The Swing of Things

October 9, 2017October 9, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Routine has returned. The dust has settled, and I’m not talking about the kind that’s tinting the sky a dirty grey every day, nor over the Catalan situation. My life as an auxiliar de conversación in IES Meléndez Valdés is back in shape, much the same as before, with a few noteworthy changes. They’ve decided to streamline the programme a little more this year, with me working through the coursebook rather than preparing a random talking point every week. Honestly, I’m rather relieved. It was fun coming up with something new and bold every week, but I found myself questioning more than once whether it was really the most efficient use of my time and theirs.

Oh, and there’s talk of a band or even choir in the making. Pretty revolutionary for a country where it takes a class of sixteen-year olds the best of ten minutes to realise that the one potential youth club activity they’ve forgotten is music. ‘Music is only extracurricular’, explains one of the girls who couldn’t understand why I was so confused that none of them had come up with it within seconds. I guess that’s Spain for you. This is a country that loves sport so much you spend your primary years learning theory of sport, for pity’s sake. Proof, if ever you needed it, that people vary in their tastes from country to country. I’ve been trying to enthuse about music here, but I’m fighting a lose battle. It’s not so much selling sand to the Arabs as trying to convince them of the merits of a pair of high-grade skis. Still, we live in hope. Enrique Iglesias, the Gypsy Kings and Camarón de la Isla all hailed from this peninsula. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

I found the town library. It eluded me all year during my last post, because – like many things in Spain – it’s so badly signposted that unless you happen to know that many libraries are located within the confines of the Casa de Cultura, you’d be lost. It’s certainly not advertised on the outside of the building. I found it, anyway, and it’s the perfect working environment. They converted what looks like a small factory floor into the reading area and the typist’s offices into the library itself. It’s a far cry from the Bill Bryson, but it’s a start. Before the year is out, I’ll give the bigger one in Mérida a look-in. I wonder if it has any material on Hornachos…

Just a short post today. I’ve little more to say. The air-con in this library is on at full blast and noisy. Most of the kids in here are wearing Spagnolo shirts, which means they’re almost certainly from one of the two private schools, though I can see at least one of my lot at one of the tables. But then, it’s five to six in the afternoon. Who in their right mind would be in the library when they could be out in the evening sun with their friends? BB x

Live Organ Transplant

October 5, 2017October 5, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

These are interesting times.

I must confess that, from time to time, I do wonder whether I’ve made the right choice. As university drew to a close, I watched many of my friends leave for London and five figure salaries. If it had ever occurred to me that I might be interested in that path, I suppose I too would have followed it. But here I am in Extremadura, one of Spain’s poorer regions, getting by on a modest salary and picking up extras in private classes where I can. At the very least I have a job; for that much I am truly grateful. There are plenty of wanderers here. Worlds collide: the English graduate in me seeks confirmation, stability and satisfaction. The Spaniard in me wants to use the here and the now to go from job to job until I find the medium that suits me best. It isn’t often that I have such Jekyll and Hyde moments, but in this period of intermission, the two are often locked in combat. My devil had been long caged, and he came out roaring.

Putting my doubts and concerns into perspective was the King’s address to the nation this evening. In light of recent events in Catalonia – up to and including several counts of police brutality as the Catalans made another bid for independence – it seems foolish to break my head over my petty apprehensions. I’ve never really taken a stance on the Catalan question, treating it in much the same manner as the age old Real Madrid/Barcelona F.C. divide – that is to say, taking the easy way out (in the latter case, opting to support Sevilla’s Real Betis as a nonconfrontational middle ground). But at such a time of crisis, it is difficult not to have an opinion here or there.

I’m a reluctant supporter of the Spanish cause. And I’ll explain why. In studying for my novels, I have been paying especial attention to the year 1640 and the troubles that spiralled out of that most hectic year. Critically, it was the year that not only Catalonia but both Portugal and Andalusia all made a break for independence from a weakened, overstretched Spain. After more than a decade, and much blood, only one would achieve that privilege. Taxes, once again, were a primary concern for the Catalans, who felt unfairly treated by the government. In this case they may have had a point: Spain’s various wars were costing the empire dear and Catalonia often suffered the brunt of it. The upshot was that, despite French intervention, Spain crushed the revolt and Catalonia was reined in, thanks in part to various double-dealings with the French.

(DISCLAIMER: I apologise if my history is off. Working in the medium of alternate history as I do, I sometimes forget how much of the history I study is the product of my own alterations…)

Four hundred years later and many Catalans still want their independence. It’s been an ongoing concern for some time, rumbling along the undercurrent of Spanish news for as long as I can remember, but when images surface such as those of the clash between the police and the fire brigade and of armed men raiding polling stations, the cause becomes that bit easier to understand. Some of the pictures look as though they have been taken out of a Latin American country rather than on Iberian soil. It’s really quite shocking.

What would independence for Catalonia mean? A lot of things, of course, but not least of all, trouble. Catalonia supports Spain more than many of its autonomous communities because it has the money to do so. Were regions such as Aragon and Extremadura to shoulder the kind of burden Catalonia carries, they might easily collapse. Catalonia is strong; it’s one of their mean reasons for making a bid for freedom in the first place. Not only is it one of the wealthier regions, it also receives a significantly larger intake of the country’s tourism. If you ask a lot of holiday-goers where they’re headed when they’re off for a trip to Spain, many of them will tell you Barcelona. When it comes to a summer holiday, a weekend trip or a day out, the Madrid/Barcelona question is far more easily answered. In short, Catalonia is savvy. Whilst for much of its history Spain looked religiously inwards, Catalonia was looking out at the wider world. When the tourism industry kicked off, the Costa Brava was one of the first on the scene. Had he not been hit by a car on his way to the airport, my enterprising grandfather would have been one of the first to reap the whirlwind. Though Castilla la Mancha was his home, he responded to the call of Catalonia. You might say I have a dash of personal interest in the matter.

We get to the heart of the matter. In her strength, Catalonia is one of Spain’s greatest assets. Just as much as she is wary of a merging with Portugal, Spain is anxious not to let go of Catalonia. A break with Spain, bloodless or not, would be a hammer blow to an already weakened nation. Whether Catalonia would prosper in the long term is beyond my understanding, but for the first few years at least, there would be trouble. Regardless of the political or economic outcome, Brexit resulted in a bitter taste in the mouth for many, both at home and abroad. The Catalan question outlives the Brexit debate by hundreds of years; I should not like to see that bitterness multiplied.

2017 is, in many ways, not too dissimilar to 1640. Alright, so there’s no pan-European war, popery is no longer anybody’s primary concern and explicit empire building is a thing of the past (or at least, as it was in the seventeenth century), but the point remains that it was a year of change and unexpected events. Last year saw both a British rejection of Europe and the election of what many considered to be a joke candidate to the seat of the most powerful man in the world. These are strange times. It is fitting, then, that Catalonia should choose this moment to strike out, as it often has before, at a time when predictions are off and nationalism is creeping back after a lengthy absence.

Even Farage made sure he got his oar in over the debacle…

It would not be the death of Spain. But it would come down hard, and upon a nation that has spent hundreds of years recovering from the slaughter of its golden goose. Stanley Lane-Poole once claimed that Spain had been ‘grovelling in the dark’ ever since the completion of its national genocide. Whether you sympathise with his damning appraisal or not, Spain is no longer the great power it once was, and if Catalonia broke free, it would be tantamount to taking one of her lungs.

One of the most beautiful facets of Spain is its diversity. There are few other places in Europe quite as varied, in people, countryside and culture. The Basques in the north are fiercely proud of their unique heritage, as are the Galicians, the Valencians and the Andalusians. In many respects, so are the peoples of all the other regions. Even the Leonese, within the very heart of Old Castile, have been known to make a bid for independence from their own autonomous community from time to time. In that sense, the Catalans stand out only in their dogged pursuit of independence. Where I would normally be strongly persuaded to empathise with their cause, as I was with the Scottish bid a few years back, my conclusion is much the same: one day, perhaps, but not now. With storm clouds looming, now is not the time for the severing of ties. There may come a time, and soon, when unity will be our holdfast. We should be proud of diversity where we find it and treasure unions where they can be made. It is easy to do things one’s own way. It is better for all of us, surely, if we work together. It’s the wishy-washy liberal answer, but I’m sure it’s the right one. If you knew that something you wanted would cause no end of hurt and disruption to somebody you knew, even somebody you had grown to dislike, could you take it from them? Really?

These are interesting times. I wonder what will become of us. BB x

Back to the Grind

October 3, 2017October 3, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

The orientation day for the auxiliares de conversación in Cáceres stands out so far in being the only quirk in what is, for the moment, an experience rather akin to Groundhog Day. But for the rain-starved fields of gold, it really does feel like I’ve stepped back in time. Here I am once again in Villafranca de los Barros, settled swiftly into a cosy flat on the same street as before, no less. Once again, I’m sharing the place with an interim teacher, this time a science teacher from Seville fresh out of university, which makes a healthy change. And, in another mirror of 2015, I’m currently feeling more than a little sleep-deprived, having spent the night in Almendralejo with Tasha and Miguel and the Concha Velasco Band. Some things never change.

Choosing between living in Villafranca and Almendralejo was a rather tough call this year. At heart, I guess I knew I wanted to stay put in the town I now know so well. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that, given the choice between a town of seventeen thousand and thirty-four thousand, it’s hardly even a decision I have to think about. All the same, I found myself rather tempted this year to put old habits aside. Life, as always, has other plans. A series of consecutive events guided my feet, including an incredibly warm reception from staff and students alike, the discovery that Extremadura’s primary avian ecology centre, AMUS, is located just a stone’s throw from the town (how on earth did I miss that before?), the sudden arrival of a twenty-four-year-old sevillano looking for a flatmate and, of course, the ever-present majesty of the Sierra Grande de Hornachos. Like a moth to a flame I find myself drawn ever closer into a spiralling obsession with that lonely mountain range, rising out of the Extremeñan steppe like Kilimanjaro. Just as I could never fully convey my inability to adjust to life in Amman, so too does the true nature of my fascination with that town elude me. It’s just a fact of my life. Some higher force pulls me towards it, and I cannot nor will not resist.

I could have thought of no better a homecoming – if I should be so bold as to reinvent the term for my own purposes – than to spend my first weekend of my new life in Spain with Tasha supporting the Concha Velasco Band. Music is one of those necessary sacrifices I had to make in coming here, and like any sacrifice worth its name it was a painful one to make, so it pieces my heart back together a little to have such a spectacular band to support so close at hand.

It may not be as all-consuming as my devotion to the Northern Lights back in the day, but it’s a start. And at the very least they have a Pon de Mambo-style number in Radio Futura’s Escuela de Calor, which never fails to get me jumping about like a mad thing. I never thought I’d turn roquero, but where funk and a cappella are scarce, needs must. BB x

Soundbites

September 29, 2017December 16, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

11.04am

Would the last remaining passengers travelling to Bordeaux please make your way to Gate 101.

The Duty Free at Gatwick North Terminal has grown twice in size since last year. I’m almost sure of it. It feels almost like the arcade section of an amusement park, endlessly shiny and Americanly bright. The cold, autumn sarcasm of England seems a long way off already – but maybe that’s the idea. Stepping through security into a halfway house, a no man’s land of toblerone trenches and swatch watches. There’s a stag party from South London or thereabouts on their way to Punta Cana, Arsenal shields emblazoned on their shirts and an emphatic fam thrown in after every seventh word. The Viennese kids next to me are discussing Pokémon Go in excited voices. I don’t speak German, but Pokémon is pretty international.

12.11am

Cabin crew, boarding completed.

I think there are more Brits on this flight than Spaniards. Pensioners, mostly. Grey hair, kindles and prescription glasses abound. There’s a round-faced girl with a very thick sevillana sway to her Spanish fishing for a book in the overhead locker, whilst her partner offers the usual machine gun suggestions as to where in her bag she might have put it. The woman to my left is reading a book about World War Two Italy featuring a man called Pino; her husband is browsing a Guardian article titled ‘Throw out antisemitic party members, Corbyn urged”. The tense is a little vague – either he’s taken stock of the warnings, or people are still urging him. Newspapers favour passive constructions. English is fiddly like that.

1.04pm

‘I owe you ten euros, we don’t have change. We never have change.’

Decisions, decisions. To buy a six-euro-sandwich on the plane or trek around Seville with my suitcase in search of edibles in three hours’ time? Lunchtime flights are such a pain. I guess that’s why they’re often cheap. There’s always a clicking wave up and down the plane when the seatbelt lights turn off, as though the long-awaited B is a starting gun. I can’t really concentrate on American Gods until I’ve eaten. As the trolley slowly wends it’s way down the aisle, I’m contesting myself with side-glances at the lady’s paper next to me. Apparently psychopaths prefer rap to Beethoven. Who knew?

That was a good sandwich. Worth the six euros? My stomach says yes.

3.47pm

‘Where are going after this?’

‘Oh. Somewhere.’

Alright, don’t listen to my stomach. He doesn’t know Jack shit. That sandwich was good, but not 16€ good. Turns out they really didn’t have any change at all. Serves me right for holding out for the paper brigade, I guess. We live in a plastic world now. No receipt either, so even if I were the arsey complaining type, I have no proof. I sure hope you EasyJet folks sleep easy.

I tried to start a conversation with a train of English tourists who didn’t know where the bus stop was. They were a bit suspicious of my friendliness, I suppose. What is it about the English that we suspect ulterior motives behind every act of kindness? It reminds me of a debate I had with a boy who went on to Oxford who had no faith in ‘genuine altruism’. Balls to that. You have your 16€ croque monsieur and eat it too. One thing’s for sure: there’s money to be made in tourism. If this flight is anything to go by, there’s no end to the line of retirees who’d rather be led around town by the hand for a fee than explore for themselves.

5.41pm

El autocar con destino Santiponce efectúa su salida.

Plaza de Armas hasn’t changed much, though I suspect it’s had a paint job since I’ve been away. Also, the toilets seem to be free now. That’s a major plus. The tannoy still has all the audio quality of a GCSE Spanish cassette tape, so it’s just as well I’ve done this trip a good thirty times before. Once again I’m reminded just how attractive the Spanish are as a people. The first shopping trip to Tescos after a stint in Spain always feels like a bit of a bump back down to earth, for want of a better expression. Here in the bus station, I sit amongst hawk-nosed gods. They’ve almost finished the weird Expo-style building opposite, and I still have no idea what function it’s supposed to serve. Time will tell, I guess, and Spain being Spain, that means a long time. Perhaps years. Fortunately, years is one of those things I happen to have right.

6.52pm

‘Pero, ¡hijo de la puta madre que le parió!’

We just passed a dead eagle owl at the side of the main road. Not your average roadkill. Huge and scruffy it was, with mottled feathers and ear tufts blowing in the wind. There were a few rabbits further ahead, not as common a sight here as they are back home. Almost all the creatures of this earth wear the same dusty, black-flecked coat, from the owls and rabbits to the lynx, fox, mongoose and wolf. It feels so good to be back in a land that does proper wildlife. As I write, a herd of cattle is grazing in the golden dehesa, a small party of cattle egrets following in their wake. Spain does a very good Africa substitute. Goodness, though, how the place is dry. But for the stone pines and wild olive trees, the world is wheat-yellow beneath the clouded sky. The spring greens are long since gone, along with the hat I left on this very bus…

8.17pm

‘Pasanjeros con destino Santa Marta, Albuera y Badajoz Capital, cambia aquí.’

Fucking hell, the world is upside down. Now the earth is grey and the sky is sheet gold. I’d quite forgotten how breathtaking Extremeño sunsets are. With a sky this open, you can see for miles and miles, and the sunsets seem to stretch into the infinite. The last fiery slivers of light are dipping behind the sierras to the west and the clouds have enough shades of purple and orange in them to keep my old art teacher happy for at least a couple of decades. I’d take a photo, but my camera is in the hold and the girl on the left of the bus is nonchalantly texting and chewing, oblivious to the silent fireworks going on behind her.

What a world. What. A. World. I am so very glad to be back. BB x

Purple Skies

August 25, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

My days left in England are numbered. There’s still a few things I have left to do before I leave for A Year in Villafranca de los Barros Part II, namely tying up a few loose ends at home, finishing as many of the books I bought this year as I can, arranging something resembling accommodation for the coming year and notifying Student Finance of my plans to leave the country for the next few years (an administrative hoop I hadn’t counted on, but one that I have most gratefully been made aware of).

The shooting star that was my last flight with the Northern Lights at the Edinburgh Fringe was still burning as it passed over Newcastle, a short stop on the way home. It was more than I could ask for, to see the north of England in all its beauty. When I think of you, England, this will be my lasting memory: not the twenty-odd years I’ve spent in Kent and Sussex, but the gorgeous sunsets and seascapes of the north. Northumberland, why do you have to be so beautiful?

Even now, as I sit in my Sussex room listening to Janet Jackson’s Let’s Wait Awhile, I can still hear the chattering of the terns and feel the wind on my skin. Under the setting sun the evening sky was scarred all kinds of pink and blue, until the clouds were the closest to a natural purple I’ve ever seen. Apparently, some years you can see the Northern Lights from Northumberland. I hear you can see them in Durham, too, but if a cappella’s not your scene, the Northumbrian skies are just as much a feast for the heart.

I’m currently halfway through Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun. Not my usual taste in literature (I’m a sucker for plot-based historical fiction, preferably with larger-than-life characters and far-flung destinations), but it’s got me hooked. It’s so very enchanting to read a book that deals with fulmars and alcopops in the same breath without a touch of sarcasm, and the struggles between country and city living is something I can really connect with, insofar as a self-aware privileged middle-class male can. One day, I’d love to visit Orkney and the Northern Isles. It sounds truly bleak. And that’s reason enough to test it. For now, Northumberland keeps on giving.

I’m off to Spain in a couple of days for a fortnight’s long-delayed camping and outdoor adventures. This time next week I’ll be somewhere in the mountains near Madrid. That’s quite an exciting thought. If I weren’t booked for a wedding, I’d be walking to Villafranca. As it is, this is just a holiday – my last one before work begins anew in October. The novel awaits, and the last piece of the puzzle lies in the Gredos. It’s time I got a move on. BB x

The Big Graduation Post

June 29, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

It doesn’t happen like you think it will, graduation. I suppose the same can be said of all those grand rites of passage of life: like as not, you speculate a great deal about how it’s going to be, until the day itself is over before you know it, and a lot less grand an affair than you thought it was.

Certainly, when I tried to imagine what graduating from Durham would be like four years ago, I didn’t ever imagine that the cathedral tower would be under scaffolding. You win some, you lose some.

One of the most difficult things about graduating is that it’s so very easy to use it as your last chance to say goodbye. It makes sense; for some, it might be the last time in a while you see the people who have been your friends through thick and thin for three or four years. Regrettably, for others it might even be the last time you see them at all. That’s a humbling thought. If I have any advice to give, it’s to say your farewells before the big day. Of course there is time for the odd one here or there on the day, but with everybody mingling with friends and family alike, it can be nigh-on impossible to track everybody down in time – especially if you end up on a time limit yourself.

I’ve had a lot of time to think over the past few weeks, and a lot of things to think about. One of the most enlightening conclusions I’ve come to (and late in the realisation, too) is that, for all of my best efforts, I am not first and foremost a linguist. And if it took missing a First Class degree by less than one percent to realise that, it was a lesson well learned. Language tests, and perhaps grammar in general, have never been my forte, not that that’s ever stopped me from trying. Writing is, was and always will be my trump card. If I hadn’t been so pig-headed about not reading fiction back in Year 13, I might well have let my doubts get the better of me and gone for a degree in English Literature instead.

The fact remains that I didn’t. For all the disparity between my English marks and my marks in French and Spanish, I went for a degree in modern foreign languages. Why? Precisely because of that; because languages were not my strongest point. Talking to people was something I really struggled with. I had no opinions of my own, I felt hopelessly outclassed whenever I had to take part in any kind of intellectual discussion and I tended to avoid any unnecessary socialising.

And in my own particularly sadistic way, I threw myself headlong into the one degree that would give me no choice but to talk to people, to face my fears head-on. And when you’re getting yourself into an extra £9000 of debt per year, it makes no sense whatsoever to go on studying what you’re best at.

My time as an undergraduate at Durham has been, without a shadow of a doubt, the best four years of my life so far. I might have been to some extraordinary places had I gone for my second choice, St. Andrews, but I most likely would not have found myself in a metro station in Münich with a portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson. I might well have had access to researchers in my primary field of interest, al-Andalus and the Maghreb, but I probably wouldn’t have written such a cracking essay on Spanish banditry. And I might have got involved in a musical, or a choir, or maybe even the funk band I longed for since my schooldays, but I almost certainly would not have found myself wrapped up heart and soul in the collegiate a cappella scene.

Thanks to one last fling with the Northern Lights at the 70th Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, graduation was not as final an affair as it otherwise might have been. Knowing that I’d be back in Durham in just over a month took much of the sting out of the farewells, and I left the city dry-eyed and carefree – which is not how I imagined it, but just the way I wanted it. I find that written words often carry meaning a good deal further than the spoken word ever can, and so I made my fondest goodbyes in card form, in case I didn’t get the chance to say so in person. That, too, made the process a lot easier to deal with. In a way, I’d said everything that needed to be said. I could do no more.

I didn’t have a great deal of say in the matter of coming to Durham. My own mother dropped the name of the place so often as I grew up that by the time UCAS came around, it seemed sacrilegious to even consider anywhere else. And that’s exactly how it panned out, after an initial rejection and a gap year to try again. Bother the prospectuses, there was simply something magical about Durham. I had to go there.

It’s been one long week of thank you’s. To all the friends that supported me, both at home, at university and abroad. To the staff who inspired my interests and discouraged my careless wanderings. To my college principal, who sowed the seed of interest in a PhD in me; to my first Arabic lecturer, who through discipline fashioned a mature love for the language out of nervous enthusiasm; to those who have lived with me these last four years, for putting up with the day-to-day trivial madnesses and misinformed ramblings of yours truly. And of course, to music, for adding so much more to my degree than just books.

The wide world awaits with, at least for now, a smiling, familiar face (and a very strong Villafranqués accent). The far future – the beyond – remains as elusive as ever, but perhaps it doesn’t do to look that far ahead. Three months remain, and then I leave this country for Spain, only this time it will be for a much longer stint than anything I’ve ever attempted before. I can hardly wait.

And you bet I’ll be back to blogging for the whole affair. Just you wait. BB x

Bittersweet

March 27, 2017March 27, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

It’s been nine months, three weeks and four days since I waved goodbye to Spain last summer. I was glad of the brief end to my labours, but it was the first time I genuinely did not want to go home. How I’ve left it this late to return says more about my dangerously overloaded timetable than anything else, but now, finally, I’m on the EasyJet flight to Seville with all of eleven days to play with and everything is as it should be.

Second term hit me like a truck. Since the January a cappella boot camp before the Christmas holidays were even over, it’s been the most intense ten and a half weeks of my life. Ten weeks of essays, translations and dissertations; competitions and commissions; meetings and meet-ups; catching up with old friends and catching up with work; and, of course, concerts, competitions and rehearsals. Never mind applying for jobs, that happened somewhere along the line. I forget when. It’s been fun, educational, even unforgettable, but ridiculously intense. It’s a damned good thing I dropped Arabic this year or I reckon the pressure would have torn me apart.

I feel truly honoured to have represented Durham’s own Northern Lights at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella Semifinals last night alongside seven of the UK’s best a cappella groups, including longtime running mates the Accidentals (my favourite group by a league) and this year’s winners, Aquapella. After a knockout victory in the Quarterfinals in Edinburgh back in February and the added bonus of a masterclass with our EP-producer Johnny Stewart, I genuinely thought we might be in with a shot at placing this year, even though we’ve only been in existence for four years. Sadly, we didn’t take anything home last night, but hats off to the victors – it was a well-earned victory (especially to the soloist in Aquapella’s Purple Rain… goddamn, I didn’t think there were any Tina Turner voices left in this world).

The sting of defeat smarts more than I thought it would, perhaps because this was the first time I genuinely believed we could win. But every defeat is a lesson to be learned from, and as losses go, it’s a cheap one: not only does it save us £700+ a head on the flights to New York that victory would have cost, but I also had three of the best days of my life with the wonderful Lights in London Town. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. And with forty minutes until we touch down in Sevilla, I can’t do anything but smile.

Eleven days in my favourite country in the world await. Semana Santa is too late this year to linger, but I’ll be sure to take in the three sides of Spain I hold closest to my heart: Doñana for the nature, Tierra de Barros for my dear friends Tasha and Miguel, and Yuste for my novel. It’s going to be magical. I’ll keep you posted. And that’s a fact. Now that I’m back in Spain, it feels much more natural to be blogging again. Life is good. BB x

Letters from my Grandfather

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

I never knew my grandfather. Neither did my mother. In the twenty-two years I have lived on this earth, my family has never numbered more or less than four: my mother, my father, my brother and I. No uncles, no grandparents, no second-cousins… Four. No more. It certainly made for an easy job learning languages – especially Arabic – but now that I’m older, and especially at this time of year, I find myself wondering just how much I have lost in that absence; an absence I share with my mother.

On account of a bad cold and a very real fear of spending another New Years Eve stranded in a strange place, I shied away from the celebrations last night and spent the following morning in church, questioning my elusive faith as usual. Do I feel like I missed out on a good time? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I try not to think that way these days. Sometimes, however, these things are meant to be. I believe that. I always have. The choices we make lead us in the right direction, wherever that may be.

It just so happens that my choice led me to stumbling upon something I’d never seen before: a collection of letters from my grandfather.

My grandmother’s journal of memories

I don’t need to explain my love for Spain here. I’ve done it before and I expect you don’t want to hear me say it again, nor do I need to tell you if it’s news to you. I used to get sick of people taking the mick out of me for it, as if they hadn’t got it in them to love the places they’d been on their years abroad. I apologise for such childishness on my part. Of course, it’s foolishness to have even reacted in the first place. Because Spain is more than just an obsession. It’s my grandfather’s country. It’s where a part of me is from. It’s a deeply personal adventure, and these things always hurt.

It looks like he could dress up and dress down…

Who were you, abuelo? What did you sound like when you laughed? Did you laugh often? There is sadness in your letters, impatience and frustration, but so much hope. Did you play the violin well, or did you tire of it like me? How can I know, when your mother burned it when you went away? You were a linguist, like me, but you weren’t afraid to chase your dreams. There is so much resolve in your writing, so much conviction. There was a living to be made on the Costa Brava, even if your parents didn’t see it that way. Those dreams of yours, those plans to take my grandmother out to dinner on a boat on the Seine… Spain was about to open up to the world. Did you know, I wonder? How old were you when that car struck you down on that black day in June 1964? I don’t even know that much. All I know for sure is your name, your letters, and your typewriter. I wish I knew you better. I wish I knew you at all.

Hotel Catite, Castelldefels, where my grandfather worked as the hotel’s first receptionist

How different life might have been had we met, abuelo. It is impossible to imagine. I see you in my mother and, perhaps, in myself. But you had a family, somewhere out there, and now it’s up to me to find them. Last year I went chasing a dream, but when I found what I was looking for it turned out to be a dream and nothing more and it slipped away through my hands like dust. This is something more. I can feel it.

Who cares about a language barrier when you’re in love?

2016 has come and gone. It was an odd year. Many things that happened that confused me, and some things conspired to bring me down, and many more lifted me high. It was, for me at least, one of the best of years. The new year is yawning ahead and I have my quest. The road will be long and not wanting in fears old and new, but it leads on and I must follow it now, for my own sake, and for my grandfather José who set this whole affair in motion many years ago. BB x

Veni, Vidi, Victus Eram

May 31, 2016May 31, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

And that’s that. My last working day in Villafranca is over. I only just got away with crying out of my final class. 4°A are total angels, the lot of them.

What other class could handle Hobbes vs. Rousseau in another language?

I should make it clear that it’s my last working day of 2016… because I’ll be back. Sooner than I’d originally planned. The truth is that I’ve had such an amazing time this year, I don’t half wonder whether it would be difficult to top elsewhere. So I’ve burned my boats and taken advantage of the British Council’s four-year cap by deciding to return to Villafranca independently in 2017, leaving me another three years to wander about Extremadura, Spain and/or the rest of the Spanish speaking world if I so choose under the British Council. Maybe then I’ll be ready to train as a real teacher. Don’t call it unadventurousness on my part. Think of it as happiness found. Villafranca has been a wonderful home for the last nine months. And now, I suppose, I’d better do it justice – peppered with photos of some of my favourite moments of the year…

…starting with this.

The hardest thing here is knowing where to begin. How do I possibly sum up what has been the very best year of my life? Do I start from the beginning – from touchdown in Seville airport? But you know the story from there. And if you wanted to know the details, the entire year is spread out across the blog. Just go back to the 23rd of September and follow on from there. I don’t think I’ve ever been more faithful to a diary in my life.

Where it all began… under Alicia’s bridge in Seville in September ’15

It took the British Council all of eight months to provide me with the name of my home for the following year. Eight months that would have dragged immensely had it not been for my intense extracurricular existence. Protocol. But I spent a good part of my childhood as an avid birdwatcher, and that taught me that patience – even vain patience – always deals its own rewards. And that’s as good a metaphor as any to begin with.

Hanging on a few hours in Badajoz and accidentally finding a vulture is a good example

Villafranca de los Barros is not exactly what you might call ‘buzzing’. If you were to tell anybody else that they’d be spending the year in a town of some fourteen thousand inhabitants with no nightlife and a lively farming scene, they’d probably jump ship in less than a week and make a break for the nearest city. That’s what the last applicant assigned to Extremadura did, or so I was told by my concerned supervisor before leaving Durham. But Benjamin has strange triggers, and is nothing more than a simple country boy at heart. I could spend my life traveling the world, but if the truth be told, I want nothing more at the end of the day than to come back to some quiet, village retreat that I can call home. After Amman, anywhere with a pop count below twenty thousand would have done for me. As such, Villafranca could not have been a better place.

Spain does do some pretty spectacular skies on a regular basis

It’s been a formative year. You do all sorts of growing up when you strike out alone for the first time. Over the course of the year I’ve tried my hand at a whole range of new and crazy experiences, including:

Mobile data and WhatsApp. Frankly I don’t know how I’d have managed this year without the tech, as Spain as a whole seems incapable of functioning without it, but it’s proved absolutely invaluable as a last-ditch traveller’s aid. Except HERE Maps, possibly. Deceiving trickster.
Drinking. Ron Barceló isn’t so bad after all, but rest assured I’ll be back on the dry wagon when this is all over, if just because it’s a lifestyle I know and love.
Skiing. And I discovered that I am singularly useless at it.
Flirting. Likewise, useless. Try as I might, I’m just not the casual type.
Interpreting. Specifically, interpreting a spiel on Dadaist techniques. Talk about a challenge.
Olive-harvesting. Trust me, it’s really quite technical.
A (surprise) foam party. God bless Spain’s laissez-faire attitude to risk assessment.
Being the person that starts a conversation. Radical.

The last point is probably the most poignant of the lot. When this year began I was the kind of person who happily let others get the engine running first. Striking up a conversation with fellow travellers, calling the waiter in a restaurant, starting an essay… I’ve never been very good at starting things. It’s a running theme in my life. But this year I’ve seen myself talking to strangers on the road, setting up a bank account and even asking for help when a certain primary class got simply too much for me. These basic things were well out of my reach when I got off the plane back in September 2015. By hook or by crook, I’ve made it.

Proud to say I’ve done my bit for the local cooperativa!

Of course, it’s not all been roses. When I say it’s been the very best year of my life, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was flawless. There have been lows. Getting misdiagnosed with herpes was one. Getting the friend-zoning of the century on the night of what was supposed to be a romantic break in Madrid was another. And I seem to remember spewing my guts out for an entire twenty-four hours in a hotel room in Andorra, manacled by an ever-increasing tab from the mini bar; though it did spare me from more skiing fiascos, that was a definite low point too. And then there’s that primary class, a weekly nightmare that I’ve somehow survived. But my attitude to life is that balance is the most precious thing of all: life would be no fun whatsoever if there wasn’t the occasional crippling blunder to make things interesting. Not that I wouldn’t beg not to be given that lot if I were to go through it all again, but if they’ve done one thing for me, it’s left me in very good stead to be the father of Spanish children. I reckon I know all the necessary vocabulary after a year’s stint with that bunch.

It’s largely thanks to this little star that my Spanish has come so far this year!

Now comes the most difficult part: listing the highlights. Since each and every one has its own entire blog post somewhere along the line, I’ll be as brief as I can. I’ve forced myself to choose only ten, though I could quite easily go on to make twenty-five. Still, ten it is.

A close encounter with a lost griffon vulture in Badajoz
Taking time out beneath the stone pines in El Rocio
Seeing El Rey León from the best seats in the house, Madrid
Accidentally getting the best views of the Semana Santa processions, Seville
Olive-harvesting with Ali and the family, Olvera
Sitting beneath the Monfragüe cliffs with the vultures flying in overhead
Spending the weekend in Cantabria with the wonderful Brocklesby
Getting a surprise party from one of my bachillerato classes
Discovering that simply speaking Spanish makes me happier
Hearing the first bee-eater calls of spring from my own bedroom in Villafranca

Tough call. And yes, I’m aware that two of those ten are vulture-related. If the number really had been twenty-five, there’d have been plenty more feathered highlights.

Specifically for Cantabria, climbing Watership Down Hill was a high…. geddit?

As for what this year has meant in the grander scheme of things, it’s pretty much laid out the road beneath my feet. I was pretty hooked on this country before I came here. I was even pretty certain already that I’d be living out here someday. Somewhere in the back of my mind I always knew. I guess that’s why I never quite managed to lay down roots with a girlfriend or even a best friend per se. Perhaps I always knew I’d be leaving England behind.

A ready-made fan club is also a major reason for coming back

Well, now it’s fixed. I won’t be swayed. I’ll be back for another two or three years of this auxiliar life, garnering experience as I go, before throwing myself at the notorious oposiciones and trying to carve a space for myself in the Spanish education system as a fully-qualified English teacher – without robbing the places of my friends and colleagues here, of course.

Reasons to live abroad: a risk-assessment free foam party courtesy of the fire brigade

It was a remarkably easy decision to make. I’ve enjoyed teaching since I took my first class in pure spite of my flustered English teacher way back in 2007. Despite years of my parents warning me not to follow them into their trade, here I am, teaching, and loving almost every second of it. Being an auxiliar is all of the best parts and none of the bad, granted, but I reckon with another few years under my belt I’ll be ready to take on the homework and the discipline. It’s not like I haven’t been asking to help out all year.

I also owe Concha Velasco Band for introducing me to Escuela de Calor. Tune!

Just before I go and christen the end of the Spanish stretch with a severe haircut, here’s a few goals for next time:

Learn to drive (car or motorbike)
Apply to work afternoons at San José
Share a flat with people roughly your own age
Likewise, find friends your own age in the area
Pack less… or buy less books

Just five. That will do. All of which would be a lot easier if I had a clear idea of where I would be living – which is one of the chief deciding factors in Villafranca Part II. And after that… Who knows? As of 2016 the British Council offers teaching placements across Spain, but also in Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Ecuador. I think I could afford to be apart from my grandfather’s country for one year. Especially now that I know I’m coming back – and coming back for good.

Oh, and one more goal: get inside the goddamn Alhambra again. It’s been too long.

So today it’s neither a ciao, nor goodbye, nor even adios. It’s hasta pronto. Muy, muy pronto. Que te lo pases bien en mi ausencia, España. Y sera breve. Te lo prometo. BB x

First Conditional

May 28, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I’m sitting here in the town park, leeching off the café wifi for presumably the last time this year. It’s a glorious afternoon and I have the place mostly to myself. You’d hardly know this was a town of some fourteen thousand inhabitants at all at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. The place is dead.

Oh, for pity’s sake. I said that and now it’s clouded over and a wind has picked up. If that’s not a metaphor I don’t know what is. Change is a-comin’. In four days’ time I’ll have left Villafranca. Another three and I’ll be in Morocco, ready and waiting to begin my third and final year abroad placement in the Dar Loughat International Language Centre in Tetouan. Perhaps it would be better to say ‘waiting’; after almost nine months with no Arabic practice, I hardly think ‘ready’ is the appropriate term. I even had al-Kitaab brought out to me and I’ve barely touched it. Why would I, when my heart is here and mastering Spanish is so much more important?

I should be excited for Morocco. I loved it the last time I was there. Both of them. But the sadness of leaving behind Villafranca, my two schools and far and away the happiest year of my life cancels that out somewhat. The thing is, it’s all about a good mindset. I proved that to myself with Jordan. I expected the worst, and I got it. Conversely I came out here with a fierce desire to make it work – and it did. Positive affirmations and all of that self-help fluff. Don’t knock it, though. It really does work. At the dire risk of sounding like a queasy, turtleneck-donning life guru, a positive attitude makes for a positive life. Truth.

I’m leaving this country with a healthy tan, a bagload of farewell gifts, a new, more suitable dress sense and a very acceptable level of Spanish, if I might be so immodest. I’m leaving behind several books, a veritable skipload of old clothes, a healthy bank account ready and waiting for when I return, my exhausted if popular converses and, apparently, bigger shoes of a different nature. I’ve told my kids to be nice to the next auxiliar, and assured them that he or she will most likely do a better job than me, though I have little doubt there’ll be no more ludicrous Trump impressions, eight a.m. blackboard drum-rolls and spontaneous performances of the Lion King.

Here’s a tip for anybody striking out as a British Council assistant next year. The most useful tool to have at your disposal, besides a reasonable ability with chalk for when the interactive whiteboard or projector or computer isn’t working (and those are stackable odds, by the way), is a firm base of general knowledge. I’m not talking dates of World Cup victories and key mathematical equations. I’m talking geography, history, music, art and all the little things that make kids tick. Without overstepping the mark, I’ve found that dropping the occasional hint that you know more than you’re letting on to be a real winner. Little things like sketching Celebi or Doraemon in a lesson on time travel, name-dropping a local star in a lesson on music or having enough of an idea of world geography to draw a map of any particular country without reference to a computer.

I don’t profess to have the best general knowledge in the world at all. In fact it’s precisely because I know next to nothing about sport or mathematics that I was so quick to write them off back there. But whilst I admit that a little sporting knowledge would certainly be a major plus, being unafraid to display an understanding of a broad range of topics will make your kids a lot more interested. You don’t have to nerd out over the details for the sake of those who show an immediate interest. In fact you really shouldn’t. Not only will it alienate the others, it will also alienate you. But a harmless name-drop from time to time will do wonders. That’s a trick I’ve learned this year.

You might say I’ve got one step closer to learning to keep my mouth shut. Which would be a major step forward.

Another little piece of advice for the year abroad. Don’t let your guard down because of a pair of big goo-goo eyes. Don’t do it. Phil was right. I spent my entire first term and most of Christmas sallying to and from the same little town because I’d managed to convince myself that I’d found her. That was the time when I should have been looking for friends here in Extremadura, of course. But I didn’t see it that way then. Granted, falling for girls who don’t lead you on would be a boon. But you can’t control such things. What you can control is what you choose to do with the situation.

I don’t regret any of it. If anything, all those WhatsApp conversations and dinner dates that went nowhere were the perfect trampoline for my Spanish. But next time I’ll try harder to find a friend – and a friend – closer to home. Frankly, I’m tired of being led on, let down and cast aside. I’ve always been better off alone anyway. It’s time to live for me.

True to form, the pressure of the last few days has done wonders for my writing. In a single morning I’ve fully plotted out five of the six novels in my series, which until today had been skeleton texts with a clear start, a clear finish a handful of events scattered in between. My TLRP could sure do with some of that magic, but until I have stable internet, I’ve said a straight no to that. It’s just no good trying to do your research on a single-tab phone on mobile data, or on the pages you’ve saved on Google Books, which expire the instant you scroll up or down. And what of it? My books are my life. And one day, I hope, I will have them in book-format in my hands to read to my children before they go to bed. That’s the dream.

In other news, the hoopoes are feeding well today. There’s at least five of them in the park, but it could just as easily be the same one that keeps going backwards and forwards in that bouncing, butterfly flight behind me. I’m going to miss them, too. Durham might have Reggaeton-free clubs, but it hasn’t got any hoopoes. BB x