Troy Nahumko Writing Profile

I first got to know Rolf Potts in the dark depths of the pandemic when he hosted a series of interviews with people around the world discussing their experiences through the COVID-19 lockdowns. He has a wonderful collection of author profiles on his site and I'm proud to be a part of them. Click over to have a look. 

We Appreciate your Predicament, Mr. Bond

Mud Volcanos in Gobustan, Azerbaijan

Bond villains, war criminals, mud volcanoes and ununderstandable Scottish accents in this weeks Camino a Ítaca. It's the second year in a row that the United Conference Conference Climate Change conference (COP29) has been held in a fossil fuel dependant state and the watered down results are sadly foreseeable. We think we have so much choice, but do we? Click over to read the originally published piece in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. This was also picked up in SUR in English.  (PDF en castellano abajo)

The freshly laid blacktop rolled out from Baku across the dun Gobustan desert like a strip of electrical tape vainly adhering to the surface of a sandbox. Its very newness was a political statement against the antediluvian moonscape, complete with gurgling mud volcanoes, that stretched out from the bus’s tinted windows. It was a Monday morning and the highland Scots oil technicians sitting around me were regaling each other about their weekends in a shared language I could barely understand.

We saw them before they could even be heard. Tremendous dust storms raised up out of the desert as a pair of Apache helicopters buzzed past followed by two bigger transport helicopters. One of which landed in the middle of the highway ahead and disgorged a squad of troops that blocked the road. The American Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was visiting the gas terminal where we were headed, and it was about to be inaugurated.

We weren’t going to work today. Geopolitics had literally landed in our path out in the wastelands of Azerbaijan.

It’s been 20 years since that pipeline opened the flow of gas from the Caspian to its terminus in Turkey. Then, that highway was the only new road to have been built, let alone repaved, since the USSR had collapsed some 15 years prior. Now, after 20 years of gas revenues, the petrocity on the finger-like peninsula sticking out into the world’s largest inland sea looks like Dubai on the fringes of the Central Asian steppe.

Its oil riches have also served to help establish it as a regional powerhouse. Projecting it onto the international stage by hosting large events like Eurovision, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and most recently the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The second consecutive year the conference has been held in a fossil fuel dependent state.

Azerbaijan’s autocratic president Ilham Aliyev took over the reigns of the small ex-Soviet nation more than 20 years ago from his father Heydar Aliyev. Himself a former high ranking KGB officer who morphed into a Bond-style Central Asian strongman. The type with shark tanks in their plush offices who enjoy boiling opposition figures and journalists in vats of oil.

His son has tempered down some of those strongman excesses but continues to maintain a tight grip on the country, prompting the OSCE to state that the recent parliamentary elections “did not offer voters genuine political alternatives and took place within a legal framework overly restrictive of fundamental freedoms and the media…”

This week Aliyev told world leaders gathered for COP29 that natural gas was a “gift from God” and that the country shouldn’t be blamed for bringing it to market. He went on to expose hypocritical Western governments who buy his gas and lecture him about torching the planet, “Unfortunately double standards, a habit to lecture other countries and political hypocrisy became kind of modus operandi for some politicians, state-controlled NGOs and fake news media in some Western countries.”

 In a country where elections are controlled and rigged, the average Azeri can’t be blamed for having a climate denier as leader, but for those of us who supposedly have free and fair elections, what’s our excuse?

Talking about the Stones on CKUA

Stories Left in Stone, Trails and Traces in Cáceres, Spain

I was lucky enough to have a nice chat with my old bandmate, drummer Grant Stoval on the Arts and Culture supplement on his Alberta Morning program on CKUA the other day. Have a listen to a walk though my new book Stories Left in Stone, Trails and Traces in Cáceres, Spain published by the University of Alberta Press.

CKUA Radio · Troy Nahumko - on Stories Left in Stone

Debuting in SUR in English

I've been writing for the Spanish newspaper HOY for almost 15 years now, but my pieces have always been in, surprise surprise, Spanish. It took a tragedy in Valencia and a chance look at a tranlated piece by my colleague J.R Alonso de la Torre to put the pieces together. Today, I try out my andaluz accent and publish my first piece for SUR in English, a newspaper that covers Málaga and Andalucia.

I do like to get down to the coast whenever I can. This way, at least my words are getting a bit of sea air. Click over for the first piece.

Lessons to Learn from Tragedy: Valencia

In today's Camino a Ítaca memories of a parachute flapping up and down above the bar as I easily peeled the labels off sodden beer bottles in the Florida damp heat. The end of the world was on its way and it was too late to get out. The Green Parrot seemed as good a place as any to meet the storm surge. Lessons could have and should have been learned and put into place in the recent tragedy in and around Valencia, Spain. Neoliberal climate change deniers in power instead held firm in their suicidal disbelief and hundreds died as a result. Click over to read the terrible tale in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

I sat waiting for the end of the world on a barstool some 200kms out in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. There, whirling around on the screen above the bar rode the four horsemen, in hurricane form, barreling down on my little island less than a meter above sea level at the tail end of the Florida Keys. After days of heading elsewhere, the storm had made a capricious, last minute turn and was now coming straight for us. As there was no time to leave, no evacuation order could be given. The only thing left to do was sit and wait.

The thing is, this was Florida and the locals had been down this road many, many times before. Everyone had done what they could do in preparation. The bathtubs were filled with water and they had enough bottled water, canned provisions and batteries for that antique machine called a radio that would last them several days.

Once everything that could be done had been done, that only thing you could do was watch. Some spent the time praying while others, like myself, ran up exorbitant bar tabs thinking they might never have to be paid. It was completely possible that the bar would be found floating somewhere off of Miami in the coming days.

Everyone had been warned and information from every level of the administration had been given. It was now the people’s choice whether to follow it or not. Those who chose not to heed the warnings were prime candidates for the Darwin awards, but that was their choice.

The thing is, they were given that choice.

The current drama taking place in Valencia is catastrophic. Mother Nature has once again made it abundantly clear that she is changing and is not happy about it. Local wisdom that once may have served to keep people safe no longer holds true for a warming sea. Entirely new models need to be imagined and fresh protocols need to be put in place to confront this new reality. Things like the gota fria aren’t those of our grandparents anymore.

The deadly challenge is that there are some who for economic, political and/or religious reasons refuse to accept this new normal. In Valencia, the AEMET had been issuing warnings for days prior, but the regional government chose to ignore them until it was too late. This cost many lives.

This disaster has shown that the right and far right will choose their own interests above those they govern. Not only that, but they will also then blatantly lie and try cover their tracks with fake news, even if there is a written record that it is not true.

This is why knowledge and information has become essential. In the face of so much misinformation, non-partisan efforts need to be made to educate people how to stay safe and survive the aftermath. Just as those do in places like Florida.

As for the hurricane, it once again took a capricious turn and all we were left with was a serious hangover, an outrageous bar tab and knowledge of what to do next time. Because there will be a next time.

Interviews in the Spanish Press about the new Book

Stories Left in Stone, Trails and Traces in Cáceres, Spain

 

This weekend the regional and local press both published interviews with me (in Spanish) about my new book, Stories Left in Stone, Trails and Traces in Cáceres, Spain, published by the University of Alberta Press. 

The first interview in Avuelapluma is a very indepth deep-dive into the book and what brought it about.

The second is by the prolific local writer J.R Alonso de la Torre in the HOY. It goes a bit into my background and even lightly touchs upon some polemics that a few of the more 'sensitive' readers immediately took offense to. Something that is inevitable while they cling to an atavistic, outdated vision of the country.

One Person's Bread is Another's...

Traditional bread from the Algarve. How do you cut it?

Give us this day our daily bread, but just make sure it's Portuguese. A stale item makes a return this week in the Camino a Ítaca in the latest additions to a series of articles I have written on bread. A recent headline read that bread consumption has fallen 70% (!) in the region over the past 20 years and some of the possible reasons for this are explored in the piece. Click over to read the original version in Spanish published in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

As much as it pains me to admit it, there are times when the market can be right. But I must stress that only sometimes, and of course not the free for all that some neoliberal evangelists advocate. Even if Wall Street traders, lunatic orange racists, quasi fascist Argentinian presidents with extraterrestrial haircuts and his sycophantic groupie in the Puerta del Sol would like you to believe it is always so, history and experience clearly show that this supposed axiom only holds true for them, those that already have the money in the first place.

But it was a headline, in this very newspaper, that reminded me that there are times when the market isn’t necessarily wrong. Or at least in this case, the consumer is the one who’s right. The headline intoned, “Bread consumption in the region falls 70 percent in 20 years.” The message was dramatic and signaled a sea change in society. Here we weren’t talking about a slight change in habits, but a complete revolution in the way people were eating.

Some tried to explain the change by highlighting recent lifestyle changes and the notion that more and more people were trying to lose weight by avoiding carbohydrates. Yet the pasta market continues to grow and more and more people choose pizza to treat themselves on Friday nights. No, that couldn’t be it.

Others blamed the near apocalyptic increase in the cost of living over the past few years. Electricity prices have gone through the roof and basic staples like flour have more or less doubled in price and these rises have obviously had a knock-on effect on the increased price of bread. But people continue to lavishly splurge money on much more frivolous things than bread. So no, that wasn’t the case either.

The reason was abundantly clear. It’s the product itself.

After having lived here in Extremadura for going on twenty years it’s still an ongoing mystery for me, one that rates up there with cognitive dissonance between the empty churches and sold out Virgin and Semana Santa processions. It’s something that the great Jose Ramon Alonso de la Torre and I have differed on here in the paper in the past, but that is still beyond confusing for me. How is it possible that in a land with some of the country’s most exquisite cuisine, fueled by some of the finest local ingredients, you still find yourself doomed to push sauces around your plate with the gastronomic equivalent of licking the flaking whitewash off of a crumbling adobe wall?

With few exceptions aside, like the Ecotahona del Ambroz or el Horno Tradicion and Amasamadre in Cáceres, the bread you see has become as dubious and industrial as a paella that you mind find in a vending machine on a train in Nebraska. You can say it’s from the remotest village and sprinkle flour on it to make it seem more rustic, but it’s still bread that neither rests nor sleeps and thus boasts the flavor equivalent of a napkin in a bar.

Until there is a return to bread that rests, consumption will continue to plummet. My question now is, what have people replaced bread with?

Stories Left in Stone Deep Dive Chapter 16

In the first of the #StonesDeepDive series, an indepth look into Chapter 16, Stone Cartoons from Stories Left in Stone, Trails and Traces in Cáceres, Spain published by the University of Alberta Press. This part of the adventure takes place in Monfragüe National Park and the Sistine Chapel of prehistoric rock art in the region. Click over to have a look.

The Virgin of Lithium

Celestial interventions in this week's Camino a Ítaca. And Virgins? Did I forget to mention Virgins? Click over to read the originally published piece in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

For the past few weeks the local papers in Cáceres have taken on a distinctly retro look, seeming more like throwbacks to the days when entire society page sections took up large portions of the ink printed. It’s as though the city was being visited by a foreign head of state or some extremely popular movie star and the media can’t get enough.

Pages and pages have been dedicated to her itinerary, who she was greeted by and even down to the last detail of what she was wearing and where she had acquired it. The ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now Lebanon) and Pedro Sanchez’s capitulation to thefugitive who has been living large in Waterloo, paid for by the Spanishtaxpayer have been pushed to the side by this, in some of the articles’ fawning words, momentous event.

One of the interesting aspects of all of this media attention, especially for an outside observer like myself, is that all of this hype and dedication has not been devoted to someone like Kamala Harris, Rosalia, Taylor Swift or even Queen Leticia and how she spends your hard-earned tax Euros on new outfits and shoes. All of this media hysteria has been given over to what is in effect an inanimate object.

Call it an icon, a totem, a figurine, a fetish or graven image but the extent of this fawning has been so great that I have even had to check twice when picking up a copy of the other newspaper in the region to make sure that I hadn’t picked up by mistake a parish magazine that someone coming from mass had left behind.

But the apparent frenzy that the centenary of the Virgin of the Mountain has sparked only scratches the surface of the debate that is really fermenting in the city. A closer look at the comments in articles and town hall posts, beyond those claiming that this statue represents all Cacereños or those rightfully questioning why article 16 of the Spanish constitution seems to have become a mere suggestion rather than law, shows that an entirely different polemic is happening.

It’s not a debate about Leviticus’ exhortation not to pray to idols or whether a sectarian religious figure should be feted by the local government and bestowed with the title of honorary Mayor, but rather a referendum on one of the most crucial challenges facing the future of the city: the lithium mine.

It seems that the faithful want to know where she stands on this issue, with many scandalized that this could even be conceived so close to her sanctuary.

The former mayor had his Pauline conversion after a mysterious occurrence when he did a complete about-face on his stance on the mine and as a result lost the election. While the current mayor twists himself into knots trying not to pronounce one way or the other on the matter until he too gets that same phone call, if he hasn’t already.

The question is if all of these prayers will convince the Virgin to intercede on the faithful’s behalf? And then perhaps more pertinently, what happens when she doesn’t?

On Sale Today!

My new book Stories Left in Stone, Trails and Traces in Cáceres, Spain with the University of Alberta Press is now available at fine bookstores everywhere. If not, don't be shy to ask them to stock it.

'A fresh and engaging outsider perspective on life in Spain.' -Kirkus Reviews

Number No Longer in Service

This week's Camino a Ítaca asks whatever happened to good 'ol fashioned miracles? It seems that the dead no longer walk and the seas no longer part. But hell, that doesn't stop people from asking. All this and more is explored in my soon-to-be-published book. Stories Left in Stone. Trails and Traces in Cáceres, Spain. Click over to read the originally published piece in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

What ever happened to good old-fashioned miracles? Those shock and awe events that convinced the otherwise cynical to put aside their previous beliefs and embrace a new faith. And by this I don’t necessarily mean the kind that are written about on papyrus and which create religious dogma, like Palestinians walking on water, bearded men driving motorways through the Red Sea, raising the dead or even talking donkeys (Numbers 22:21-39). I suppose that these feats use up a lot of spiritual energy and can only happen every other millennia or so.

I was thinking more along the lines of more recent wonders. Like those mysterious women who appear to young girls in the countryside surrounding places like Fatima and Lourdes. Are children too engrossed in their screens to notice gossamer floating ladies anymore or are they too protected to allow strange apparitions to approach them? Or maybe it’s the socialists who are to blame for their absence. After all, these kinds of miracles always seemed to appear to the humble and illiterate. Perhaps the steady increase of standards of living and near complete literacy rate have something to do with the recent dearth of levitating maidens in grottos.

Then there are the Virgins that once lay hidden in the fields, forests and mountains across the land. Why haven’t any of them appeared to shepherds and the like in the past 500 years? I recently wrote a travel book on the province of Caceres that is coming out on Tuesday that explores these mysteries and asks some of these questions. Have they all been discovered? Will there be no more supernatural events like Gil Cordero’s sacred cow? And if they do appear, would the church be able to useAznar’s law and register the surrounding land as their own without any need ofland deeds or even proof?

All this makes you wonder, is the Christian God still in the miracle business? Or is he busy ensuring that millstones get hung around the necks of pedophile priests before drowning then in the depths of the sea?

One thing is for sure, it is not for the lack of the faithful trying to get the big guy in the sky’s attention. Here in Spain the calendar year is jam packed with Virgins getting carried around the country. From an outsider’s perspective, these Marianist images seem to serve as local telephone operators for the faithful with a direct line to a more distant divine. Interlocuters that intercede and relay people’s prayers to God. They act as perceptible go-betweens with the Almighty while providing a convenient out when prayers aren’t answered.

Here in Caceres, the local Virgin and 'honorary mayor' is being paraded around town to celebrate its centenary of canonical coronation and you can imagine they prayers being asked. I imagine big prayers like peace in the Middle East are directed straight to the Big Man while more local affairs are left to the Virgin. Perhaps a stop to the carcinogenic mine? Decent rail service? A government that seriously invests in public health so that ‘miracle’ cure prayers can be answered?

Whatever the case, *I just came here to talk about my book.

*a phrase that became famous in Spain when a well known writer got terribly angry on a TV program and said this.