is, at least to me, one of the easiest deficiencies to deal with in the sensory department. I’d far rather no smell than, say, no sight or hearing. It does, however, occasionally give me cause to wonder whether I’m missing out on the minutiae, like the smell of the Romanian family who were at the Leda kiosk before me on my return journey home last night. No sooner had they taken their leave, the tired-looking woman at the desk gave me a long, troubled look and said, grimly, ‘Qué olor… Qué olor’.

I wasn’t aware Romanians smelled differently. I wasn’t aware they smelled at all, to be honest. I for one didn’t smell anything (though I’ll grant you, for the reasons I’ve already given, I’m not the best judge).

It is, however, a small marker of the resentment some locals harbour towards the not-unremarkable Romanian immigrant population. Whether that’s because it’s harvest season, or because their population has grown in size since my last visit, their presence is particularly notable at the moment. Romanian is the second most commonly heard language in the streets after Spanish, doubly so in certain locations. There are now at least two shops in Villafranca that stock Romanian goods and foodstuffs. I run into the same families in Día on a regular basis (though not as often as I used to since it went upmarket). My weekly route to and from a private class in Almendralejo takes me through what can only be the Romanian quarter. As a local entity, their presence can no longer be ignored.

I’d love to learn Romanian. It’s apparently not such a great leap from the other Latin languages, being a Latinate language itself. But learning the language would be only the first hurdle; breaking the silence would be the next. There’s as much a cultural barrier in place as a language barrier. For a point of comparison, one need only look at the Chinese or the Moroccans, both of whom are now long-established here. There’s even a halal butcher’s in Almendralejo, with Arabic signage as plain as though al-Andalus had survived to the present. Commerce, at least, thrives between the three.

It’s different in the schools. This year I have at least five Muslim students in my classes, the children of Moroccans who live and work in town. It says a lot that that’s worth pointing out, but it says even more that their presence in my classes far outsizes the Romanian presence. There are Romanian kids in the school; that much I know from a glance over the register. But they’re in the non-bilingual classes, along with the gypsies, Moroccans and Algerians. I don’t see them at all.

After a week of hosting the Polish exchange, my mind’s caught up in the whole interculturalism thing, like it hasn’t been since that frustratingly theoretical text on interculturalism vs multiculturalism in university last year. If the Polish presence in the U.K. were as notable as the Romanian presence in Tierra de Barros, the usual intolerant factions of my homeland would have a great deal to say about it. It surprises me – and pleases me – that I’ve yet to see such a bubbling-up here. However, it’s little encounters like the lady at the bus station that make me wonder how deep the suspicion festers. I can only hope it was simply a case of an overly sensitive nose.

There are lots of babies on this flight. I deal with noisy children on a very regular basis on account of my private lessons, so I’m getting better at tuning them out. We’re passing Pamplona and preparing to cross the Pyrenees at their Western end, into French airspace. One can almost smell the strike fever. I hope it doesn’t give me too much trouble this time. I’ve got be back at work on Monday morning. But until then, let the music play. BB x

P.S. Students of Arabic Literature, yes, the title is a deliberate reference to Sonallah Ibrahim.

Copper, Copper, Everywhere

November 11, 2017November 12, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I love history, but I’m no historian. It was always one of my favourite subjects at school, despite the fact that I wasn’t especially good at it (particularly when it became Historiography). Were it not for History, I might have achieved a string of straight As at A Level. I didn’t. The temptation to study a subject I loved but wasn’t brilliant at was too strong. It’s a lesson I didn’t learn when I went on to study Arabic at university. There, too, I paid for my interest. But I can’t help myself. I love a challenge, and I love history even more. Ever since getting my first Horrible Histories book as a kid I’ve been hooked.

Please don’t ask me about the Chalcolithic Age, though.

Yesterday I went to Almendralejo’s EOI (Escuela Oficial de Idiomas) to take part in an excursion to Huerta Montero, a Copper Age tholos or communal passage grave on the outskirts of town. The visit was primarily for the benefit of the B1 level students of the school, so that they could learn some of their history of their town at the same time as practising their English. We don’t get many tourists coming out here for the history (we don’t get many tourists out here at all, come to that), so rather than hiring the local guide, the EOI decided to use one of the auxiliares to give the tour. Tasha knew me for a history boffin and suggested me. Yours truly then had to clue up on this obscure Chalcolithic (please don’t make me pronounce that again) sepulchre, gleaning facts and titbits about Copper Age Spain to produce a reasonably interesting (and, crucially, intelligible) presentation for the students. I did say I like a challenge…

I learned a lot, I must say. I’ve never really looked into the Copper Age, or the Bronze Age, or even the Stone Age for that matter. Did you know, for example, that the average life expectancy in the third and fourth millennia BCE was around 23 years old? It was pretty humbling to be giving out that little factoid with twenty-three years to my own name. Also new to me, and perhaps more interesting still, was the knowledge that Almería, once home to El Argar, Spain’s dominant Bronze Age culture, is in part the product of Bronze Age environmental meddling. The El Argar civilisation, Spain’s most advanced in its day, developed at such a voracious speed that, together with a shift in climate, it resulted in the creation of Almeria’s vast semi-desert, such as the Sierra de Baza and the Tabernas wastes. A message for our time if ever there was one.

I’m not sure how much information the students gleaned from my presentation alone. I did my best. The ensuing hour or two over a pint in Almendralejo’s Hotel Acosta Centro was a great deal more informative, and it re-affirmed my faith in humanity in finding more than one avid naturalist amongst the Extremeño community. The fires of Catalonia are still smouldering, but on an environmental front, I do believe Spain is changing for the better. Whether it is too little too late remains to be seen, but a little awareness can do so much good.

Here’s to that. Chin chin! BB x

The Best Margherita in the World

November 7, 2017November 9, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

It must be time for the second half of Biff and Ben’s Andalusian Adventures. Apologies for the delay; work is picking up speed fast, just like it always does. Private lessons are adding up now. I look after a group of kids for an hour twice a week and suddenly the whole town is in on the game. It won’t be long before my previously timetable is fully booked, perhaps even more so than the last time I was here. The way things are going, I might even earn more than that year, too: private lessons pay a lot more in the long run than a regular assistant’s hourly salary.

So, after spending an enjoyable sunset watching bats skimming low over the water in the town park, I thought it was high time I got this post out of the way so I can justify giving you weekly musings and updates – which, I maintain, always make for much more entertaining reading than another ‘wish-you-were-here’ travelogue.

That said, here’s one such adventure.

After a day wandering about Seville and discussing the pros and cons of Salvation, I thought we could do with a trip further afield. Through our AirBnB host Emma we managed to rent a car at less than twenty-four hours’ notice. It took some doing, but we did it. All we had to do was decide upon a destination. It took some convincing, but I managed to dissuade Biff and Rosie from visiting El Rocío. Why they alighted on that one in particular is beyond me. I suppose the fact that I’d name-dropped the place for years and years had something to do with it. At any other time I’d have loved to show off my favourite Spanish lady, but after a year of bad droughts and worse forest fires, she’s hiding her skirts in shame at the way she’s been treated. I can only hope she finds her smile again.

Emma looked horrified when they mentioned their plans to her, pulling the same pained expression most Spaniards seem to pull whenever you mention you’re headed for Huelva (“but… why?”). I spent most of the night and a good twenty minutes of the morning making other plans and, over breakfast, I posited a route through the Serranía de Ronda an alternative. They took the bait. Thank the Lord.

With Biff at the wheel, we reached the intersection and headed east, instead of west. Towards the mountains. Always a good direction to be going in. There was a strange black fog over the town of Dos Hermanas as we left Seville behind. Not sure what that was all about. Time to head up into the mountains where the air is clear.

Ronda. It’s been ten years. It’s been more than ten years. And still I remembered my way about that most beautiful town, truly the jewel of the Andalusian sierras. Little wonder the famous bandoleros made the sierras around here their home. A guitarist and his accompanying dancer plied their trade before the balcony on the park promenade. A horde of Spanish tourists marched down the walk towards us, the noisiest of all the world’s sightseers. And now they’re armed with selfie sticks. They seem to be one of the few things the older generation has learned how to use – and discovered to be much to their liking. God help us all.

We had plenty of time and a lot of shadows to kill. So we meandered along the cliff wall in the direction of the famous bridge, whilst I explained how GHOTI was fish and Biff threw me for a loop with the seven pronunciations of -OUGH. Trust me, when you’re in the English teaching trade, nuggets like these are fun. I’m serious.

Or at least, they are for me. Biff may have other ideas

Rivalling the Spanish tourists in town were the Asians, who had come in great numbers. And upon the battlefield of the bridge, where Spanish and Asian met, selfie-sticks held aloft, it looked as though two armies wielding pikes were set to clash. It was rather difficult to find a good spot without crossing somebody’s line of fire, I can tell you.

What’s wrong with a good landscape?

We passed the homage to the Romantic Travellers of Ronda where, despite the relatively sparse decoration, the selfie stick brigade was back in force. A little further on, past a curio shop and the Museo de Lara, we stumbled upon another blast from the past: the bandit museum. Had I had half a brain I would have made it priority number one to visit this little establishment whilst writing my TLRP on bandits two years back. I didn’t, and I still nabbed a decent 85% (thank you, Google Books), but boy, do I still wish I had! The place was a gold mine and – to my surprise – it didn’t drive Biff and Rosie out of their minds. On the contrary, they even seemed to enjoy the visit! Which made me happy. Though perhaps not as happy as having the chance to see an entire collection of bandit knives…

Lunch – at Gastrobar Déjà Vu, directly opposite the museum – was spectacular. I haven’t eaten so well for so little since Amman’s Bab el-Yemen. Twelve euros for ten tapas. And that’s ten home-made, local produce tapas. Insane. England, please look and learn. Tapas shouldn’t cost more than three to four euros a head, if that. Not seven. Please remember that.

Ronda’s streets look stunning under the azure sky, but it was the gorge we came to see. And this is where my ten-year-old memory failed me a little – because the last time I came here, I’m almost certain the path beneath the cliff wall went no further than a few metres or so.

Not anymore. I guess Ronda must have hit the bigtime on the tourist circuit, because the track down to the gorge is in a brilliant state, complete with Via Ferrata routes, ropes and little cairns left by daytrippers here and there.

I could have sworn the Tejo river itself was polluted and closed off the last time I was here. Not so anymore! You can wind your way down the gorge and walk along the river valley, looking up at the bridge high above. It’s quite a surreal experience, and very humbling. The bridge looks enormous from on high, but it’s nothing compared to how it looks from below. And when you’ve got the sierras beyond framed by the archway…

…I could hardly ask for more.

The only anomaly of the excursion was the well-hut a short way out on the other side of the gorge. Because, if memory serves, I remember getting as far as a small building like that when I was twelve years old… though this one lies so close to the waterfall at the bottom that one might as well be there already. I wonder just how far I got?

From Ronda we took a meandering north route home via Setenil de las Bodegas, another gorge town where the denizens decided to build under and over rather than just over. It’s well off the beaten track, and well worth the visit. The sun was quite low in the sky by the time we got there and much of it was in shadow, but as Biff pointed out, you could definitely feel the difference between the warmer, sunlit side of the street, and the cooler, forever-shaded side. Enterprising people, these Andalusians.

The road home to Seville took us on a beeline towards a sight which is now very, very familiar to me: the silhouette of my old home, Olvera. The road from Setenil offers perhaps the best view of the town for miles around. So despite my better judgement, Biff and Rosie convinced me that we needed to pay it a visit.

So we did.

It was decidedly weird to see Biff – my oldest and closest friend – walking down the streets of a town which, until now, has stood like an island in my life, a year away and apart. Worlds collided. And I said as much several times. So, to recover from the weirdness of it all, I suggested dinner at Bar-Restaurante Lirios. And there’s a decision I had no second thoughts or qualms about. Because Lirios, in my humble opinion, serves up the best margherita pizzas in the whole world. And that’s worth travelling all the way over the hills and across the sierras for. I usually order margherita whenever I’m out at a pizzeria to see if anywhere can do it better. Having not been to Italy, my options have been limited, but thus far, I’ve yet to meet Lirios’ match. When last I came to this town, it was in search of an old flame of mine. Frankly, I missed a trick. What was really calling to me over the distance of years was not a brown-eyed beauty, but a well-seasoned pizza. As with most things in Spain, and in life, I suppose, it’s the simplest pleasures that speak the loudest.

I’ve no travels on the books as of yet. The bike hunt is still in progress (I put a busy WhatsApp conversation on silent at just the wrong time), and I’m still waiting for a day when I have the time and the lack of errands to allow me to find a bike to take me to Hornachos and beyond, that prince of towns.

It’s winter, now. This morning was bloody cold. I almost got my scarf out of the drawer. It won’t be long until I’ll be less hesitant. Autumn lasted for a grand total of one week and three days. Fran’s complaining about the absence of an enagua for the table, and I have a cold. Summer’s finally taken her leave. Winter has arrived. BB x

Bulerías and Bananagrams

October 31, 2017October 31, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I haven’t been traveling much recently. A combination of earnest novel-writing, job hunting, private lesson planning and musing over where to buy a cheap bike have conspired to keep me here in Villafranca for the time being. This year I’m working just the one job (proof that, even in the best of all possible worlds, experience isn’t always the best guide), so I have some four hundred euros less per month to live on. Weekend adventures have become what they always were, at heart: a luxury. Sometimes, however, an opportunity presents itself which cannot be turned down for love nor money. Biff’s visit to Seville last week was just such an opportunity.

How I managed to make it through the entirety of my last year out here labouring under the belief that I couldn’t cancel my private lessons for my own benefit is a mystery to me. I rescheduled my Thursday guardería session, packed my things as the WiFi man finally showed up (hello Murphy, long time no see) and hopped on the afternoon bus to Seville. It felt so good to be on the road on a Thursday afternoon. Previously I was working right up to the wire on a Thursday, so that the weekend began on a Friday morning. This year siestas are a thing, and I wonder how I ever managed without them. They’re the perfect solution to early mornings, late nights and post-weekend fatigue. The blinds in my room are a work of genius: at a basic level, they let in the morning light through little gaps in the shutters, which you can close off completely, leaving the room completely dark. I’m enjoying the shelter now, and I know I’ll appreciate all the more when this country heats up again come May next year… that is, if it ever cools down sufficiently for that to be a noticeable change (it’s almost November and it’s still pushing high twenties here).

After weeks of ESL games, I leapt at the chance to spar on an equal footing. Biff inducting me into Bananagram, which is something like the bastard child of Scrabble and a crossword. My passion for complicated and obscure words dragged me down a lot, but it made for some visually appealing results, win or loss.

But I didn’t cancel my private class to play Bananagrams all weekend. I’ve been moving in and out of Spain for several years now, so it’s always a pleasure to see my grandfather’s country through fresh eyes. Biff hadn’t been here since our school’s music tour to Spain back in 2006. I’m not sure why I found that so hard to grasp. But it’s chiefly because I had new eyes to look through that I got to see a side of Seville I’d never seen before. Palmeras are delicious, persimmons aren’t half bad and, if you’re looking for flamenco off the beaten track, you can do a lot worse than La Carbonería…

I work by the rule of three. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a message (or interest, if we’re talking about catching somebody’s eye). And three recommendations to visit La Carbonería from three different sources – the head of Chemistry, my flatmate and Biff’s AirBnB host – was too obvious a message to ignore. So, with a glass of agua de Sevilla in hand (that stuff is deadly), we nabbed a table near the performers and were treated to a decent forty-five minutes’ set.

It was nice to have the time to wander about Seville at leisure. So often I’ve been running through Seville, waiting for a bus, or a plane, or something along those lines. There was a demonstration in the Plaza de España by the police for equal pay, watched from the shade by a mounted division. Catalonia was being stripped of its powers, so I think the police had other things on their mind. It felt weird, to stand in the plaza and see the cities and regions of Spain painted on the panels all around, knowing that up north the kingdom was pulling itself apart. Just like the Paris attacks, it was hard to believe such a thing was possible under the Spanish sun. Babies in pushchairs followed the protesters, Latin tourists snapped photos, gypsies danced for pennies on the steps. Life goes on.

Fortune favours the interested. Go on a wander about town and you never know what you might find. I’ve seen a Mario Kart stag do, a gypsy wedding and an errant griot here. On our journey in search of a tapa or two, I saw a nun with a stuffed-toy octopus in her backpack. You never know what you might find.

Seville’s streets are beautiful by night. Some parts look like France, others look like Spain, and others central Europe. I suspect it’s the trams that make it look like central Europe. The monk parakeets that live in the palm trees and the ring-necked parakeets that nest in the alcoves of the various churches jostle for space, and the screeches of the latter make the place sound eerily like London every once in a while, though it’s not quite cold enough at night. The chestnut vendors are out and about. When the nights are colder, the steam rising from their wheeled stands will complete the picture. I hope they’re about in Córdoba, too. I’d like to buy a bag of them and eat them on the Roman bridge as the sun goes down and the lights on the mosque come up.

I wonder what my next visit will deliver. BB x

Old vs New

October 22, 2017October 23, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

It’s been a mad week. Over the last week I’ve had to fret over dwindling career prospects, squeeze answers out of a class that don’t appear to have improved at all in two years, hurdle a new wave of needlessly ambiguous admin, wrangle with pushy internet dealers and, to top it all off, deal with a flatmate and a friend who could still disappear at any given moment should a better offer arise. It’s not been easy. The first few weeks of term are always an uphill struggle but I’ve never known one week quite this bad.

Five days of mental block were torture. None of my attempts at writing came to fruition. I needed a break. I had to get away from it all. And Fate, as she often does in such situations, came up with the goods. At the end of an afternoon spent filling in forms for Student Finace and the local Junta – and venting my hysteria through last week’s Have I Got News For You – an offer to join the other auxies for a Halloween Party came through. I ummed and ahhed and was on the verge of turning it down when I had one of my spontaneous urges and decided to go for it. I had no time to prepare an outfit, so I came as an un-ironed shirt. Perhaps that’s the least of the small-world horrors I’ve had to deal with this week, but it was easier to explain.

It was an enjoyable if tame night, for which I was truly grateful. I had the chance to discuss my music withdrawal issues with a kindred spirit, and to gather opinions from the new auxies on their new home. I also got to put my dancing shoes on at Concha when Billie Jean came on. I needed that. But most importantly of all, I got to spend some quality time with two of the brightest stars of the Tierra de Barros, Tasha and Miguel.

If I needed a reaffirmation that I had made the right choice in coming back to Villafranca and not striking out somewhere new, this was it. These two are perhaps the greatest of all reasons for my return. Vultures, Hornachos and migas were waiting, but these two goofballs were a greater lure yet. And it isn’t often you can so easily allow yourself the luxury of moving your workplace to be near to your friends.

We spent the day in Mérida, where Fate once again showed me a kind hand for my spur-of-the-moment decision. Because I spent time with Tasha, I learned that the Junta needs a stamp from the bank and a paper copy of our ICPC, which have to be mailed, not emailed. Even though I went to the Orientation days this year, that detail wasn’t spelled out, nor was it included in the emails. It’s a good thing I spent Friday morning hunting for envelopes and stamps, albeit for a different purpose. If the man at the estanco hasn’t been so dishearteningly begrudging at surrendering two rows of stamps rather than the twenty I was asking for, I might have used them all. Forewarned is forearmed.

She also demonstrated a knack for knowing my desires by meddling with Miguel’s car’s CD player. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers CD kept pausing, so he put on a Galician band who played the unmistakeable lullaby-dream of Erin Shore, albeit to the name of Romance de Novembro with Galician lyrics – this, after gallego has been so on my mind after my parents’ visit this week. Fate, or whatever it is that organises these things, sure knows what she’s doing. At twenty-three years old, I still cling to the storybook belief that everything that happens happens for a reason. It’s hard not to see the lines when you want to.

We had a couple of beers in a Bremen-themed bar on the curiously named John Lennon Street, complete with memorabilia of the former Beatle plastered on the wall beside buxom stein-bearing belles and German insignia, whilst the bartender bemoaned the loss of jobs in the wake of Catalonia’s defiant pursuit of independence. Spanish flags still hang from balconies across the region a week and more after the Día de España celebrations, in solidarity with a nation that’s being pulled apart by old wounds. My beer tasted like strawberries and wasn’t unpalatable. I guess beer is like tea, coffee and sitcoms: unappealing at first, but you learn to appreciate it over time. Effort leads to endurance, eventually, enjoyment.

Lunch was superb. We visited La Taberna del Sole on the recommendation of a student of Tasha’s and we were not disappointed. Four courses (including a green asparagus and almond pâté and the ever-reliable croquetas de jamón) left us fit to bust, and at under twenty euros a head, it was a steal for a fancy lunch. The city is finally opening up to me.

Despite having already lived here for a year, I never visited Mérida’s famous Roman theatre. Tasha and Miguel thought it was high time that was remedied. I guess I’m spoiled from having wandered the ancient beauty of Jerash and Petra, but Mérida’s reconstructed theatre complex is nothing to be scoffed at. It’s hard to believe it was all but underground a few decades ago, back when the city was confined to the north bank of the Guadiana and the Los Milagros aqueduct still marked the northern edge of town. Stradivarius and Burger King now adorn the old streets, rubbing shoulders with the Temple of Diana and Saint Eulalia’s basilica. Times are changing quickly here.

The amphitheatre is equally impressive. Complete with a sunken arena that wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Pokémon, the building is in remarkably good nick for its age. It’s always a little hard to tie the two together, the sophistication of the Roman Empire and the bloodlust of its citizens who paid to watch men and beasts kill each other. Man, the noblest of all beings, and the one who delights most in killing his own kind. In Rome we see man for what he truly is, perhaps. A vainglorious hypocrite.

I entered via the dens where the wild beasts were kept for venato fights, ducking low so as not to bang my head on the way out like I had on the way in. I wonder what unwilling denizens of the Empire were caged here for the sport of a Roman carnival: boar from the surrounding hills, bears from the Cantabrian hills, lions from across the Strait… Maybe they even had aurochs here, mighty shadows of the toros bravos that still fight on in the Roman games of a land that saw fit to preserve them. I wonder how many beasts in all lost their lives in this arena.

We crossed the Roman bridge on the way home. I looked, I listened and I spotted the swamphen that often haunts the reeds on the island, gnawing away at a reedstem clutched between its gangly toes. I wonder if it’s the same bird that I so often saw here two years ago? It always brings a smile to my face to see it, and it was a pleasure doubled to share it was my friends. Durham had its goosanders. Mérida has her curious calamón. Overhead, the impressive silhouette of a black vulture glided noiselessly to the west. For all the fury and doubt that the modern world brings in its wake, there is such beauty left in the old world.

The storm has passed. The last of the rain fell during the night. I woke up this morning and opened the window to a cold breeze that had not been there before. I smiled. Everything seems better in the cold light of day. I can do this. Autumn has come at last. The long, dry Extremeño summer is over. BB x

NB. It’s a pain when you have to write a blog post twice. This time it was because I wanted to italicise Have I Got News for You, erased it by accident, and, when Undo didn’t return them, rebooted to save the effort of writing those six words again. This will all be so much easier when WiFi finally comes to the flat in just under two weeks’ time…

Crash and Burn

October 17, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Galicia’s forests are burning. They suspect foul play. Somebody somewhere truly does like to watch the world burn. Here in Villafranca, we were woken by the long-awaited crash of a thunderstorm, the one that usually rolls around on the second weekend of October. It was late this year, but it came nonetheless, and it came down hard. For just an hour or so, the roads were rivers.

Aeolus had more than the winds of wrath in his bag this morning. Some five or six staff are leaving for Seville tomorrow, perhaps for good. A bag of a very different nature – a bolsa extraordinaria, to be precise – has been opened there, offering the chance for many wayward Andalusians scattered to the far regions of Spain to return home. It’s no guarantee, but as the sudden glut of places for maths and science teachers overrides the need for success in the all-important oposiciones (the national exams that decide the fate of teachers here) there’s everything to fight for. My housemate was one of those called up. He packed his bags and left twenty minutes ago. He left some yoghurts in the fridge and a towel in the bathroom – ‘por si acaso‘.

For a few hours, I was in freefall. I made a stand here when the going was good in Almendralejo, adamant in my decision to improve my Spanish and stay true to Villafranca. It looked as though it had paid off. Two and a half weeks in, the storm broke, the floor vanished and I found myself staring into the abyss. Strong-armed out of the storm by a savvy Argentinian, I’m back on dry ground for the time being. After the ride that the last three days have given me, I’m lucky to be where I am, to know the folks that I do. It could be a lot worse. I could be in Galicia, where the fires rage, or Catalonia, where the cold arm of the state has begun to descend upon the separatists. It’s quite the year to be in Spain.

The storm isn’t over yet. The clouds were building thick and dark over the mountains to the east as I made my way home. We’re due for another night of thunder and lightning, and a lot of rain. Aeolus hasn’t done with us yet. But I’ve got the sails drawn and my hand on the rudder this time and I’m ready to ride it. That’s quite enough being blown about for one month. A handful of the staff were after some ‘Inglés de la calle’ at the staff lunch yesterday. Well, here’s an old classic for you, folks. Aeolus, come at me, bro. BB x

Withdrawal

October 13, 2017October 13, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

My school has a band, now. Secondary school or not, I have to admit I was a little excited when I found out. It consists of a piano, a guitar, a trombone, two saxophones, a drummer and a singer. Three guesses who that last one is. Better still, the music they thrust into my hands upon my return was by none other than Stevie Wonder. It’s For Once in my Life – in my opinion, not one of his best (I Wish, Superstition and Uptight are in a godly league of their own), but better than a poke in the eye.

The first rehearsal was a bit touch-and-go. The drummer had an egg-shaker and I had to explain the concept of counting in.

The withdrawal is real. I’ve written two and a half arrangements for my old a cappella group in three days. I’ve had Marvin Gaye’s greatest hits on repeat and I threw myself at the Concha Velasco Band as their most avid supporter at their gig in Villafranca last night. I lost my voice from shouting the lyrics so much. That’s probably a good thing. My Romanian neighbours are spared another day of me wandering in and out of the house keeping my unused tenor voice exercised. Saturday morning means gym for a lot of folks here, time to work on their bodies. My voice isn’t getting the workout it used to. I have to keep practising.

This week, perhaps more than ever before, the blow of severing ties with the musical world has come down hard. Perhaps doubly so because almost all of my old Lights buddies will be back in Durham this weekend for a reunion gig of sorts. I made the decision not to go, even though it’s the Puente del Pilar this week and I haven’t been at work since two o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. It didn’t break my heart as it might once have done, but the aftermath hurts. We all have to make tough decisions, sometimes. It’s got a lot to do with growing up and moving on. The collegiate music scene, brimming with talented musicians from near and far, is behind me. I’m here now, in a country which a friend of mind once described as simply having no ‘afán’ (desire) for music for its own sake. Even my holdfast, the Concha Velasco Band, are set to disband soon. Real life, work and responsibilities have risen like the tide, and as is so often the case, it’s only the lead singer who’s pushing blindly for unity in the wake of disarray. It’s as much a reflection of how things could have been had I not let go of the group I loved the most. I needed that.

If I haven’t said it before, I’m saying it again now. Spain is not ideal for the musician. I laughed at the notion that it would get to me like it did to my parents, thinking that with twenty-odd years’ less immersion than them, I’d be alright. I was wrong. The lack of a music scene hurts. It hurts a lot. I think I’ve done more listening to music here in the last week than I did in an entire term at Durham, discounting the obligatory use of my essay-writing playlist. Granted, I’ve compounded my situation by living not just in Spain but in the sticks. But even so, music isn’t as much a part of this world as it is in England. In a class the other day we were discussing activities you might do at a youth club, and I genuinely had to spell it out that music was or could be an option. One of the brightest girls gave me a nonplussed look and said, very matter-of-factually, ‘music is only extracurricular’. Make of that what you will.

Flamenco is more than music. Flamenco is an art form which, like so many, has its masters and its endless amateurs. And so much of it is tied up with dance. The joy of making music for its own sake is lost here. As the son of two music teachers, it hurts. Having been in choirs, groups and bands my whole life, it cuts deep. I feel lost, and more than a little distant recently.

On the way back from the library, I saw something in the sky and I looked up. It was a vulture. I’d just been writing about them in my book, so I felt pretty fortunate to see my own material brought to life before my eyes. Riding the thermals on wings spread wide, with tapering fingers splayed in the current, it circled the park for a few minutes. Within a minute there was another one, closer. They rode higher and higher until, finally, they tucked their wings into that upside-down W shape and, like spinning disks, soared motionlessly from the top of their spiral to the west.

I could have cried. I love this country. I love it so much. I love the language, the people and the food, and I especially love the animals that live here. Especially the vultures. Music lifts me high, but nothing lifts me higher than being where I want to be, in a land where such magnificent creatures still roam the skies on your way to and from the supermarket. My heart bleeds a little. I had to give a queen to take the king. I may yet regret my decision. Or, I may find some new wellspring of energy in this country. I may not have my music, but I still have hope. That’s all I can ask for. BB x