Christmas Tales

Bir Ali, Yemen

Different places, different times, different Christmases. This week's Camino a Ítaca goes back to the beaches along the coast of Yemen in search of the Three Wisest of Men. Click over to the original piece in Spanish or read the English version below. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

Fingers of white sand scratched up the black, volcanic mountains flanking the half-moon bay. The sharp contrast gave the impression of an inverted black and white photograph of snow-capped mountains. Dun desert scrub extended beyond the lifeless bastions of rock and framed the image, making it seem even more like an old print from time gone by. Down below on the beach, a pair of unaccompanied camels plodded along the shore as the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Aden rolled out towards Somalia and the horn of Africa 300kms away across the strait.  

It was Christmas Eve and we were camping outside the tiny fishing village of Bir Ali on the near virgin coast of Yemen in hopes that the wild dolphins that frequent the bay would make an appearance while we were snorkeling.  

It was a reverse pilgrimage of sorts, the inverse of the scene that you see in so many homes at this time of year. This is because, according to local lore, one of history’s great enigmas began here. Those one-hit-wonder pop stars of classical antiquity that get only a brief, obscure mention in one of the gospels, yet whose image can be seen trotting towards miniature mangers all over the world. It was from this corner of Arabia Felix, that one of the Three Wise Men began his journey.  

It’s a claim that becomes all the more plausible if you consider the fact that this is one of the few places in the world that produces two of their three gifts, frankincense and myrrh. Rather than coming to us though, we had come to them. With what, I wasn’t so sure. 

In between swims I decided to climb up the craggy stones and see for myself just what was left of this biblical port that used to serve three different continents. Just a few years before, amphorae dating back to the first century that had sunk with one of the trade ships that ran from here to Africa, India and beyond had been found out on the reef. The draw of the story kept me going. 

Archaeology though, even on such an amateur level, is never easy and even more difficult in a country so beset with inner conflict, war and strife. Unless we found some more amphorae, goods like wine were impossible to find and the few cans of warm Heineken that we had managed to find on the black market looked like they had fallen off of the back of a truck, both literally and metaphorically. Bir Ali’s days as a major centre of trade between continents were long behind it. 

I finally reached the top and found nothing. Unless it was buried away under the sand, any real trace of what once was had disappeared. Their trail, and story, ended here. 

Years later I would find myself once again face to face with the kings, or at least their remains, this time in Cologne, Germany. Though their tale began in Yemen, it wasn’t until much later that they were ‘rediscovered’ in Europe in the fourteenth century and then go on to become central to so many Christmas carols, mantels and children’s wish lists. 

It was then, amidst the heaving Christmas crowds jostling to get a glimpse of the ornate golden coffer of bones, that the epiphany came to me. It’s not the facts that necessarily matter. It’s not necessarily even what actually happened. It’s the story and the power they have to keep us dreaming and rolling on. 

The True Doctrine

Conservatism's new defender, Isabel Ayuso

As 2020 limps to its end I see swarms of bats surrounding the frog symposiums that are advising the worm conventicle in the great corner of mud. The end may be near,  but end well it won't. This week's Camino a Ítaca looks at the fall of the Great Cheeto and steaming pile of excrement he leaves behind. Click over to read the originally published Spanish version or read the English version below. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

The heathens are at the gates. Their sordid encampments line the defensive walls of long-standing institutions, from the gluttonous streets of Washington to el Pazo de Meiras, el Palacio de la Zarzuela and the banks of the rio Cinca. Their long-planned assault will leave no one, born or unborn, unscathed and no establishment untouched. Segregatedmadrasas run by smarmy Opus Dei sycophants are frantically looking for new sponsors and are beefing up security. Even in the Sierra de Madrid, surveillance has had to be stepped up at the Prince of Vallecas’ retreat in Galapagar.

Gente de bien in their desperation have been seen fleeing across the Pyrenees en route to Switzerland with their passports and bank books held firmly between clenched teeth. Those without the means or Swiss bank accounts are being rallied to take up arms in their stead to do battle in each new sortie of the culture wars.

With the impending fall of Christendom's greatest defender of conservative ideals, the twice divorced reality TV star with a penchant for pornstars, a great howl of grief has been heard across the conservative world.

In between shock, disbelief and outright delusion, rallies are being held in Atlanta, Warsaw, Budapest, Downing Street and la calle Bambú in support of the man who once proudly boasted that if Ivanka wasn’t his own daughter that he’d perhaps be dating her. Like it or not, conservatism's greatest champion since Henry Kissinger and his network of friendly dictatorships on the ‘right’ side of the political spectrum is going to have to tell the movers how to pack up his vast collection of remote controls and take-out menus.

Things look grim and losing the election might turn out to be the least of Trump’s worries. Calls have been put in to the self-exiled former King of Spain about the best 'clubs' with dinner service in Abu Dhabi and tentative hotel reservations have been made in Riyadh in case the FBI come knocking. This season of the most crass Reality Show the world has ever known is coming to an end.

The smoking detritus of the global political landscape left in his oily wake reminds us where he’s taken us. A legacy that leaves a world in which we see ideas that once would have been called outright lunacy, now debated and even considered, rebranded as alternative facts.

The art of lying is nothing new to politics and politicians. Nevertheless, Trump’s incorporation of the dictatorial, thuggish technique of doubling down on lies when confronted and then threatening his accusers with veiled violence is something new to press conferences outside of Pyongyang. And it works.

It’s a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed around the world. Admirers copy his tweets into Google translate and paste them into local contexts, railing against those who then challenge them. Chats from high-ranking ex-military officials openly discussing killing off 26 millionreds, children included, barely register a blip in the media in the post-Trump world. Opponents are now enemies and are to be dealt with accordingly.

Meanwhile, strategists working for the opposite side of the spectrum plot to create Orwellian Ministries of Truth in supposed attempts to stop the ‘fake news’ of their opponents.

Paraphrasing Ambrose Beirce at the beginning of the last century, there are those who are enamoured of existing evils and those who wish to replace those evils with others. The genie is out of the bottle and with the brutal bleeding hangover no one remembers where the instructions are to put it back in.

Pastel a-la Celaá

Crucifixes in classrooms

Next stop on the Camino a Ítaca is a look at how you can indeed have your cake and eat it too...as long as you 'believe'. You can read the English below or click over to the original in Spanish. You can also find the Spanish version in  PDF format at the bottom of the page. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

I’ve always loved proverbs. Like linguistic snapshots, they are able to say more than a thousand words in so few. It also intrigues me that many languages tell their stories in similar refrains. In both Spanish and English we search for needles in haystacks, look for worms early in the morning and recognize that it’s always best to have a bird in hand than many beyond your reach.

It therefore came as quite a surprise then to me when I couldn’t find a satisfying Spanish equivalent to the English proverb, ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too.’ A metaphor we have all wished for at some time in our lives.

I searched for sometime until I finally found something similar yet that meant the direct opposite. It’s a saying that suggests that you can in fact have your cake and eat it too. The proverb is, ‘la escuela concertada,’ also known as private schools that are financed with public funds. That curious Spanish institution, or better said, hangover from darker times that freely allocates public funds to institutions that, in their majority, answer to a foreign city-state. Schools that gladly take the money given to them by the state yet who reluctantly, and at times directly refuse to abide by rest of the rules and regulations dictated by Spanish law.

The ninety-seventh odd change to the Education law has brought religion and its place in schools to the forefront once again. A revolution complete with beastly scenes in parliament of deputies shouting ‘freedom’, somewhat ironically demonstrating our Darwinian linage with apes. Simians protesting that their rights will somehow be infringed upon by the supposed threats to their ‘cake’ and their ‘right’ to segregated schools that concur with their values.  

But what about the rights of the kids?

Parents may choose the tell their children that the world is flat or that the virus doesn’t exist. The state however cannot classify children as Catholic, Muslim or Jewish, just as it would be absurd to see them classified as Socialists, Monarchists or Real Madridists. Children are children and balanced, equal access to quality education is their right.

The cognitive dissonance that must reverberate in some of the kids’ heads must be extreme. In one class they learn about the millions of years that it has taken for different species to evolve, only to be told in another that the earth was created in six days with a sky god taking a siesta on the seventh? In one class they learn that men and women have equal rights, yet in the next they find that women were fashioned from the rib of a man and should be submissive in learning and to their husbands. It’s the equivalent of going from astronomy class to astrology or from chemistry to alchemy class.

Then there are the supposedly distinct values that these private fiefdoms espouse. Schools funded by the state should focus on the values that are encompassed in the constitution and not be the source of fear and abuse. Telling children that their friend, aunt or neighbor will spend eternity broiling in a lake of fire for being non-believers or loving whoever they want is child abuse. Twisted cruelty like this is for some reason permissible in other temples, but it cannot be in temples of learning.

The Spanish education system is grievously flawed, but running away from its defects and creating splinter groups helps no one. It’s time to extract imaginary problems from the debate and focus on real, tangible change because no se debe querer estar en misa y repicando. (be in mass and ringing the bells at the same time. My closest translation.)

Area 51

 

The deserts of Nevada

This week's Camino a Ítaca stretches back 20 years and rides the highways that line the deserts of Nevada. Wondering what went wrong and why few things will genuninely change. Read the English version below or click over to the original in Spanish in el Hoy. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

The highway that connects the 700kms (400+ miles) between Reno, Nevada and the gambling capital of the world, Las Vegas, runs through some of the bleakest desert in the world. Towns with names like Indian Springs or Amargosa Valley dot the flatness but only get noticed if the one traffic light in town makes you come to a stop.

This lonely highway also happens to run parallel to one of the country’s most sensitive military areas, the Nellis Air Force Range, affectionately known to sci-fi movie fans as Area 51. A place that seems to a magnet for UFOs and perhaps more precisely, those who are prone to seeing them. A place that the CIA only recently admitted to even existing.

I spent my 20s travelling the highways, big and small, of the United States as an itinerant musician. Sometimes we played more than 200 shows a year and rarely stayed more than one night in each place. The lines that traced well-thumbed Rand & McNallys became familiar faces outside the moving picture window.

Nights started late in Vegas, at least for those of us who worked off of the Strip in dives where the bartenders, dealers and strippers from downtown came to unwind and let their hard-earned tips down when they had finished their late-night shift. I was sitting outside between sets, catching some fresh air as the dawn began to light up the horizon. The lights of the strip continued to blaze somewhere behind me, throwing strange shadows into the darkness, when a man sat down beside me. By the way he spoke, he was obviously at the end of his evening.

“Where are you from?” he asked between drags of his cigarette, “you don’t sound like you’re from around here.” I told him I was from Canada and he stopped for a long second and thought. “Where 'bouts is that?” he puzzled as he drained his plastic cup of whiskey. This wasn’t the first time this had happened to me while living there and it wouldn’t be the last. My answer was usually something along the lines of, “somewhere pretty big just north of Montana.”

His eyes remained on the horizon and then said, “In just a couple hours, I’ll be flying an Apache out over that desert. What I wonder is if the desert looks the same over there in Iraq where I’m headed in two weeks?” We sat and watched the sun grow stronger in silence until I had to go back in and start the next set.

I never managed to exactly figure out Americans during my years there. It's a place so vast and wide, a place they have tried their best to homogenize with their cut and paste strip malls and replicated restaurants, but iremains a place where the spirit of the people persist in being violently independent. It seemed unbelievable that someone who had the skills to fly complex aircraft wasn’t be able to locate their neighbour to the north. Often, in conversations with university-educated people the floor would sometimes drop out from under you without prior warning. Conversations would turn very sideways when they told you that they needed their automatic weapons to defend themselves against the government. The very same government that controlled those Apache helicopters.

It seems inevitable to smirk this week. The bogeyman lost and for hundreds of hours, Spanish TV forgot the skyrocketing deaths and the stasi-like manoeuvres by the government to control the media. The Orange Monster had been defeated and everything would be good for awhile.

We may have regained some civility in international discourse and the armies of fact checkers may be looking for work, but area 51 is going nowhere. Bookshelves may return to the White House, but the view out the window won't really change. Before long, more sad men and women will watching the horizon, taking their last drink, before shipping out to another ‘intervention’. 

One of Us

My bit on the ongoing creep of 'one of us' thought here in Spain and around the world in the next stage of the Camino a Ítaca. Read the English below or click over to the original published in el Hoy. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

I have to admit that I didn’t even know that something like Eurovision even existed until I had actually lived in Spain for a few years. When I did finally discover it though, it was like a revelation. It was as if I had discovered the secret root of all of the stereotypes propagated for the past thirty years about the ‘old continent’ in Hollywood movies and TV. You had everything to choose from, morose Germans dressed in black bouncing away totechno beats, angry-looking yet somehow friendly Finns, playing actual instruments, growling over a death metal dirge and at least one retro-traditional, uncomfortable looking outfit that has not actually been seen in its home country in at least 150 years. I had found the secret source of inspiration that comedians like Mike Meyers and Sacha Baron Cohen had been drawing from without ever having to move from their sofas.  

My discovery came long after Eurovision was popular enough to launch the careers of singers like Spain’s own Julio Iglesias or give bands like ABBA the chance to change the meaning of Waterloo forever. It was at the turn of the century and just before the massive shift towards songs in English took over the competition. A move that turned the once popular show into something that now vaguely resembles cruise ship entertainment with unfamiliar accents trying to sing vaguely familiar sounding words. But even still, there is something endearing about Byelorussian Butterflies, bearded drag queens from Austria and transgendered women dressed as birds from Israel. It was all so exotically European that I felt like the Griswolds discovering an mysterious continent from my own sofa.

But wait, Israel? Had I missed something? Wasn’t this competition about Europe? I’ve seen the Caucasus from the southern side, crossed through the Urals and sailed across the Bosphorous and am pretty sure that, no matter how strong their lobbies are, Israel is at least a thousand kilometres south of Istanbul. They can be guests along with Morocco, Australia and other countries beyond the continent, but by definition, they can never be one of us.

One of us, a phrase that’s increasingly heard in these dark days of identity politics. Times when groups from both extremes of the spectrum gather around a diaphanous concept of shared identity while inflating differences between one of us and lo nuestro (ours) from those who don’t belong to the tribe. It’s a much darker nationalism than the spandex outfits of Eurovision. I’ve never shared the aversion that many Spaniards have for their flag, but I do have to admit that some of the flag waving last Monday carried portents of danger ahead.

What do people waving fascist flags really want? A return…but a return to what? Are the the poor souls floating across the Mediterranean an invasion designed to steal their jobs and weaken their healthcare? Or is it that a fellow ‘patriot’ is outsourcing them? Is the evil-empire Soros gang really coming to implant chips in our brains, burn down churches and eviscerate ‘our’ religion? Or is the bronze-age faith really something as European as the Israeli women dressed as birds? Something about as much ‘ours’ as Ralph Lauren, ironed Levis and made-in-China flags.

The next time lo nuestro comes up, take a minute to reflect on just how ‘ours’ it really is.

Bring on the Buddha

Christ the king, Swiebodzin, Poland

This week's Camino a Ítaca reflects on giant Buddha's and takes us to a frozen, muddy field in western Poland to see a Marvel-inspired Jesus. Read the original Spanish piece here or the English below. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

I first caught a glimpse of it beyond the dormant fields and stands of naked poplar trees as the train sped towards its birthplace in neighbouring Germany. It was a speck of rare whiteness that contrasted with the perennial grey that blots out the sun during the long northern European winters. The barrenness of the landscape seemed indecent, almost obscene without a white blanket, but since the climate began to change, only rarely do the fields get dusted in white.  

An hour earlier we had escaped the acrid, coal-flavoured air of Poznan for the fresher, albeit bitingly cold wind of the small town of Swiebodzin in western Poland. Our goal was to get a closer look at that white speck. The idea was hatched the previous evening over a dinner of Ukrainian pierogis and wine from La Mancha. We were going to take an hour-long train ride out into the Polish countryside and look deeper into the national psyche.

It was a good thing I had spotted that speck from the train because as we stepped off into the cold, there were no indications telling us which way to go and no one to ask on the deserted streets. We crossed over the tracks and headed in the general direction towards what I thought I had seen. After all, if it really was as big as they say, it should be easy enough to spot.

Smaller towns here are mostly made up of detached homes interspersed with Chruszczowka  or soviet-style apartment blocks. Outside the main squares though, finding a bar or cafeteria to ask for directions and a fortifying nip is almost mission impossible.

A break in the trees on the left and across a muddy field, there it was. A 400 tonne statue, perched on a man-made mound and standing in a familiar pose, arms outstretched as if to embrace the Tesco supermarket across the road.

This was no Christ the Redeemer. The Girl from Ipanema definitely didn’t come to mind and the sounds I heard in my head were more like martial Wagnerian marches. Its gargantuan,  chiselled and squarish body, combined wth the slight scowl on its face, didn’t exactly radiate peace. It's look gave off something else, like the hint of a warning. The only identifying mark beyond its stance was the three-metre-high gold lamé crown festooned with crosses. This Christ wasn’t patterned after El Greco, Raphael or even Warner Sallman’s 20^th century kitsch, this is more Marvel comics.

But that’s exactly why we had come. The odds of a St. Paul in Damascus moment for either of the non-believing brothers were slim if not impossible from the start. We were pilgrims of another sort. We had come precisely to see why someone would spend millions of euros to build, what is contentiously, the tallest statue of Christ in the world. A giant elephant with its back turned to the main motorway to Berlin in what amounted to the middle of nowhere.

The only other soul around was a man on the other side of the road selling fireworks in the lead up to New Year’s Eve. So, as we sheltered from the wind eating our sandwiches we had luckily packed, I reflected on the recently announced news that Caceres was soon be home of a giant Buddha. Road to Damascus moments or their equivalent Bodhisattva’s will surely be few but what about hipsters making pilgrimages from Lisbon, Madrid and beyond? One thing’s for sure, they’ll be able to find a bar on their way.

Pan Sin Gracia

The Camino a Ítaca loops back to an article I wrote years ago retelling a story my father-in-law once told me about the bread that was meant to keep them going. This fuses with stories of immigrants who have settled in this land of emigrants and the bread that binds it all together. Click over to the original article in Spanish or read the English below. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

If there’s one thing us guiris (foreigners) are good for, it’s for a laugh now and then. Our near extra-terrestrial habits like wearing socks with sandals, tossing chorizo into paellas, sleeping without Persian blinds, our foreign accents or insisting on voting for people instead of parties and then having the gall to expect them to comply with their promises, not only raise an eyebrow or two amongst the locals but at times can cause sidesplitting humour. And in moments like these, we could all use a few more chuckles.

Over the summer, this newspaper ran a series of interviews with people who were born outside of the region. In these they asked about our lives as immigrants to a land that unfortunately seems to be condemned to export people. In the testimonials many of us coincided in how comfortable we feel here but one of the comments that most surprised the local population was a repeated lament on the appalling quality of the bread that you find here (given the excellent quality of the food). I guess it could be, as some suggest, that we simply aren’t used to it or that it isn’t anything close to the bread of our childhoods…but I have my doubts.

Many years ago I wrote an article in this very same paper that told an anecdote that my father-in-law, a wise and gentle man from the lovely village of San Martin de Trevejo once told me. One early morning on their way to climb the highest peak in the area, Jalama, they dipped into a bar to buy some bread to accompany the homemade chorizo they were carrying to help them up the mountain. The waitress happily served them coffee but said that there was no bread because the man who was supposed to deliver it was still in bed.

That’s the way the story came out in the paper but something had got mixed up along the way. The story in fact had a different ending. It wasn’t due to an alarm clock malfunction nor a night out on the town: It wasn’t the delivery man who was still in bed after all, it was the bread. 

In other words fermenting, as all good bread should do. In today’s world it seems that few places give their bread the rest it needs in order to turn into something special. Crack open most loaves of bread and instead for being greeted by the irregular beauty of odd shapes formed by escaping gasses, you simply get a pixelated vision of a brick with no mystery. It’s like comparing aerial views of medieval cities like Toledo or Trujillo with a no-name residential suburb of just about any North American city, something without taste, without intrigue, without soul.

These imposter breads that are supposedly cooked in wood burning stoves in picturesque nearby villages are in truth the gastronomical equivalent of elevator music. And it seems these bricks are all that you can find in most of the supermarkets and bakeries in the region. It’s as though we were condemned, like the Jews in exile to eat unleavened bread sin gracia.

But as some commentators havesuggested, salvation awaits those in need. Thanks to a small renaissance, there are those that are now doing things, and bread, as it should be done. Every morning I enjoy my artisanal toast from Amasamadre topped with EVOO from the nearby Sierra de Gata, Spanish ham from Montachez and tomatoes from Miajadas and on special occasions, even cachuela. Mornings like these help me relegate childhood memories of breakfasts of industrial, white sandwich bread topped with processed peanut butter to where they belong, the past. 

The Eighth Trumpet

Koranic Learning

An academic detour on this week's Camino a Ítaca and a look at Spain's uncertain Back-to-school week. With COVID contagion rates soaring above the WHO recommended levels, it's more than likely only a matter of time before classes move online. If the recommended distance wasn't enough to kill cooperative learning, online classes will only finish off what little there was. Read the English below or click over to the original in El Hoy. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

You can hear it from afar as it echoes across the country, that annoying metallic shriek of desks being dragged across classroom floors. With just days before our kids go back to school, directives have finally been issued by suntanned ministers and classrooms across Spain are having to be rethought in creative attempts to establish the recommended distance between desks. But if you listen more closely, apart from this irritating screech, you can also hear another more depressing sound.

You can just barely make it out underneath all of the media noise debating the issues that dominate the conversation. Questions like whether cameras should be installed in classrooms, how many fancy, state-of-the-art tablets we need or just how big your bubble can get if you include afterschool activities. Listen carefully though, just beyond the white noise and you’ll hear the mournful death rattle of the incipient gains that modern cooperative teaching methodologies have made in classrooms across the region.

Across Extremadura, a small but ambitious group of teachers have been casting off the chains of a lifelong legacy of memorize and puke education. In doing so, they have battled against the koranic learning that has dogged them since their own school years. A fight that culminates in the pinnacle expression of medieval learning and the epitome of uselessness: the oposicion (public exams to become a civil servant) process that granted them their post.

Indeed, this scrapping isn’t ubiquitous. In fact, think back to when you picked up your children’s books back in May. More likely than not, the classroom already foreshadowed the supposed new normal. Do you recall single file rows, where the closest possible interaction with peers is an in-depth study of the back of their classmate’s head? Did the books you picked up have blank pages at the end of each unit? Had the ‘messy’ project work been conveniently skipped over in the frantic race to ‘cover’ the enormous content of the curriculum? More is better, right?

This is because there is nothing new about it. Spanish education laws may sound modern and cutting edge on paper but the reality in the classroom is invariably completely different. Each successive overhaul tends (7 or 8 since the return to democracy?) to highlight an emphasis on competences, group work and community learning, but unfortunately these are not always reflected in practice. Teachers do what they have seen.

Many still see children as finite vessels that are to be filled with information rather than allowing them to be active participants in their learning. Information that isn’t manipulated or interpreted just gets vomited back onto an exam, only to be quickly forgotten. Even if the curriculum does encourage change, the administrative nature of inspectors and misnomered Heads of Studies means they have little influence in regards to what happens behind the closed doors of each Taifa.

The non-stop pandemic drone has deafened us to all else. The enormous health challenge it presents is obviously a huge concern but a return to the chalk and talk class or its online equivalent sets off alarm bells that are equally concerning. Learning is social, we learn from each other and working together is the only way to defeat this. Our kids need to learn these skills now in order to overcome the next Apocalypse.

Snakes and the Tree of Knowledge

This stop on the Camino a Ítaca takes us back to the swamps of Northern Florida, aquiring new skill sets and seeing the world through very different eyes. Read the original English below or click over to the published version in Spanish. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

I’ve always hated snakes. It’s a reaction that is as old as Eve but my personal dislike for them started when I was almost bitten by a rattlesnake while fishing with my grandfather in British Columbia. Years later, hacking through the dense growth in northern Florida with my friend Washington, every shadow reminded me of my grandfather flinging the rattler into the lake and watching it writhe as it sank into the pale green deep of the oddly named, Yellow Lake.

I’ve had many jobs in my life, starting at fourteen at Toys ‘R Us stocking Cabbage Patch dolls during the Christmas holiday rush. I’ve been an all-night radio DJ, a relic in something called a record store, an English teacher for heavily armed Yemeni tribesmen and a guitar player behind chicken wire in a bad Country band in northern Canada, just to name a few. But by far the most demanding job I’ve had was setting fence posts with Washington.

It was a time when I was between tours and desperately needed to make some money. I was sitting at the bar after the last gig of the tour, peeling the labels off my beer bottle in the humidity, when an older man sitting next to me suggested, “If you’re looking for work and don’t mind getting some calluses on your hands beyond those on your fingertips, you can come work with me.”

Northern Florida is about as far away as you can get from Miami. In smaller towns the racial divide is still illustrated by the train tracks that run through towns with Indian names like Suwannee, Ocala and Alachua. Early the next morning I waited by those tracks for Washington to pick me up and get to work.  

Over the next few weeks with him, I learned about more than just digging ditches. Washington knew exactly where alligators were most likely to be, as well as the lethal Water Moccasins that made their nests, but he also knew how to read people and navigate sticky social situations quickly. 

“Aren’t you afraid of snakes?” I asked one day as we waded into yet another swamp. “No,” he replied, “the snakes here ain’t nowhere near as bad as they were back in ‘Nam.” The fact he was in the war didn’t surprise me. He was about the right age and a disproportionate amount of Blacks were conscripted.

“When were you drafted?”

“Drafted? Not, me. I wasn’t drafted, I joined up back in 1965.”

“Really? Did you want to go to war?”

“Man, how was I supposed to know there was a war going on!? I never knew a place called Vietnam existed, let alone the Vietcong. Do you think those white men were going to tell me I had to go overseas and shoot at them people when I joined?”

I often think of Washington, whose wisdom guided him well but whose life could have easily had a premature end due to a lack of information, or worse, information that was purposely withheld from him. Then I think of the tanned, smiling people coming back from summer holidays bragging about how out of touch they have been and how happy they are and I remember something else Washington told me as he paraphrased the great Muhammad Ali.

 “Snakes aren’t mean, they’re just doing what they gotta do, it's their nature. It’s the Man you got to watch out for. If you don’t keep informed, his forked tongue will get you bit every time. They’re so mean they make medicine sick.’

Reading the Surface: An Interview in the Regional Newspaper

 I was interviewed recently for a summer piece the regional paper focusing on foreigners living in Extremadura. For reasons of space, they had to cut out a lot of my replies. This could have led to some misunderstandings...but judging from the comment section, some people read and understand what they want to...no matter what you say. 

Here's the full-length version in the original Spanish.

–¿Por qué vino a Extremadura?

La primera vez que visité, dormí debajo de un puente, literalmente. Me dirigía a Marruecos después de haber caminado de Santiago a Lisboa y de alguna manera llegué a Mérida. Pasé el día explorando la ciudad y luego pasé la mayor parte de la noche cerca del río mientras esperaba el autobús a Algeciras.

–¿Qué impresión tuvo cuando llegó?

La primera vez fue en la primavera y recuerdo estar fascinado por el cielo. Era un azul tan puro. Bajo ese azul, todo a mi alrededor adquirió una calidad cinematográfica. La segunda vez fue en agosto y recuerdo haber bajado del autobús en Navalmoral a mediodía. De nuevo, fue como una película, pero esta vez un western distópico. El intenso calor creaba una neblina a la distancia y la estación estaba completamente desierta. De repente, la canción del Coche Fantástico comenzó a sonar desde un juguete para niños de esos que funcionan con monedas. Surrealista.

–¿Cuál es la mayor diferencia que ha encontrado entre el modo de vida de aquí y su lugar de origen?

Eso es difícil de decir. Dejé Canadá cuando tenía diecisiete años, por lo que mis recuerdos definitivamente no coinciden con la realidad allí de hoy en día. Mis recuerdos son como una imagen polaroid granulada, sin cinturones de seguridad, ceniceros desbordados y cocinas de plástico que nunca habían visto ni olido a ajo y aceite.

–¿Cómo le recibieron aquí?

España, en general, es extremadamente acogedora para los extranjeros. Sin embargo, soy uno de los inmigrantes que se denominan como "expatriados" y de ninguna manera soy un refugiado, a menos que me consideres ser refugiado climático. Creo que mi experiencia sería significativamente diferente si fuera de algún lugar al sur del Mediterráneo.

–¿Tardó en acostumbrarse a vivir aquí o se adaptó enseguida al ritmo de vida?

Supongo que lo más difícil de adaptarse es la forma en que se divide el día, con el almuerzo largo y donde no pasa nada hasta las cinco.

–¿Cómo ha cambiado su visión de la región en el tiempo que lleva aquí?

Cuanto más vivo aquí, más me doy cuenta de lo poco que sé.

–¿Podría definir Extremadura con tres palabras?

Genuina, sufrida, vasta

– ¿Qué es lo que más le conquistó de esta tierra?

Con alguien de Extremadura y la tierra misma, lo que ves es lo que tienes. En un mundo de quimeras, eso puede ser bastante refrescante.

–¿Y lo que menos?

Desafortunadamente, esa misma autenticidad también puede conducir a la resignación y la apatía si se lleva al extremo. Simplemente no entiendo por qué la gente aquí acepta el estado no escrito de ciudadanos de segunda clase. Y este estado se alimenta de lo que el Quijote llamó raíz de infinitos males y carcoma de las virtudes.

–¿Qué destacaría de los extremeños?

Su capacidad de disfrutar del momento. Esto es algo en lo que todavía estoy trabajando.

–¿Qué cree que necesita Extremadura para su desarrollo?

Necesitamos decidir si queremos seguir siendo serviles al poder, en cualquier forma que tome.

– ¿Cuáles son sus sitios favoritos de la región?

Me encantan las piscinas naturales. Son algunos de los lugares más civilizados de la tierra. Algo que los españoles hacen bien es tomar algo encantador y asegurarse de que haya un bar cerca con buena comida y cerveza fría.

–Extremadura es un paraíso natural ¿en qué sitios le gusta perderse?

La Sierra de Gata es uno de mis lugares favoritos. Sin embargo, algunas áreas que me gustaría explorar más son Las Hurdes, el Geoparque y la Raya alrededor de La Codosera.

–¿Qué rincones recomendaría visitar de la ciudad/pueblo en el que vive?

Vivo junto a la muralla del casco antiguo de Cáceres y vale la pena explorarlo una y otra vez. Lo que pasa es que la gente generalmente solo lo ve como hermosas piedras antiguas, pero si lo observas más de cerca, más detenidamente, te das cuenta que hay una comunidad que hace sus vidas junto a esas piedras. Recomiendo que echen un vistazo más profundo.

–¿Qué echa de menos en el lugar donde vive?

Una pregunta fácil, conexiones decentes de transporte público.

–¿Los servicios públicos con los que cuenta son suficientes? ¿Y las propuestas culturales y el comercio?

Cuando vine aquí por primera vez, el sistema de salud me sorprendió, era mucho mejor que cualquier cosa que hubiera visto. Desafortunadamente, los recortes continuos has reducido su eficiencia. Al comienzo de la pandemia, parecía que las personas se daban cuenta de esto, pero ya veremos si siguen con la idea de apoyarlo incluso más.

Ir de compras para mí es casi lo mismo que ir al dentista, no es algo que espero con ansias. Puede que haya estado en la Siberia varias veces, pero nunca he pisado El Faro.

–¿A qué dedica su ocio?

Cuando puedo, viajo. Después de haber explorado más de 50 países, ahora prefiero viajar más lento y más profundo.

–¿La cercanía con Portugal es un aliciente? ¿Suele viajar con frecuencia al país vecino? ¿Dónde va?

Amo Portugal y, de hecho, como escritor, las diferencias entre los dos países me fascinan. Tuve la oportunidad de tocar en Monsaraz de Reguengos el pasado verano. El embalse de Alquevar fue una revelación y a la vez una desacreditación del mito de que solo el Paquito Rana podría construir embalses.

– ¿Le gusta el clima extremeño?

Cuando las personas hacen esa pregunta, generalmente se refieren al calor del verano, pero en realidad no me molesta. Nadie me cree cuando digo esto, pero lo que menos me gusta es el frío. Salí de Canadá por una razón.

– ¿Suele recomendar a sus familiares y amigos que vengan de vacaciones o a vivir a Extremadura? ¿Por qué?

Claro que sí. Y suelen agradecer la oportunidad de ver un lado de España que no suele salir mucho en la televisión. De hecho, he estado hablando con algunas personas sobre la creación de un programa de televisión en este sentido, de presentar Extremadura desde una perspectiva diferente. Espero que ocurra.

–¿Hay algunas costumbres o tradiciones que le hayan llamado especialmente la atención?

Todavía estoy tratando de entender la Semana Santa, ese demonstración, aparentemente contradictorio de la fe. Por un lado, es una manifestación muy ‘pública’ pero a la vez oculta. Este exhibicionismo de muchos que no han pisado la iglesia desde que se casaron hace que todo el evento sea muy complejo de comprender.

–¿Suele acudir a fiestas de interés turístico o a acontecimientos culturales como el Festival Internacional de Teatro de Mérida?

Hay dos fiestas que, como escritor de viajes, es difícil justificar por qué todavía no las he visto. Uno es el Jarramplas en Piornal. El otro son los empalaos en Valverde.

–¿Qué es lo que más le gusta de la gastronomía extremeña?

Probablemente sería más fácil hacer una lista de las cosas que no me gustan. Uno de mis mayores confusiones es cómo, en un lugar que tiene una comida tan maravillosa, pueden continuar sufriendo un pan tan terrible.

– ¿Dónde ha viajado o va a viajar este verano?

Teníamos billetes para ir a Nueva York y luego cruzar a Canadá este verano. Obviamente, eso no va a suceder, así que este verano espero explorar todo lo que podamos a pie. Tengo hijas de siete y nueve años y espero explorar sus raíces y conocer un poco mejor de dónde vienen.

WANTED

 

This week's stroll along the Camino a Ítaca circles back to Azerbaijan and beyond. Memories of images of Strong Men, Royalty and Dictators crying out to be loved and admired. Read the English version below or click over to the published version in Spanish. 

Even though it was against my better judgement, I just had to take the picture. Travel around the world and you soon learn the differences between places regarding where you can and can’t take pictures. Selfies at sunset for your Instagram account are just fine but if they happen to be next to a military complex or top secret laboratory, you’re better off to either take it very discreetly or simply wait until that next orange sky. That is, of course, if you don’t want to face some uncomfortable questioning that isn’t exactly focused on how happy you are with the buffet at the hotel.

But this one I just had to have.

We had been living in Azerbaijan for months by then and had become almost inured to the ever-present moustachioed faces of the great leader or his deceased father looking down on you. In some photos they were dressed up in military fatigues bursting at the gut. Others saw them trying, and failing, to look debonair, donning their tailored Savile Row suits. But the most tragicomic were those that had them dressed up in traditional garments, frolicking with their subjects. Subjects that would have been boiled in hot oil if they refused to take part in the montage. This one though, was different.

We were near the Nagorno-Karabakh region, close to the frontline where Azeri and Armenian soldiers still stare down the sights of their guns at each other, when I saw it. There they were, father and son together in dark sunglasses and 1960’s style turtlenecks, looking like villains that had just stepped out of a vintage James Bond movie.

I got out of the car and raised my camera and took the shot only to see out of the corner of my eye some military guards in their unmistakable soviet-style top hats start to shout and run towards me. Even though they were probably only looking for a small bribe to help feed their families, I didn’t fancy going through the elaborate ceremony situations like these involve and we took off down the road.

I have always held a morbid curiosity for the omnipresent pictures of Dear Leaders and their close counterparts, monarchs that you can see around the world. What purpose do action shots of the aforementioned Bond villains, tattered pictures of the King of Morocco in the most remote shop in the High Atlas, the God King of Thailand staring out of a rusted frame or the head  of the Queen of England stamped on every coin in Canada really serve? Are they desperate attempts to constantly validate their dominion over others. Like surreal WANTED posters or Tinder profile pictures that in fact should read, WANT ME: looking for love and admiration? Or are they simply narcissistic gestures to appease the hyper-inflated egos of people whose position leads them to believe they are superior to lesser mortals?

Dress them up however you want though but it won’t change the fact that their roles are immoral and unjust. Disguise a king up as a great warrior, a cosmopolitan diplomat or even a circus monkey and it won’t change the fact that a hereditary monarchy is as anachronistic as a Strong Man in the Caucasus or a bad haircut in North Korea. It’s time these idols are taken off the walls and put into the dusty drawers of history where they belong.