Enter At Your Own Risk

Time ago I took a walk through the many castle ruins that scatter the hilltops of Extremadura, Spain. Where the pictures the paper chose to accompany the piece came from? Well...mine are of Caceres and the bull. I can't say I know who the other people are? Click over to the piece in the Khaleej Times.

Gone but not Forgotten

I've been writing for a Spanish paper for the past while and haven't put up any posts because...well...the articles are in Spanish! To make matters worse for blogging, the pieces only appear in the print section or the pay section online. As soon as I can get ahold of some of the material, I'll put it up.
'Til then...still lots to see 'round here!

What's the Secret Password?

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

I tell my North American friends that I live inside a castle and I suppose that I’m not technically lying, though I suppose fortress would be closer to the truth. My house is across a narrow lane from those crumbling walls that the Romans built so long ago that encircle the old town of Caceres. Ochre coloured earthen barriers that once proved extremely problematic to attacking armies and now prove to be the same for urban planners. As recently as the the 19th century, politicians of the day decided to knock down a stretch of the wall near the Plaza del Socorro in order to 'let the bad winds out' (and no, it's not some sort of proveb), not to mention to enable one of their benefactors to build a huge palace along the wall.

The more things change, the more they stay they same it seems. 

Thanks to that brilliant bit of early urban planning, evil winds and just slightly less evil cars now have four ways in and out of the UNESCO core and if you aren’t a taxi, one way in and two out. Gone are the days of sentries at the gates, now bollardoes stand guard and decide who comes in and who doesn’t. I once watched as a fire truck sat and waited for the police to open the old city to them. I have since found out that every emergency vehicle has a card to let them in, but that day it must have been left in another pair of pants. But this is the problem, who can come in and when. Understandably, the town hall has passed a law mandating that deliveries can only be made in the morning. A good policy for the bars, offices and government buildings that are found in the old city, but what about the people who actually live here? In a country with just under 6 million unemployed, there are still people who do work and contrary to what some believe, not all are civil servants who fit the black legend profile and can leave work to do the shopping or wait at home for their latest Amazon order without fear. The newly appointed commission to better the Old Town's problems rightly worries about the state of the wall and the ways to pretty it up at night, but before doing so, maybe we need to make it a little easier for those who do live inside this fortress before they, like the 19th century evil winds, are forced to move out.

Christmas Light

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

For some, the holidays are a welcome time of routine. Of doing what you've always done and feeling a sense of security in knowing that the gravy is going to be lumpy, tending towards mediocre and the turkey, tough but good. For me, the glow wore off the moment Santa lost my address and since then I've either searched out or simply have found myself in different places on this equinoxal event. I mean, when I was young, I spent many a Christmas way below 30 in my hometown, wondering if even the man in red himself was going to bother venturing outside. Since leaving that northernmost outpost, I've seen things like more than a metre of snow fall in NYC over the holidays, painting the town white while people x-country skied up Madison avenue. I spent one x-mas eve swimming with dolphins off the coast of Yemen, camped out on the beach below the ruins of the town from where it is said that one of the three wise men departed.  I've eaten a Christmas curry in Bangkok, toasted with aguardiente in Bogota and skirted disastrous floods in Venezuela over the holidays but I can’t think of anywhere where the holiday season lasts as long as it does here in Spain. Once upon a time the season began here with the mega long weekend but it now reaches further back to the day after American thanksgiving whose shopping holiday now echoes along the display window of Pintores Street. The first cold snap to give Extremadura its extreme has finally come to a city where the stores look to a very recently illuminated sky while the sellers of nativity scene pieces wonder why the man in Rome has decided against the donkey and ox. Civil servants check their accounts now and then, wondering if it is in fact true and there won’t be coal in their stocking while people passing through the Plaza Mayor wonder if the curiously angled xmas jaima will slide further downwards. Cuts are everywhere and everyone will accuse each other of starting them but believe what you may, Saturnales was a time for the slaves to receive extra rations and free time. Personally, I always look forward to the day when the sun starts to make its come back and try as they may, no one can stop that...yet.

Overhead Snakes

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

I suppose that they had been slithering along the margins of my subconscious for some time but were recently brought into focus by a picture my sister-in-law sent the other day from her home in Katmandu. They are everywhere in Caceres, creeping up the sides of walls and leaping across streets in coiled licorice-like ropes with the occasional pair of shoes dangling from them. When I first arrived in Caceres my eye would always trace their outlines and be inexplicably drawn to their sinister bondage look but time seems to blur the edges of what is novel and new and with its passing can make everything routine. Yet every so often I’d be reminded that they were there, like that occasional whiff of tobacco that brings back the urge to the ex-smoker, and dread what would happen to if they were suddenly freed by a strong wind. Then one August, I was threading my way home in the thin ribbon of shade thrown by the beautiful palaces in the old town when I noticed that, like other reptiles, these wall snakes preferred the sunny side of the street. Puffing up the calle Amargura, I saw to the right that familiar extra bit of shade thrown from the ribbons of black stuck to whitewashed walls of people’s homes but noticed that to the left along the earthen wall of the Diputacion’s immense parking lot, not a one (the provincial seat of government). The absence continues through Santa Maria until you reach the Plaza, where the braids seem to congregate once again around every door and window. Since moving into the old town, I have read several times in these very pages that these pests would be exterminated and buried in the ground along with their water carrying cousins. It’s now some five years later and even in the autumn cool, there they are, drawn to the white and, strangely enough, absent from the brown. 

Imagined Distances

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

It happened while we were overlooking one of the world’s unofficial wonders, sitting under a desperately thirsty acacia tree, swatting away flies and scratching at fleas. A temple dedicated to one of the busiest men in the patronage business. Countries as disparate as the U.K and Georgia reclaim his favours while cities as far away as Rio and Moscow share the Cacereño hope that he will mediate with the powers that be on our behalf against plagues, dragons and the men in black. However this temple wasn’t the familiar one with whitish spires here in Caceres that lords above our squat 1960’s plaza named after this busy man, but one carved out of living rock in Lalibela, in the remote hinterlands of north western Ethiopia. A religious ceremony was going on 25 metres below in the cool of the hollowed out grotto when two people sat beside us under the extremely meagre shade and asked us in accented Spanish where we were from. I said Canada and my wife, Caceres. Our new neighbours told us that they were from Barcelona and had never been out to Caceres but had always heard that it was lovely but that it was so far away and difficult to get to that they had never been. The ceremony drew on as a satin robbed priest breezed along under colourful parasols totted by angel-like helpers dressed in billowy white while emaciated and envious cows began to nudge us out of their shade. I may not be a believer in saints but I am an admirer of tales and their power to persuade. I was once in Cyrene, Lybia, where some say ol’ George slayed a dragon, at a time before another tyrant was dragged out of a culvert and murdered and I have seen first hand legend’s power to convince. What we perhaps need here is to ask for a different kind of intercession, one that slays the black legend dragon regarding our remoteness and puts in a good word for us in yet another city that retains his favours. 

Spanish Sunday Afternoons #6

Don't try this at home kids!

It's fall...the leaves are beginning to fall and the mushroom hounds are on the loose. The word 'mushroom' in English seems to convey about as much excitement and meaning as the word 'oil'. You have to compound it to extract its full flavour.

Jumping over stone walls and getting caught on barb-wire is all part of the adventure when hunting this prey. Even the more exact word, 'boletus' falls far short of the mark.

A sudden cry from someone in your party...they've found a few, that means they are out and there are more where that came from.

Fun finding...and even more fun eating!

Tapas: Tenerife - Bodegón Viana

In my downtime when I'm not writing, I play music...guitar to be precise. In fact, it was a guitar that led me to 48 states and Europe for the first time. The Sociedad Blues Canarias invited me down to the Canary Islands to make some music and on the island of Tenerife under the wing of the society's president, Alberto Gulias Velazquez, I was introduced to gofio for the first time. Gofio is a roasted grain that is a staple on the islands and above it's mixed in an 'Escaldón de carne' with some delicious mojos up top to get our mojos 'a workin! 

Taken @ Bodegón Viana, Calle Viana, 35, 38201 San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

Popping up in Salon

Came across a repost of something that I wrote for Trazzler on the website, Salon. It was a series of 10 travel bits on places in Spain that Ibn Battutah visited on his trip through Andalusia back in the 14th century.
Nice surprise.
See it here.

Lion Tamers and Circus Clowns

Uncomfortable truths in the Young Learner teaching game here in Spain and around the world.
Contributing to Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto's teaching webpage.

Trazzler following Ibn Battutah through Spain

The Costa del Sol's concrete boredome costing you a bit?

Trazzler's collected 10 trips following the great Ibn Battutah's trips through the region. Shake off the fish and chip shops and dig a bit deeper here.