About Me
- Troy
- Troy Nahumko is an award-winning author based in Caceres, Spain. His recent work focuses on travels around the Mediterranean, from Tangier to Istanbul. As a writer and photographer he has contributed to newspapers and media such as Lonely Planet, The Boston Review, The Globe and Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Toronto Star, Counterpunch,The Irish World, The Straits Times, The Calgary Herald, Khaleej Times, DW-World, Rabble and El Pais. He also writes a bi-weekly op-ed column 'Camino a Ítaca' for the Spanish newspaper HOY. His book, Stories Left in Stone, Trails and Traces in Cáceres, Spain is published by the University of Alberta Press.As an ESL materials writer he has worked with publishers such as Macmillan and CUP.
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Monday, April 24, 2017
La Pequeña Georgia
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.
Four years ago
yesterday, while the rest of Caceres was celebrating San Jorge (Saint George), I sat in the maternity ward of the local hospital awaiting the arrival of my second daughter. I say
awaiting her arrival, because as she was the second, I knew that she wasn’t
arriving via Stork Airlines and the look on my wife’s face let me know that it
wasn’t going to be an easy landing.
It’s a holiday here and everyone knows that it's just that much harder to get up and go to work when you have to, yet there wasn’t a trace of regret in the attentive faces of the
staff helping my partner through this. Their own families were surely getting
together that day and it goes without saying where they would have rather been but
there was absolutely no spite in their actions. The health of my wife and the
baby were the only priorities at that moment. If her birth would have seen us living
in many other countries, I would have had to take our credit card from between
my wife’s teeth and pray to the dragon slayer that our limit was high enough to
pay, but thankfully, the only prayer here that was needed was for their
well-being.
I look at my four year old daughter today and think about her
future and wonder what awaits her. Will she be lucky enough to be able to
start a family without having to take out a loan simply to be able to give
birth to her children in a safe environment? Will I be able to pick up her
kids from school or will I be forced to continue working beyond my seventh
decade? Will whatever is left of public funds have disappeared in EREs,
Canales in Madrid and luxury cars for greedy men in Cataluña with the same name as the Saint?
The
Patron of Caceres is a figure that crosses national boundaries and even
religions. He had some serious dragons to take care of in the past but I think
that a much greater threat exists today than what the dragon traditionally
represents. I’m not one for prayers but if I were, I’d ask for just a little
less greed so that she too can have things at least as good as we enjoy now.
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Built to Last
You cringe, close your eyes, gasp, and think of the worst. That truck can't cross that bridge, it's 2000 years old! But wait, it's not turning back and is indeed crossing. Two millennia later, goods are still crossing the 71-meter (231-foot) high bridge that spans the Tagus river, just shy of what is now the border with Portugal. Nature aside, the old timer has had its adversaries. First the Arabs tried to destroy it then the Portuguese, even the proper Spanish blew up a piece to stop the French. Makes it clear that the Romans were the first to come up with the motto, BUILT TO LAST.
#river #architecture #getaway #bridge #bridges #border #portugal #ancient #trucks #frontier #construction #oldandnew #empire #engineering #ancientrome #romanarchitecture #arch #thenandnow #romanempire #tagus #builttolast #romanarch
Originally published on Trazzler
Monday, April 3, 2017
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
A Bit of a Warning?
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.
The Queen paid a
visit to Caceres the other day. Sorry, I should probably be more precise, I
don’t mean the ex-journalist who is the darling of all the fashion magazines, but
the one who, like me, can’t get rid of that stubborn accent from elsewhere. In
these days of having two kings, two truths, two popes etc, things can indeed
get a bit confusing. But as the refrain about the legendary Spanish generosity
goes, donde comen tres, comen cuatro (where three can eat, so can four). Even in these difficult times when
hospital beds are being cut back and people are expected to retire after they die, why
not have two queens? And if the trains out to this part of her realm aren’t to
her liking, well let's send a helicopter to pick her up. Anyways, don’t feel bad if you
didn’t know about her visit, I only found that she was here when I saw the
police towing my neighbors’ cars away for security measures, and I live in the
old town. I had suspected something was up as I walked home and noticed more
police that pedestrians but my suspicions were confirmed when I overheard an
officer talking to a neighbor. The poor guy had just found out that his car had
been towed away and the policeman was telling him that he shouldn’t be upset
because he hadn’t been fined, though I’m not sure his taxi fare to pick it up
will be included with the helicopter in the budget. It seems that la doña
Sofia was here to attend a concert that in part was sponsored by the town hall
and el Grupo Ciudades Patrimonio de la Humanidad de España. I found myself
wishing that Iberdrola, the electricty company or even the water comany had also been part of this and the in
the process they could have shown the town hall the way that they actually
inform residents about something that is going to affect them a day or two in
advance. The fact that TVE (Spanish National TV) was here with the queen will surely help promote our
fair city but I’m sure that this wasn’t a state secret and a few signs the
night before would have appeased even the most virulent republican.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
The Throat of Hell...and not what you think.
Cascading waterfalls, lush carpets of green, cherry groves, mischievous otters and picture perfect swimming holes aren't usually the first things that come to mind when you mention Extremadura, but that's exactly what you'll find up the Jerte Valley. From peaks as high as 2300 metres (7545 feet), centuries of gushing, spiralling water has carved out perfect bowls in the granite for taking a dip to cool off among the darting trout. Just two hours from Madrid, the Garganta de los Infiernos natural reserve just might be the best kept secret in Spain (but not for long). Maybe that's why they called it the Throat of Hell, to throw everyone off the scent?
#hiking #wildlife #river #outdoors #mountains #nature #swimming #park #valley #reserve #getaway #nationalpark #swimminghole #waterfall #cherrytrees #offthebeatenpath #otters #granite #gorge #erosion #hell #extremadura #route #valledeljerte #jerte #cerezos
Thursday, March 9, 2017
The Token Guiri
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 the token guiri (nordic foreigner),
I’m often asked what I think about certain Spanish traditions. From Semana
Santa to bullfighting to the seemingly foreign meaning of the word resign, people are
curious about how a foreigner might perceive things that fit inside Fraga’s
famous tourist slogan, Spain is different. The thing is, I have lived my entire
adult life outside the country of my birth and I can no longer say for certain
if my recollections of Canada are still valid enough to be able to accurately
contrast them against what I see around me. All the same, my surname is a long
way from Gonzalez and I can compare and contrast what surrounds me against the many other
countries that I have lived and spent time in. So the other day while I was talking
with a friend and the topic of cleanliness came up, I happened to be in complete agreement
with my interlocutor that Spanish homes are by far some the cleanest places on
Earth. The eye-watering smell of beach that you often encounter as you walk the
streets is proof positive of that. My curiosity, however, lies in the fact that
this fastidiousness seems to end the second that they step out of their homes.
Hours can be spent scrubbing tiles at home, but the street seems to be for
someone else to clean. Out of the barely ten families in my neighborhood, at least
four have the twice daily ritual of opening their doors to allow their favorite
pet to do their business outside the family home, on other people’s doorsteps
of course. No matter how often the street cleaners comes by. and here in Spain they come by often, they simply can’t keep up with
the dogs and cats of my neighbors. I’ve actually never been inside their homes
but I’m sure they live up to Spanish standards of cleanliness. What confuses me
is the contrast between the bleach in their homes and their blithe disregard
for the mess they leave in the streets. Could it be they simply want to create
jobs? I guess this make-work project could be admirable but I am convinced that
our money could spent on something a bit more productive than cleaning up after Fido.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Mending Wall
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.
They surround us for the better part of our days, whether we are aware of
them or not. We shelter behind them during the brief winter and then take refuge
behind them during the Spanish summer’s long assault. We raise them with bricks, drywall,
words and sometimes just a look. The more famous run through places like the streets of Berlin,
the more infamous divide olive groves on the road to Bethlehem and the more
intimate record our children’s growth on their faces. An unpopular American
president boasts of extending one from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico while
long before a compatriot of his reflected upon repairing one because good walls make good neighbors. Homer, speaking of my namesake wall warned us of raising walls against the will of the immortal gods. When Pope Francis said that building them isn’t Christian, I’m
sure he wasn’t referring to ours because I’m not exactly sure when a Spanish muro
becomes a muralla. Whatever the case, I look out on one every day from my window as it slowly crumbles away.
Its birth was pagan, its adolescence Muslim, its adulthood Catholic and it now languishes
in its retirement in the limbo of the ill-defined secularism of the Spanish democracy. It
may not be as famous as the one that crosses the mountains of China, those built around the same time, like that which surrounds Diyarbakir or even those that protect nearby Avila
from the snows but that doesn’t mean it is less impressive. In many places its
majesty is simply hidden, look up from the square and you only get a glimpse of
it among the add-ons crowding out the Torre de la Hierba. As it encircles the
old town, in some places it no longer only protects but actually forms part of homes
and thus a part of our lives. In deciding to fix the wall, we no longer need to
ask to know what we were walling in or walling out, and to whom we were like to
give offense. By repairing the wall, we have a chance to redefine its use. I’d
like to think we are no longer keeping people out but instead, inviting them
in.
They surround us for the better part of our days, whether we are aware of
them or not. We shelter behind them during the brief winter and then take refuge
behind them during the Spanish summer’s long assault. We raise them with bricks, drywall,
words and sometimes just a look. The more famous run through places like the streets of Berlin,
the more infamous divide olive groves on the road to Bethlehem and the more
intimate record our children’s growth on their faces. An unpopular American
president boasts of extending one from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico while
long before a compatriot of his reflected upon repairing one because good walls make good neighbors. Homer, speaking of my namesake wall warned us of raising walls against the will of the immortal gods. When Pope Francis said that building them isn’t Christian, I’m
sure he wasn’t referring to ours because I’m not exactly sure when a Spanish muro
becomes a muralla. Whatever the case, I look out on one every day from my window as it slowly crumbles away.
Its birth was pagan, its adolescence Muslim, its adulthood Catholic and it now languishes
in its retirement in the limbo of the ill-defined secularism of the Spanish democracy. It
may not be as famous as the one that crosses the mountains of China, those built around the same time, like that which surrounds Diyarbakir or even those that protect nearby Avila
from the snows but that doesn’t mean it is less impressive. In many places its
majesty is simply hidden, look up from the square and you only get a glimpse of
it among the add-ons crowding out the Torre de la Hierba. As it encircles the
old town, in some places it no longer only protects but actually forms part of homes
and thus a part of our lives. In deciding to fix the wall, we no longer need to
ask to know what we were walling in or walling out, and to whom we were like to
give offense. By repairing the wall, we have a chance to redefine its use. I’d
like to think we are no longer keeping people out but instead, inviting them
in.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
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This plaque on the church is about the only evidence you'll find of Battuta's visit in the town o... -
Yesterday I walked up the hill leading to my polling station under a clear blue sky, a color I would later realize that had foreshadowed th...