waiting

Summer Blues, City Blues

/ Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

There’s no better birthday present in the world than an invoice for nearly two thousand dollars. What a way to start the day. Even off the back of a very generous exchange rate, that’s still a cartload of cash. Of course, what with Student Finance working tirelessly behind the scenes, I suppose it’s easy to forget that I’m putting myself further and further in debt with those £9000 a year tuition fees hovering silently overhead, unseen until they pounce, leech-like, on my first pay cheque. That’s just a bugbear my generation have to face, I guess – not with apathy per se, but with a grudging acceptance that it’s the way things are. So yeah, in short, it was a good start to a twenty-first birthday.

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In search of peace of mind, I took a wander out of town for somewhere quiet to sit and think. I initially made for my usual spot beside the river in the Broompark Woods, but as the sun was shining so gloriously and as I hadn’t actually done it before, I set my sights on the hill high over New Brancepeth and made for the top. It took a little while to climb down into the valley and up the other side, and it was quickly apparent that I’d left the Durham bubble far behind me. Everywhere I went I got strange looks from the people I passed; I guess not many students make it this far out of the bubble. Which is a crying shame, because it’s simply b-e-a-utiful. As soon as you’ve put a mile and a half between yourself and the city itself, you’re back in the real north again: fields lined with dry stone walls, rolling, sheep-strewn hills and open sky. Romantic, much. But you already know I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. From the top off the hill overlooking New Brancepeth, about an hour’s walk from Durham itself, you can see for miles in all directions. The cathedral tower, poking out from the valley in which it sits, dwarfs the city even from so far away. But what gets you is the silence. I’ve spent this year living on the fringes of the city, but you can still hear the hum of the A167. Get yourself out onto the hills and it’s another world. Just a couple of pipits, the odd yellowhammer and a single skylark singing their hearts out, with the far-off bleat of a lamb skipping after its mother. Rural idyll. Never mind its status, this is the real reason I applied here. If only I had the time to see more of it. I’d hoped to spend this end of term striking out around the north, but once again the year’s come and gone and I’ve not yet made the move. Fourth year will almost definitely see me finally striking out for Lindisfarne, the Lake District and the Farne Islands.

Durham City in the valley below New Brancepeth

Durham City in the valley below New Brancepeth

I don’t know how I’m going to survive for the next two months. The Arab political situation and the basic laws of the land have left me no choice: if I am to continue to study Arabic, I must go to live in the city. Durham is by far the largest city I’ve ever lived in, which isn’t saying much, because it’s the only city I’ve ever lived in. And its size freaks me out sometimes. In less than two weeks’ time I’ll have to face down my fears and try to adapt to life in Amman, a sprawling metropolis compared to anything I’ve ever known. If I didn’t have a couple of good friends going with me, I know it would break me in days. I hope I can find somewhere to get away from it all, inside the city or outside. If only Amman weren’t so immense… The icing on the cake is the cost of it all. Two months’ study and accommodation in Amman is not exactly cheap. My twisted logic tells me that it’s just insulting to pay so much to have to live in a city, which is bad enough a situation as it is, but that’s obviously not the right way of looking at it. I’m just too much of a country boy for my own good. The sooner I can get out to some tiny, out-of-the-way pueblo in the Extremaduran heartlands, the better. My heart could do with the silence. BB x

Looking north from New Brancepeth

Looking north from New Brancepeth

Clear the Runway

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That’s it! No more exams this year! And none for another two years, come to think of it. How’s that for a load off the mind? I guess only time will tell how they went – three weeks’ time, to be precise, by which time I’ll be home. Blimey, but this year has drawn to a close quickly… I’m really not expecting an awesome turnover as far as the language exams are concerned. These last few weeks more than ever I’ve heard people liken language to Maths – the beauty, apparently, being that there’s a logic, and there’s a right and a wrong. Great news if you’ve got the kind of brain that can crunch logic like a harvester, but devastating if your mathematical competence is on par with a freshly-picked beetroot. The highest I ever achieved in a regular Maths paper at school was a paltry 28%. How I got this far – to Durham, of all places – with such a pitiful weakness for numbers is nothing short of a miracle. For me, there’s nothing better than a good, old-fashioned essay, so this last week has been an absolute breeze in comparison with the previous three weeks of grammar-busting. There’s no denying the importance of grammar – it’s the bedrock of any and every language – but it doesn’t exactly make for entertaining reading. Especially when you have to tread the line between what is right and what is wrong. Thank goodness for Arts, where it becomes one big grey area. A difficult place to excel, but a far better environment for the mathematically inept, like me.

Away with the musing. The Morocco/Jordan debate came to a sudden and decisive end yesterday with the booking of return flights from Amman at the end of June. Done! Expensive, but that’s the price you have to pay for visiting wealthy countries. It’s not as though I had much of a choice with my department either, the way things have gone of late. We’re banding together as a year to prevent the following years being plagued by the same problems we faced. Hopefully they don’t have to go through with all that chaos. But that’s that! So I’m going to Jordan. I’ll be there for just over two months before zipping back for a short stop at home before jetting straight back out to Spain, by which point I’ll have much more of an idea as to where it is they’re sending me. Exciting stuff. Now all I’ve left to do is to wait a couple of days for my monstrous portrait to arrive and I can get straight back to work on that, and let’s not forget all the gigs and rehearsals set to swamp me over the coming weeks. And paperwork. Christ, the paperwork. Will it never end?

If you’re after an alternative point of view over the next two months in Jordan, give my friends over at Langlesby travels a browse (https://langlesbytravels.wordpress.com/). It’s highly entertaining reading and a great deal less greenie-pontificating than me! I’m working on that… BB x

Summer's here and the lane is as dark as night again

Freedom!

The End is in Sight

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No more Arabic Literature!

No more Arabic Literature!

It’s the last week of exams, which means most people are finished for the year. Most people. Everyone not doing Spanish Texts, that is, which has been lovingly placed on the last Friday of exams. How generous. On the plus side, no more Arabic Literature! What was set to be the toughest exam turned out to be a relative walk in the park, compared to the nefariously difficult Persian and Arabic papers. Though the Dissolute Poets didn’t feature at all – it was never very likely that they would – I still got the chance to quote our favourite poet, Abu Nuwas, in one of the questions, so all’s well that ends well. I’ve also learned from my mistakes, balancing eloquence and originality with the academic writing preferred by one of my lecturers. I take a Beyoncé approach to essays, these days: if you like it, then you need to put a lid on it, because it’s not meant to be an entertaining read, of course. See what I did there? Yeah, it wasn’t exactly inspired. I’ll try to avoid out-and-out humour.

Still, if today’s weather sets a precedent for the rest of the term, I’ll be one happy guy. It was absolutely b-e-a-utiful this afternoon. Exams or no exams, I joined the rest of the lit crew to chill for an hour or so outside the Swan and Three in the sun, if just to revel in the knowledge that we don’t need to read up on Modern Arabic poetry, Jurji Zeydan and the maqamat anymore. I’m not free yet, but with the shackles of a history-based exams removed, I feel like flying. I’ve already been told that originality is valued over quoting in my last exam, which is much more up my street, so I’m not so worried about that. What I should be doing in the meantime is booking those flights to Amman. This time next month, I’ll be there. And that’s a little alarming… BB x

Prebends Cottage on a Summer's Afternoon, Durham

Prebends Cottage in the Afternoon Sun, Durham

Wine, Women and Song

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As compensation for far too many hours spent trawling the internet for absolutely anything and everything to do with Extremadura, I’ve finally settled back into the all-too unfamiliar rut of revision. It’s not quite as entertaining as browsing beautiful images of the high sierras, rolling steppe and quaint medieval towns that’ll be my home next year, but I reckon I’ve nearly exhausted all the internet has to offer as far as Extremadura is concerned. Even so, I’m still no closer to having a decent idea as to where I might end up, or what it will really be like to live there. Just goes to show how a little knowledge can only take you some of the way. The rest will come in time.

So I spent most of today back in the armchair in the living room swotting up on the dissolute poets of the Abbasid Caliphate and their ringleader, the infamous Abu Nuwas, lover of wine, music, lewd verse and just about anything that walked on two legs. It seems that the scoundrel managed to carve a niche for himself into the fabric of Arabian myth as a master poet of almost unparalleled skill, along the way chasing slave boys, playing out some of the earliest rap battles, insulting almost everyone and everything and generally being an all-round prankster, for which he is so wittily remembered in several tales of the Arabian Nights. So outrageous a character is he that he is one of the only characters in the Arabian Nights that infuriates Shahriyar to such an extent that he threatens to break the frame narrative and kill Shahrazad (also Scheherezade), the narrator, if she mentions him again. Twice. But he’s obviously just too big a character and crops up time and time again. To give you an idea of his style, here’s a verse from the Mathers translation of the Arabian Nights. Obviously it sounds better in Arabic, but it’s such a high style Nuwas uses that it’s well beyond the comprehension of a second-year Arabist, and the meaning’s clear enough. Here, Abu Nuwas describes one of Caliph Harun al-Rashid’s slave girls, whom the Caliph has ordered to conceal a wine goblet in order to prevent the rapscallion from drinking any more:

Even as I desire the cup
The cup desires
Lips secret and more pleasant
And has gone up
Within her garments hollow
Whither the cup aspires
Nuwas would follow
If only Harun were not present.

Raunchy stuff. His legacy extends beyond the Arabian Nights; most of Baghdad’s nightclubs and restaurants are based in Abu Nuwas Street and the city is home to an immense statue of the rogue, with wine goblet in hand. For a man who is essentially the Arab world’s most glorified scoundrel and bisexual, it’s a miracle IS hasn’t done away with the effigy. And long may that be the case. After all that reading, it’s got to be a life ambition of mine, to see that statue with my own eyes. Let’s just hope the linguistic brilliance of his poetry continues to outweigh his lewd behaviour.

That was a little too informative for a blog post. But, as usual, I thought I’d share it with y’all in case you’re interested. My friend and I have some kind of cult-hero thing going on with Abu Nuwas so I’ve probably got the guy blown way out of proportion, if just in the vague hope that he comes up in the upcoming exam, so that I can use all this knowledge I’ve gleaned. I guess that’s the point of revision.

Oh, but hurry up next year already! I’m chomping at the bit to get teaching, wherever it is that they send me. As if that wasn’t already obvious… Until the next time! BB x

Fingers Crossed

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Pillars in the Court of Lions, Alhambra, Granada, Spain (2011)

Pillars in the Court of Lions, Alhambra, Granada, Spain (2011)

Today is D-Day. Destination Day, that is. In a matter of hours (hopefully) I’ll have a province, one from either Andalucía, Extremadura or Cantabria, three equally stark, inspiring and beautiful regions of the Iberian peninsula. The BC asks you to specify which one you’d prefer and I wasted no time in putting Andalucía right at the top of the list, but I ranked ‘environment’, another of their categories, higher up the list, so it’s still anyone’s guess where I’m headed. In light of that, I’ll see if I can’t lay down my reasons for choosing each one. When I applied for university, I just went straight for Durham – twice – and filled the other four spaces with names I plucked out of the air. Not this time.

Cantabria

I’ve been to Cantabria twice: once on a school trip, and the second as the landing stage of my solo adventure across Spain back in ’13. Spain’s north coast is unquestionably beautiful, in a manner so very far-removed from the magic of the south. The north smacks more of Ireland, only a wilder, more impressive Ireland, where the people speak Spanish. Oh, and there are still a few bears left in the mountains – not that you’d be likely to see them. The jagged spine of the Picos de Europa rivals the Alps in magnificence – especially Picu Urriellu – in sunshine or in rain. Though speaking from experience, Cantabrian rain is not something to be trifled with. When it rains, it doesn’t just pour, it buckets it down in Biblical fashion. One of my most enduring memories of Cantabria is of sitting under the shelter of a covered well wearing several layers of plastic bags, feeling soaked to the skin and utterly miserable. But it was also a warm and friendly place and the food – especially the quesada pasiega but also the region’s black pudding, morcilla – was to-die-for. That and I feel like pulling out early because of the flood warnings has left the area ‘unfinished’ in my books. I’ll be going back someday, for sure.

Extremadura

Extremadura, alongside Galicia, La Rioja and Valencia, is one of the few regions I haven’t yet had the pleasure to visit. Perhaps that’s because it’s so far off the beaten track for most excursions that you’d be better off based somewhere like Andalucía to have a wide range within driving distance. But there’s no two ways about it: Extremadura is a hidden gem. Often overlooked in favour of its southern neighbour, it’s a vast stretch of rolling steppe, craggy river valleys and endless cork oak forests flooded with flowers in the spring. It’s about as rustic as you can get it, if you know where to go. Of course, it’s also about as unforgiving as the plains of La Mancha in high summer, and it has a reputation – Cortes and Pizarro were born here – but if you can look past that, you’ll understand why I’m almost hoping that my gamble with valuing environment over region will have the BC place me here. I’ve criss-crossed most of Andalucía already. Extremadura is still vast, unexplored and full of adventure.

Andalucía

Three people have told me now that if I should apply to Andalucía via the BC, I should be careful not to wind up in Cadiz, because of the miserable weather, the isolation and the impenetrable accent. Trouble is, I can’t help my heart. I grew up in Cadiz. The accent I can vouch for – it’s Bwindi-level impenetrable – but as far as isolation and miserable weather is concerned, that’s not the Andalucía I know and love. Far from it. If you’ll forgive me an almighty head-over-heels moment, Andalucía is and always has been the greatest love of my life. Granada and its Moorish echoes to the east. Cordoba’s flowerpot streets and the magnificence of the Gran Mezquita to the north. The godforsaken terrain of El Torcal and the Sierra de Grazalema to the south. And last but not least, the sweeping marshlands of Doñana to the west. Not to mention the enduring horse culture, flamenco, the vulture-filled blue skies and, of course, the dark-eyed beauty of the people. Andalucía has everything. Honestly, if it weren’t for Andalucía, I might have been braver and gone for a BC post in South America. But the way I see it, turning down a chance to spend another eight months in my old homeland would be one of the greatest mistakes I could make. That’s why Andalucía tops the list.

But we’ll see how things pan out, shall we? I’d better head on down to Elvet Riverside to pick up that last Arabic essay. Slightly dreading the results, since it was another late night work, my third this year, and my first genuine all-nighter. And three is, and always has been, a dangerous number. I’ll get back to you later! BB x

Learning to be Patient

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

The long-awaited reply came back from the British Council today regarding the allocation of teaching assistant posts in Spain for the coming year. The deadline’s been extended – so we won’t be hearing the results for another week. Not only that, but it’s been split into parts, so we’ll only have the full picture after three weeks. And somewhere in that mess I need to organise the rest of my year abroad around eight ghost months that still may or may not be happening, and the later I leave it, the more expensive that will get. Frustration doesn’t cover it. It’s been pretty galling hearing from the other applicants on the French and German side getting both their placements and their regions in one go, and hearing nothing from Spain – and now this – but I guess I should have seen that coming. It is Spain we’re talking about, after all. Since when did any self-respecting Spaniard adhere to the laws of time? I’ll hear when I hear and I guess that’s just it. It’s not like I don’t have other things to think about. Oral exams, for one. Prioritise, man!

So this is just a first post to touch base, really. I’d counted on christening it with a confirmation from the BC, but obviously that will just have to wait for the time being. All I know for now is that I’m in with at least a ghost of a chance because I had the common sense (or total lack of it, depending on your point of view) to tick the ‘small town’ and ‘rural’ boxes on the application form instead of the horrendously oversubscribed ‘large town/city’ option. A bit of fishing around other BC assistants’ blogs has thrown up the same story time and time again, so it’s obviously nothing new. Every year over two-thirds of applicants choose to be sent to the cities and every year the BC sends out a desperate plea, asking everyone involved to consider a less urban post. The way the email was written made the ‘rural’ option sound even more of a dangerous move. If well over two thirds of the applicants asked to be put in cities, how many were left over for the small town option, let alone rural?

Amongst the reasons the BC gave for leaving the cities was the total immersion thing. Oh, don’t worry, BC – I’m game for that. Just how severe that immersion is remains to be seen. In all my blog-trawling I’ve only found one post about a rural BC assistant and her main issue was the total lack of people her own age in her post. That’s a very real risk and I accept it. But Spain is Spain and I’m not throwing myself into the mix to spend a year in pubs and clubs. Look at Durham; I mean, if it’s nightlife you’re after, you wouldn’t apply here… There’s so much more to Spain than the nightlife. Just you wait and see. Only, don’t wait on my account. I still haven’t finished waiting.

Apologies for the slightly bitter first post. I was a touch disappointed, that’s all. I’ll let you know when I hear anything further…