The Saint of Towed Cars

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 noticed the license plate as the local police slid the hoist under the car. Then when the tow truck roughly yanked the car to the right and then lifted it up, I saw it even more clearly, P for Portugal. I immediately thought of the poor tourist checking out of her nearby hotel, preparing herself for the long drive home and then turning the corner into the Calle Zurbaran only to find another car parked where she had left hers three days ago. She would thinking, had hers been stolen? No, it couldn’t have been. The car definitely wasn’t new and she had been deliberately careful to leave nothing visible. Had it been parked illegally? No, no signs or blue paint on the road. In fact she remembered feeling terribly lucky that she had found a free parking spot so close to her hotel and as everything she had needed was within walking distance, she had completely forgotten about her ride home during her visit. My hand fumbled in my pocket, looking for my phone but then I remembered reading something about the new gag laws they were passing here in Spain and the terrible fines that they could now give for taking pictures of the police at their work. The threat worked, I thought twice and left my hand where it was. I looked around for some explanation as to why they were towing this tourist’s car and then the thud of nearby drums triggered my memory, it was Semana Santa, Holy Week. Three days ago, her car had been fine but little scrawled signs probably went up in the middle of the night and now this tourist was going to have to pay more than her gas to get home. In a year that reeks of elections and when there is so much talk of transparency and facilitating information to the people, which is all well and good, profound changes need to be made in the way that locals and tourists alike are informed about day to day things in our fine city. Catovis (life-long Cacereños) and procession-goers might know that the procession of the Saint of Old Shoes goes up Zurbaran street on Easter Friday but what about Almudena from Lisbon? If, in our desire to attract more tourism we want to hang out the No Vacancy sign, we should make sure that other signs are clear too.

Cherry Blossoms in Bloom

Early spring and an entire valley looks to the sky and prays. However this isn't one of the many religious festivals in Spain, but a delicate dance between the weather and the calendar. Snowcapped mountains descend into green terracing where two million trees await their cue from Mother Nature before exploding into one of nature's spectacles... turning the entire valley white with their blossoms. Problem is that the grand old lady can be slightly unpredictable and the dates of the festival vary each year. Locals hope that it coincides with Semana Santa, the Easter celebrations, and if it does expect traffic jams all the way back to Madrid. Depending on the variety, some of the performers will bear fruit as early as late April, but the queen of the ball is the highly prized picota cherry. It may fall from its stem last, but the sweet wait is ever so worth it.


#culinary #festivals #festival #outdoors #mountains #nature #flowers #valley #getaway #fruit #spring #walking #trees #cherrytrees #cherryblossoms #flower #event #fruittrees #villages #blossom #cherries #valledeljerte #picota #jertevalley #cherryblossomfestival

Originally published on Trazzler

Subtle Satori IATEFL TDSIG

I look back on the time that we lived in Vientiane, Laos very fondly and in fact often question why we ever left. The city was opening to the world back then and seemed to change daily and I'm sure that it would be unrecognizable now, but memory has a way of playing tricks on us. Even if there were no change, I'm sure the image I hold might not match reality.

I was asked to write a piece about my development as a teacher and as  Director of Studies of a large language school and Laos kept coming to mind. My story was recently published in IATEFL's Teacher Development Special Interest Group newsletter. It's a journey rather than an academic look at change but I suppose all change has something of a journey inherent in it. A quick link here.

What Goes On After Dark

Spot the Stork

Aquarium Diving in Gran Canaria

Aquarium diving, snorkeling 3 meters from the shore in la playa chica. A solo 3 metros de la orilla en Las Palmas. http://nonotfar.blogspot.com . . . . . . . #beach #snorkeling #snorkel #estoesgrancanaria #thisisgrancanaria #visitgc #grancanariahoy #grancanaria #lascanteras #playa #visitspain #ineedspain #playachica #canariasgrafias #canaryislands #subtropical #laspalmas #playaurbana #visitlaspalmas #bajoelmar #wishiwasthere

Una publicación compartida por Troy Nahumko (@troynahumko) el Feb 3, 2018 at 5:51 PST

Fear of Change

 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.

As I write this, a constant hum drifts up to my fourth floor vigil from the busy Rua Mayor below. I’ve been to Salamanca many times and in many different guises. My first visits were made on day trips from Madrid and more recently I have been coming here to explore the hollowed out basement bars from behind a guitar. This time it’s different. This time, I’ve been invited to go behind the beautiful orange stones that make up the University buildings here for an international language conference. While the hum may be constant, it is in no way uniform. Down below I can hear the languages of Cervantes mix with those of Shakespeare and Goethe. People come here from all over the world in search of the frog and the astronaut on the baroque walls of this homogenized core, yet end up staying for the life that flows through it. Tradition runs as deep here as it does down the Cuesta del Marques in Caceres but it seems to me that Salmantinos aren’t afraid to adapt these glorious renaissance buildings to suit the needs of today. Numerous parking garages feed into the medieval core and the ten minute stroll from your car to your destination is far from a chore, no matter how many times you see those shells on the side of the Casa de las Conchas. Museums and galleries are needed and indeed serve their purpose but in rare cases to they reflect the here and now of a city. No matter how modern the exhibition, there is always a sense of the past, a sense of emptiness in the quiet rooms. Listening to the life below my window, the knee-jerk resistance of many Cacereños to rejuvenating ideas like moving the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas to the lifeless Palacio de Godoy in the equally moribund barrio de Santiago confuses me. In fact, local resistance to change at all costs totally bewilders me. Absentee owners in Madrid and Rome are free to do what they want to do with their palaces that stand empty in the Old Town but this particular palace belongs to the state, to everyone. In this monument in stone we can choose life because without life, without use, without a sense of now, the monumental old town and the surrounding area will remain just that, old.

Making it Real

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 grew up attending a French immersion school on the very English speaking prairies of western Canada. Every subject, except English, was given in French by first language French speakers from Quebec or France. The problem was that when we stepped out into the freezing cold, the only French that existed for us was the obligatory translation on everything from chocolate bar wrappers to cartons of milk. 

Contrary to popular belief, only about twenty percent of Canadians speak French and the great majority of those live in the east. Out in the Wild West, exams were the sole motivation to use French and as the language didn’t exist to us outside the classroom, the system generally produced students with excellent receptive skills but only mediocre speakers. The added difficulty of learning everything in a second language only fueled the resentment that I used to feel while trudging off to school in the snow. 

It took me more than twenty years to finally thank my mother for her perseverance when I gave her a phone call from my first tour in Paris, thanking her for giving me the gift of another language. It’s with this experience in mind that I have always been a bit skeptical of the mad push for bilingual schools here. That is until the other day when I was given the chance to swap my normal workplace environments of concerts halls and adult classrooms for a crowded music room full of 5^th and 6^th graders in the Castra Caecillia. 

My bandmate, harmonica ace, Jose Luis Naranjo and I were invited to give a bilingual workshop on the Blues and in the talk we worked on the Blues as poetry and then showed them how to accompany the song they created on their instruments. 

It was one of those rare moments that every educator strives for, the learning was palpable in the room, the classroom fell by the wayside and the kids were learning without realizing it. Their language skills completely surprised me and the songs they played were excellent. With motivational activities like this, no wonder these hardworking teachers are making me reconsider.

<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-xG5JqdGM00YUItN19LeEhjaUU/preview" width="640" height="480"></iframe>

Cuatro Gatos y Un Burro...or the tale of Four Stray Cats and a Lonely Donkey

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.

A few years ago, shortly before the outbreak of the neverending civil war, I found myself in northern Syria tracing the footsteps of the sixth century monk and embryonic travel writer, John Moschus. In his book, Spiritual Meadow, he had recounted his travels through Byzantium and I was looking for any remaining trace of his trail more than 1400 years later. Back in Juan’s day, the stylish Stylites were in fashion and the monastery where Buñuel’s Saint Simeon once predicated from his pillar is just a short trip away from Aleppo. The ruins are quite impressive but what struck me most about the visit wasn’t the monastery itself, but the abandoned villages that dot the surrounding countryside between it and the border with Turkey. Entire villages of Byzantine-era stone houses that reminded me of Alcuescar's Santa Lucia del Trampal pepper the Mediterranean landscape. Their open doorways gave the impression that their owners had just stepped out to buy bread, yet their homes now lay empty, deserted and doorless among the olive groves. The only sign of life was a lonely donkey tied to a tree, its owner nowhere to be seen. The area had been abandoned when it was the back and forth frontier between Christendom and Islam and since then, only the donkey has returned. A hollow museum of fifth and sixth century buildings that slowly crumble into oblivion because people chose, or were more likely forced, to live elsewhere. While the experience was interesting, I didn’t have to stay more than a few hours. I took my notes and pictures and left the ghosts behind, happy to return to a cold beer at an open air cafe in the warren of life in the old town of Aleppo. I sometimes fear that something similar will happen to my adopted home of Caceres. The give and take of the religious wars have long since passed on the Iberian peninsula but new foes have lately appeared. Ever increasing restrictions and calls for our UNESCO core to be turned into an open air museum, fit for films and festivals, might make for better pictures of stone but what about the people? Quaint medieval towns can be found all over this peninsula but few, if any, can boast of a still beating heart. You come for the palaces but you stay for the people. If it’s a choice between sword shops or hanging laundry, I’ll take the socks any day. 

The Beginning of a Quest, His and Mine

For many this was the end of the line, a place at the end of Africa to get lost in purple hazes and naked lunches. But long before Burroughs and Hendrix added their hipness, a local boy took the Tangerine brand far beyond the Levant. A medieval gap-year wanderer who saw it as a beginning rather than an end,  Ibn Battutah set off in 1325 from this white speck beyond Hercules' pillars on a pilgrimage that turned into a 25-year, 75,000-mile odyssey...all before coming home to dictate his tale. Get lost in the warren of the medina looking for this ultimate traveler-turned-saint's tomb, and pick up a bit of traveler's karma before setting out on your own journey. Or just try armchair travel by leafing through his Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling.

#architecture #history #coast #hippies #medieval #muslim #pilgrimage #maze #cemetery #islam #tomb #saint #explorer #medina #exploring #moors #beats #memorial #traveler #14thcentury #grave #gettinglost #storytellers #poets #odyssey #gapyear # #heroes #patronsaint #travelwriting #raconteur #tales #karma #ibnbattutah #wanderer #journeys #1300s #cultheroes #travelwriter

Originally published on Trazzler

Otras Luces

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 write this from a cold damp grey dormitory city on the outskirts of Cologne, Germany. My wife,
being as persuasive as wives tend to be, somehow convinced this affirmed climatic refugee to go
against my natual winter migratory instincts and head north for the holidays. It's not my first time in
this country and while my German is limited to about ten words, the majority of them numbers, I
can't say I feel more foreign here than I do anywhere else. That said, I can't help but compare my
surroundings with the city that I now call home, Caceres. Even moreso when you consider the easy
scapegoat that Frau Merkel has become in these times of crisis for those less propensive to self-reflection.

I'm certainly no fan of the Troika and, like you, had about as much to do with the bank bailouts, failed toll-roads and empty airports as I did with the assassination of JKF, but all of those
delusions of grandeur aside, you can always learn something from travel.

The streets here seem dead. Shadows of people cross the street way ahead of me but the few shops remaining are closed for the holidays. The only lights from here to the big city are those that tell you when to cross the street and those that help traffic flow. The street lights' respective reflections flickering in the ever present puddles on the mended streets are about the closest thing I've seen to decoration so close to Christmas. Or at least it would seem that way if you don't take the time to look a little more closely.

It gets dark here just after five and it's then that the moribund lanes show the faintest glimmer of life. From around the curtained windows of the solid little houses that look out into the empty streets, little LED lights start to timidly blink and remind the passerbyers that it's Christmas time. Where the town hall has decided not to act, it seems that the people have. Sure, the combined lights of all the houses that have chosen to show their Christmas spirit wouldn't equal even one of the snowflakes on the Torre Bujaco but it's the thought that counts, isn't it?

I may not understand why a caña costs the same here as it does in Spain. Or why diesel is even cheaper here in Germany when we take the salaries and standards of living in account but I do admire the fact that the Germans haven't waited for the government to show them how to celebrate their holidays.