Take Me to the River

June 13, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

The world doesn’t look particularly different at twenty-two. So much has happened since last year, but what’s changed? I’ve been so busy for most of the year that I’ve hardly had time to look. I’ve been binging on Doctor Who lately, and with all of that timely-wimey stuff in mind, I thought I’d pen down a few things that I’ve seen and heard over the last 365 days.

Paris got hit by an earth-shattering terrorist attack, and then a flood six months later. Brussels got attacked shortly afterwards, as did numerous other cities in the Middle East (most of which overlooked, perhaps because Europeans weren’t directly involved). IS obviously wasn’t satisfied with all the fear and blew up Palmyra. It’s a rough world we live in. The migrant crisis is deepening, UK is currently considering leaving the EU and mogul, ‘kill the women and children’, human-seesaw Trump is genuinely the Republican candidate for the US Presidential elections. That may or may not have something to do with all of this. There’s also another plane vanished without a trace, this one flying between Paris and Cairo. We lost a lot of actors to cancer, including Alan Rickman, and also the West African black rhinoceros to boot – but in all the xenophobic madness that’s plaguing the world right now, that’s a loss that most people will have ignored.

There’s a change right away: Ben’s been reading the news this year.

Yesterday was my first shot at getting out and about in Morocco and I seized it by the horns. It was also the first real day of summer, pushing 36°C from 11 o’clock onwards. Summer Ramadan is a challenge on a whole new level. Thank goodness the plan was to spend most of the day in the shade of a canyon.

Now if Wadi Dana had been this lush and green…

The Moroccan north is nothing short of spectacular. In truth, most of Morocco will blow you away, but the Rif is rather special, even for a seasoned Sierra-trekker like me. Imagine the Pyrenees, sprinkle them with red earth, plant them with cedars and remove the high-rise ski resorts and you have a basic idea of the Rif. You might also care to throw in a few monkeys if it’s to your fancy, though a surprising number of folks wouldn’t.

Thank God I brought my trunks on a whim

Turn off the road near Talambote and you’ll find yourself in a breathtaking valley of cedar woods and stark, red cliffs, set against a blue, blue sky. Heaven incarnate. There’s a small car park and a couple of bathrooms at the point where a river tumbles out of the mountains, carving its way through the rocks over a series of waterfalls. Akchour and the Bridge of God lie just a couple of kilometres upstream.

Talassemtane’s pretty amazing, but the party starts south of Tetouan!

The route there is not exactly what you’d call linear; you have to ford the river at least two or three times. And whilst the weather might be sweltering at this time of year, the water rushing down from the mountains is anything but. There are a couple of stepping-stone paths and a few lines of conveniently-placed sandbags,but unless you feel like risking the adventurous, straight-out-of-a-Conan Doyle log bridges, it’s sun’s out, guns out, shoes off. I usually need a seriously good excuse to strip, being white bread through and through, even though I tend to tan pretty well, thanks to the Manchego in my blood (mmm… manchego). Well, a swim is as good an excuse as any.

Throw me the idol!

The water is cold. It’s not as cold as that pool in the riad we stayed in over in Chaouen, but it’s still bloody cold. After about fifteen minutes in the river my jaw is shaking uncontrollably and I’m having to bite my tongue to talk, which is hardly the most efficient way of going about it. But the water is so clear you can count the stones on the riverbed two metres down. And somewhere up in the trees high above, troops of macaques patrol the cliffs. I only had a fleeting glimpse of them this time, but I’ll be back. Hey, I can’t help it; I lived with two anthropologists last year. It did my obsession with primates no good whatsoever. Get up close and personal with our distant family and tell me you don’t feel some kind of connection on a deeper level – it’s in the eyes. You can tell they’re thinking.

Barbary Macaque in the Cedar Forest, Ifrane National Park, Morocco (2015)

They must be. If you aren’t buying it, visit the Rock. The Gibraltar macaques know all the tricks to relieve tourists of their munchies: smash and grab, puppydog eyes, even a rudimentary pincer movement. But here they’re free, unfed (and thus unspoiled) by tourists and wary enough to be considered natural. And that’s beautiful.

The car ride home was nothing short of a dream. Why? Because Omar, our guide, spoke Spanish. As did Mika, as did Jennifer. As did I. I can hardly tell you how amazing it felt to be speaking Spanish again after what feels like ages, even though it can only have been ten days, tops. It made returning to Arabic on Monday morning all the harder, but it was worth it for the high. Send me back to Spain. I can see the blue skies, I can see Paradise.

The Corrs have a new album out. White Light. I’m in a very happy place. And now I’m not booked out this August, I might just get to see them after all. BB x

Perseverance

June 10, 2016June 10, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Gave you all a bit of a fright with my last post, didn’t I?

Since Wednesday’s minor breakdown – the apotheosis of a very shaky start – I’ve eased in at last. It’s as though somebody’s holding up a mirror to last year, when the first few days were whimsical, light and carefree… Well, I’ve bounced back. It was only a matter of time and effort. I owe that to several factors, not least of all the Corrs, C.J. Sansom and a very inspirational young lady – and, of course, to my dear friends for all the support they’ve given. Thank you.

I’ll start backwards. I mentioned a couple of posts back that my Parisian classmate was streets ahead of me in linguistic and thinking ability. From her wealth of vocabulary, maturity of thought and clear sense of direction in life I had her down as at least a couple of years older than me. That’s a major sin right off the bat; false assumptions. The revelation that she was actually several years my junior took the wind out of me. I’ll not say how much… just that for her age, to be equally comfortable in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Russian, English and French (and goodness knows what else) is nothing short of inspirational. Age really shouldn’t have anything to do with it, of course, but it’s always a wonderful thing to find someone so young so very keen, and I’ve always been a sucker for charismatic individuals. And this one’s a real star. I guess I could learn a lot from her.

Jeez, she’s just come back with a newspaper and is reading it as though it were in French. Life goals right there.

Concerning C.J. Sansom… I’ve had Dominion on my bedside table for the last three years but never got around to reading it. It’s like Pavilions or just about any Stephen King novel: the writing is brilliant, top-notch even, but would it really hurt to write a little less? (My brother’s the Stephen King fan in the family… the rest of us use his books as highly convenient door-stoppers). That’s where iBooks came to the rescue. Much as I am loath to accept them as a genuine substitute for the feel of a good hardback book, their convenience as far as travel is concerned is second to none. Especially when the book concerned is over six-hundred pages. I’ve not gone a week since being awarded my iPad last summer without having at least one book on the go, but it’s been a long time since I could hardly put the damned thing down for the quality of the novel. Dominion‘s had me putting off sleep during Ramadan, it’s that good. To write with his grit, his flair for realism… More life goals.

The crux of the matter is the book’s firm focus on England and the spirit of British independence. Churchill. That sort of thing. I needed inspiration and I found it: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts“.

Thanks Winnie. I owe you one.

Lastly, what I really should have done sooner was to pick up my iPod and treat myself to some serious music therapy. It’s a failsafe I always forget to fall back on, provided I’ve got the right track. And the Corrs’ Forgiven not Forgotten – every song on that album, in fact – is always the right track. I’m not sure what the first album I listened to was. I suppose it may have been Spiceworld, but my parents are both music teachers, so the scope there is enormous. Certainly the first one I remember clearly and the one I associate most with my childhood is Forgiven not Forgotten. I still have the cassette, stashed away with other precious mementos of my childhood: the Jubilee medallion, a vulture feather, a bundle of love letters…

The Corrs were, and still are, my favourite band. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s a serious hustle for that top spot between Beyoncé, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson and James Brown, with the latter usually taking the top spot purely because of his legendary stamina on stage, but there’ll always be something special about the Corrs. I grew up with them. I listened to them on the way to school and every time we went on that long car journey to the Lake District. I think they even had a hand in giving birth to the novel; Erin Shore, in particular. And after all these years, I still treasure that album above all others. There’s just something about it that never faded.

If it weren’t so expensive (comparatively speaking), I’d up sticks and travel to Ireland every time the songs come on. Forgiven not Forgotten, Someday, Erin Shore, Runaway… There’s real Irish magic in there. Green hills, glassy lakes and stark cliffs. Gorgeous accents and black hair. Resilience. The north. Oh, to be Irish!

I’ll be honest. The older I get, the more attached to my home country I become. And for once I’m talking about England. The pink, fluffy clouds of a winter’s morning over a hard, frosty ground. The cawing of a rookery or the song of a lonely woodpigeon. The wind in the trees in summer. The symphony of colour in the woods in autumn. The first chiffchaffs singing from the blossom in spring. Footpaths and country lanes. Skylarks. These are things I associate with home. My choice of a path in life is destined to lead me further down the path my grandfather took, back to my roots in Iberia, but – how does it go again? – there will always be that part of me that is forever England.

My apologies for grossly paraphrasing you, Brooke. I know that’s not exactly what you meant. But the words have a real magic, a real meaning to them. And I couldn’t agree more.

I think that’s the most important lesson I’ve learned this year, above and beyond standing on my own two feet, learning to ask for help, perhaps even knowing when to shut up… No, more importantly than that, I’ve learned to love who I am, what I am, where I come from. Not in some glorified, nationalistic sense. Only, I’m no longer ashamed to be British. Quite the opposite, in fact. Perhaps I’m even proud to be so, dare I use the term. But whatever Britain stands for, what matters most is that, at last, I am happy with who I am.

World, I’m ready. BB x

Ramadan Dreams

June 8, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I slept pretty much all afternoon yesterday. That’s what you get after a two o’clock suhūr, I suppose. The result was a slew of very vivid dreams, perhaps not uninspired by the few clips of Inside Out! I’d been watching (I really must see the whole film. It looks amazing). This morning I could have spun the whole bizarre sequence out for you, piece by piece, but like so many dreams it’s been carried away by the morning light. All I remember clearly is standing aboard a gigantic galleon with vast, green sails, floating high above the earth like something out of The Edge Chronicles, and hurling myself overboard with my camera bag into the sea below as an alarm sounded and the ship slowly tilted sideways, stooped and then plunged into the water. And I was mainly concerned about keeping my camera dry.

I don’t think the family were all that impressed by my walking to and from school yesterday. I was. I found my way there and back in forty minutes apiece and it felt so good to get out. After all of that palava over Moroccan table manners, I really needed to get out on my own. To think. To breathe. Homestays really shouldn’t be this tough, but I am a bit of a loner. Sometimes what I really need is just to be left alone for four or five hours to read, or to think, or just to be. That was last year’s trouble, too; always rushing about.

It’s been a hard first few days. I knew it was going to be this way, especially concerning the Arabic language itself, but I didn’t expect it to be quite this hard. Leaving behind the friendly routine of the best year of my life to march straight into a two-month overhaul was always going to be difficult. Had I not gone in so positive I’d be on the brink of tears right now. I’m so behind. My classmate takes in the stuff like a sponge and I’m sitting there leaking. Grammar goes in, gets jumbled up with a million other unconscious thoughts, mistakes come out. It was so much easier in first year, when I was ahead of the game and vocabulary was all that really mattered… But then the grammar caught up, I burned out, and like so many track events, I fell back and back and back until I found myself a whole lap behind the rest. What a joke.

And here’s the punchline. In my brief spell at home, I found a folded sheet of paper covered in red scribblings I’d penned during that five-hour church service-cum-auction in Boroboro. University plans, mostly. I wrote them just weeks before I was offered a place at Durham. In amongst the scrawls there’s a four-year plan, detailing my plan of attack vis-a-vis studying French, Spanish and Arabic.

Apparently I’d never intended to take Arabic past the second year at all. There’s a question mark by that one as it is.

The question is, why did I take this road? Jordan was trying, but then, so is this – for want of company, this time. But for that one Monday class, last year was a dream. I belonged. Just speaking Spanish made me happy. And now I’m here… It seems very silly to be doing something you don’t really enjoy, and less so when you’ve no intention whatsoever of making any money out of it. Neither use nor ornament, and that’s probably the first and only time I’ve used that expression perfectly.

I suppose… I suppose I simply followed my heart. I tend to do that. I fell so very much in love with Arabic in first year. In fact, I scored more highly in Arabic that year than in either French or Spanish; undying proof that, if you put your mind to it, you can surely do it. It was, as we say, in my interest. Then came second year, the Northern Lights, the Gospel Choir fracas, another failed attempt at a relationship and the entire juggling scenario. I fell apart. I like being busy, but that was something else. I was balancing far more than I could feasibly carry. And I was also supposed to be studying Arabic.

Arabic is one of those languages you simply have to devote a lot of time to. I did in first year – almost every evening – and hey, it showed. I only became disillusioned when the lingering gap-year cabin-fever adrenaline rush petered out and I realized that there was more to university than endless study. It was thanks to that that I made so few friends outside my Arabic class that year… and that was one of the main reasons I decided to keep going. Arabic 1B wasn’t just a class, it was a real community in the way that the seven or eight French and Spanish groups could never be. United in fear. That was the magic.

What I really need right now is to escape. To be alone, without having to worry about grammar, about the family, about what my next heinous foodie faux-pas is going to be. Fortunately, I’m in the perfect place for that.

I’m turning twenty-two this weekend. Last year I spent a good deal of the day stretched out under the shade of an oak tree in the hills high above Durham, listening to the skylarks and feeling at peace with the world. That’s what I need to do. To get out. To the country. To be free. BB x

Fasting for Convenience

June 7, 2016September 28, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I never saw it coming, but the biggest challenge of living in Morocco is not the language at all. Above and beyond case-marking and getting your head around an Arabic variant that freely borrows French and Spanish words, rendering it almost four languages at once, is the challenge of eating. And whilst I consider myself reasonably proficient at keeping myself well-fed, these first few days in Morocco have rocked me to my core.

The problem, of course, is tied up with living with a family.

Before I set out on my ridiculous trans-Iberian adventure three years ago, I had the appetite of a wolverine. Always eating, ever snacking, stuffing myself with huge quantities of food that I was somehow able to finish in one sitting. Luckily for me, I remained as thin as a beanpole. Something to do with age, a penchant for going on long walks and a good metabolism. I was lucky.

2013 changed that. The whole Santander to Almería adventure was in a constant state of flux – I don’t think the exact route was entirely clear until it was over – and in the mayhem of sleeping rough in the mountains and navigating by compass and a map dated from 1978, I forgot to eat. That Spanish adventure killed my appetite for good.

Ever since, it doesn’t take much to fill me up. Which is a positive boon, when you think about it, but a major snag when it comes to lodging with an Arab family. I expect it’d be the same just about anywhere in the world, but Arab hospitality is deservedly famous. In amongst all of the Arabic that went over my head, I’ve heard my hosts say more than once that they think I’m not eating well. Not for want of trying – Moroccan food is amazing – but I’ve yet to finish a meal. The quantities are enormous, and the whole eating-with-your-hands thing is frustratingly technical. It slows me down to the point where I’m only halfway through a meal by the time the others have finished eating. Naturally, I’m much too stubborn to accept the cutlery they offered – it’s shameful, like resorting to English abroad – but I can’t help but wonder whether by trying to adapt in one way I’ve only set myself another challenge.

And I need to learn. Eating with one’s hands is the done thing in so many parts of the world, not least of all my beloved Africa. I’ve given myself a week to learn to do it properly; after that, I may resort to a knife and fork, if only to be eating well. It’s Ramadan, after all. It would make no sense at all to be fasting and eating less than usual at the same time. That’s idiocy on another level.

The fasting thing is good, though. It felt right, somehow, getting up at two with the family to eat suhūr together. It adds a new sense of structure to the day. They were all fast asleep when I left the house this morning, which you might expect from a total of five hours’ sleep, but I had class to go to. Fortunately, it’s only a forty minute walk, and that takes you through the medina and last the Royal Palace. It’s a really lovely walk, and it feels better off the back of having fasted with the Tetouanis.

All of this is very easy to say now, on the noon of the first day. Left to my own devices, I doubt I’d make much headway. But with the family watching I’m willing to try. Ramadan helwa, as they used to say in Jordan. And anything that’s got something to do with helwa can’t be that bad. BB x

The view from Class N°5, Dar Loughat

Headcase

June 6, 2016June 6, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

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Predictably, my first session in Dar Loughat was a bit of a shock to the system. Perhaps even more so than my attempts at conversation with my hosts. That would be because striking up a conversation doesn’t tend to require case-marking every single letter.

As lessons go, it was superbly taught. The whole asking-you-for-the-word-in-your-own-language thing is new and a serious improvement; it put a stop to me nodding my way into ignorant oblivion from the get-go. I’m not sure why other teachers haven’t tried that in the past, I needed it bad. I guess it’s the sign of a truly capable linguist, if he’s able to field three languages at once on top of his own.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel I was trailing. The placement test landed me with a Parisian postgraduate who had taught herself Arabic alongside Farsi, Urdu and Russian. As if that wasn’t enough, she case-marked everything she said or read almost perfectly, tanwiin fatHas and mansūb endings all over the shop. Like an Archie 2.0. I pretty much gave up on cases in Year Two… and boy, does it show. Some find hardworking people like that inspiring. I just feel cowed. I spent most of that class with a weak smile on my face, like some kind of vestigial ape expression of fear. I brought this on myself, I suppose. I wanted to meet new people, to have a non-Durham class. I got what I asked for.

At the end, the teacher asked us how the lesson went. My classmate said it was very basic. I personally felt like I’d just finished the first assault course in boot camp. He laughed and said that Arabic is a bit like sports.

Great. Exactly what I wanted to hear.

I never said it was going to be easy. To make matters worse, we’re starting from Al-Kitaab 3 again. Not that that’s a bad thing – it’s pretty clear now that I’ve forgotten almost everything I learned out there, except possibly all the bird names I taught myself (escapism – because it was in my interest) – but the first topic is politics. Anybody who knows me knows how pigheaded and closed-minded I am about politics… That is to say, I hate it. I don’t like talking about things I don’t know and I know grand zilch about politics. Again, my classmate proved the yin to my yang: she loves it, takes a passionate interest in the subject and wants to pursue it through journalism.

So just as conversations at home tend to err towards the one-sided field, so too may classes here. All I have to offer is that I study books… A firm background of literature, art and music doesn’t make for an easy playing field when the subject is politics; specifically, the political ramifications of the Iranian Revolution in Islamic nations around the world. Give me the sleazy wine poetry of Abu Nuwās any day.

There’s an orientation at half three. Lessons last from nine to twelve and it sounds as though students spend the afternoon involved in projects. Which projects exactly I’m hoping I’ll find out today. That might be the key to staying alive. There’s little use in heading back to the flat… I have everything I need here, and it’s a tad too far to walk (dammit). So just for today I’ll stick around and take advantage of the speedy WiFi.

The first class was always going to be tough. Nevertheless I’m determined not to give up, not this time. If Arabic were only vocabulary, it’d be a dream… But we must be realistic. Besides, I guess it’s like maths – another thing that floors me. It’s simply a matter of knuckling down and mastering the technique. I gave up on maths too early. As a result, I can’t do division. I never could. I won’t make the same mistake with Arabic. BB x

The First Hurdles

June 5, 2016June 5, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I knew it. My Arabic is every bit as rusty as I thought it was. Over the last twenty four hours I’ve jumbled kalimāt with ma3kulāt, completely ignored the feminine –īn ending, let sentences slide into the oblivion for lack of vocabulary and resorted to a mixture of French, Spanish and English to fill in the gaps. How people manage to stay on top of six or seven languages at once baffles me; four is troublesome enough.

And so begins the third and final stage of the Year Abroad. The afternoon call to prayer is sounding as I write, cutting over the Camarón playing defiantly from my earphones; two months in Tetouan, a small city on the northern coast of Morocco. Arabic is back with a bang in my life. It’s an early start for me tomorrow at Dar Loughat, my new school, though not so much so now that the clocks have gone back for Ramadan. Registration, a placement test and, like as not, the first class.

I’ve been here for a little over a day now, and though Tetouan is only a stones throw from Tarifa, it’s a very different world from the land across the Strait. And it’s not just the Arabic. Even mealtimes are a challenge, and Ramadan hasn’t even started yet. I’m all up for eating with my hands, but it’s a good deal more technical than I thought it was. Naturally, I made a bit of a mess of it last night. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I recall a similarly awkward attempt in Uganda, where the ‘natural fork’ – using your thumb and three fingers – is the done thing, but that got forgotten somewhere between the purple lightning and the mountain gorillas. Priorities.

Letting in the morning light through my bedroom window is also ‘not good’, something I hadn’t anticipated. Morocco is a long way from the Middle East, but some of the old Arab customs cling on here.

Determined not to lapse into last year’s old habits, namely falling back on English whenever possible, I’ve taken a dive and lodged with a Tetouani family. For someone who really values his own freedom, that was a difficult decision to make. But when the other Arabists come back in October with an average of six months apiece in an Arabic-speaking country, I’ll be left floating, so as I said before, it’s my prerogative to push myself. And what better way than to live with a Moroccan family?

It’s not easy. I reckon I understand less than half of what they say to me, even though it’s in fusHa (when they speak Dārija to each other, I don’t understand a word). I tend to latch onto the first word I recognise and wrestle with that until I have some idea of what’s going on. More often than I should, I find myself using a French word coupled with a pathetic expression to make up for the words I’m missing. When it comes to conversation, which is – for now – rather one-sided, my contributions consist of a series of nods and noises of understanding. And I’m still very much at the stage where I’m constantly getting caught out by questions.

All of this is a bit disheartening after that triumphant C2 in the CEFR Spanish exam. It’s like I’ve been reset to zero, sent back to the starting line just before the end of the 1500m. No, it’s worse than that: it’s like that painful childhood moment when you’ve been playing Pokémon for five hours and then you turn the game off without saving, and after all the cussing and swearing you know you’ve no choice but to retrace your steps or give up and walk away.

I was an odd kid. Nevertheless, the spark that flared in me in my first year at university is blinking in the dark. There’s a reason I came out here alone, early, immediately. I’m not about to give up on Arabic. Far from it. I’m determined to make this work, to be reinspired. Dear Kate found inspiration in Jordan where I found only creeping despair. But this is round two, and I’m coming back fighting. I fought hard to come here and now I have to earn it. I have to show the downcast Ben from last year who’s boss. That’s easy to say now, before the course has even begun, but that’s what it’s all about: a positive attitude. And having the awe-inspiring cliffs of the Rif Mountains does help. A lot.

All this and more has been said before, so I won’t sweat it. I haven’t yet got out to explore Tetouan beyond this morning’s trip to the market, so I’ll tell you a bit about my room. It doubles as a library. There are books in at least four languages spread out across a bookshelf that stretches along the length of one wall; Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima and Ibn Battūta’s Rihla, Pablo Neruda’s Confieso que he vivido and a French history of the alliance between Moulay Ismail and Louis XIV. There are also fossils everywhere. Trilobites, ammonites, corals and seashells, sharkteeth and even a gigantic bone of some description. My hosts – or one of them, at least – are avid naturalists. You could say I’ve landed on my feet. It’s also got a desk, a luxury I was denied both in Spain and in Jordan and – heaven above – it’s got WiFi. Weak WiFi, but at least it’s there.

No bones about it: this is definitely a step-up from last year’s overpriced two-room flat with the haunted washing machine and the worksite next door. BB x

Beginning is the Hardest Thing

June 4, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

‘Business or pleasure, sir?’

‘Does language study count as business?’

‘Ah, I guess that’s a bit of both, then. Enjoy your stay, sir.’

I don’t think I’ve ever had a worse case of cold feet than I did last night. If I paint myself as a seasoned traveler, the reality couldn’t be more disappointing. I spent most of this morning flying about the house in a panic, weighing, re-weighing and rearranging my suitcase, adding and removing books, cursing and swearing about how little I actually know about what happens when I leave the airport at Tangier. Shameless.

For the record, I had cold feet before going to Spain last September. Not quite this bad, but I still had my doubts. I suppose knowing Sevilla and being very confident in my Spanish did help, but having a firm knowledge of where I’d be sleeping that night was an added bonus. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had precious little over forty-eight hours at home that had me unsettled, most of which I spent traveling anyway.

It could also be the fact that I’m striking out alone.

I’ve forgotten my little green Arabic grammar book. It’s not essential, but it would have been nice to have – like so many things in my life. Al-Kitaab will do.

On a similar note, I’ve a lot less baggage this time. 18 kilos of hold luggage and a much slimmer rucksack than usual. Benjamin learns. It’s only two months, after all. I’ll need to invest in some decent sandals when I’m out there, though. Like as not it’ll be much too hot for socks. That might mean haggling, and I hate haggling, but… I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. This is why I’m heading out alone rather than waiting for the others. I have to push myself. I have to, or else I’ll never learn.

The gate info will be up in a minute. I guess I’d better get up and get ready to go. I’m not feeling quite so jittery anymore. Excited and a little scared. Good combination! I’ll see you in Africa. Ma’as-salaama! BB x

Whistlestop

June 3, 2016June 3, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

I’ve been in the UK for just over twenty-four hours. In another twenty-four hours I’ll be gone again, somewhere over the Iberian peninsula on a plane bound for Morocco. I finished work on Tuesday night and I’ll be back to the grindstone by Saturday afternoon. Even by my standards, I’m cutting it fine for breathing space.

It’s my birthday that spoiled it. It’s quite stupid, really. I should have been heading out next Saturday, not this one. Any other day and I’d have been quite happy to head out to begin the third and final stint of my Year Abroad… But it’s the thought of spending an entire day traveling and winding up in Tetouan, alone, and very probably lost in translation on my twenty-second birthday that held me back.

It’s only another day in the year. And twenty-two is nothing special. But I’d rather have got cozy and settled in before I think too hard about aging another year. If I’d had half a brain and just a pinch of common sense, I’d have ignored the detail and given myself just a few more days to rest. Another week, perhaps. But I didn’t, and I’m off tomorrow, to begin the placement I fought so very hard to win last summer. I guess I have little choice but to tackle it head on, beaming.

There’s also the fact that I won’t be ‘alone’ for long. Just two weeks after I touch down, I’ll be joined by two Arabbuddies from Durham: Team Jordan’s very own Katie Lang and Kat, both Team Morocco veterans. The temptation to resort to English will be strong. All the more reason to knuckle down and get stuck in first. As the first Durham Arabist to test the waters at Dar Loughat – a pioneer, if you will – it’s my prerogative to get off to a good start, which means the less tempted I am to fall back on English, the better. I won’t have any repeats of Jordan.

Not that it’s a competition or anything like that. Language learning never should be. Even if it were, I’d have lost already. Kat will be fresh from at least five months and more in Jordan, Team Fes totaled six or seven shortly after Christmas and the Lebanon lot have just clocked a whopping nine months in Beirut, so any chances of the Arabic class of ’17 coming back on an even playing field are already dead in the water, but at least Katie and I are of the same mentality: namely, one of ‘ah heck, let’s just get this over with, shall we?’.

But that’s ok. Arabic is fun, it’s interesting and the countries where it’s spoken doubly so, but I never really wanted to go anywhere with it. A desire to explore North Africa and to make myself understood in the process are all I really wanted from it, and that’s exactly what Dar Loughat can provide. So what if I’m going to return to Durham near the bottom of the Arabic pile, despite having started off so strong? Put me in a Spanish class instead and watch me fly. Arabic is no lost cause either. Morocco will bring out the goods. All I have to do is hold up my end of the bargain and work for it.

The train’s pulling in to Paddock Wood. England looks so very green and lush and beautiful… And cold. It was almost worth making this brief sortie back home just for the train ride. The Kentish lowlands are really quite pretty.

I know next to nothing about what happens after I touch down tomorrow. I know I’m getting picked up from the airport, which is a plus, but as for the name and number of my host family for the next two months… Zilch. Kaput. I’m just hoping there’s something fixed on the other end. I seem to remember that it was just as laissez-faire in Amman, but I’m striking out alone this time. And whilst it’s hardly more a priority than having a roof over my head, I wonder if they’ll have WiFi… Internet access has been very touch-and-go this year; quite literally so, now that I have a portable device in the form of this Durham courtesy iPad. Since July 2015 I’ve leant out of windows, loitered about cafés and put in extra hours in the staff room in search of WiFi. Even here at home I’m going to have to go next door into the common room to post this. Here’s to third-time lucky.

First priority when I get home is to get packing. If I could finish unpacking first, that would be a plus, too. I suppose I should also spend tonight thinking about my dissertation; module registration opens tomorrow, so I’d better do that just before I go. I’m not lacking in ideas. I’m holding a book on captive narratives in the Empire years, and in my rucksack are a further two studies on women in the Indian mutiny and the role of Lawrence’s young men in the Khyber border disputes.

Unfortunately, I’m not studying for a History degree, and since the Spanish never had a hold over the Indian subcontinent, there’s precious little good any of that will do me, besides being thrilling reading. I’ve been obsessed with the Raj since Pavilions.

It’ll be something literary I suppose – that’s where I work best – but I haven’t quite narrowed it down yet. I’ll try to focus my three potential fields into two titles apiece and see what Durham’s advice is. I’m getting myself another £9000 in debt this year just for the privilege of studying at university (future generations, look back and weep); the least I can do is ask them to do that much for me so that I’m all cleared to begin in September.

Before that, two independent research projects in the target language are outstanding: one each for Spanish and Arabic, on bandit legends and the Barbary pirates respectively. All I need is reliable internet and I’ll get cracking. Morocco, don’t let me down.

The next time you hear from me, I’ll be in Africa (oh, but that felt good. I should say that more often. It makes the next leg a great deal more exciting, when you think of it like that). Until then, wish me luck. It’s going to be quite the uphill struggle, getting back into Arabic after almost a year’s wanton neglect, but I’m up for a challenge. Bring it. 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