Before We're Uberized

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 have a soft spot for the Spanish postal system. Back at the turn of the millennium my mother and I decided to walk the Camino Santiago...in January. 

By the time we finally got started the weather was fine enough but what did become painfully clear after our first day’s walk was that there was absolutely no way my mom was going to make it with the mobile home that she was carrying on her back. 

The next morning she hobbled into a post office and mailed the backpack to herself in Santiago where it awaited us after our pilgrimage. It all seemed so efficient and I have carried that impression with me ever since. In fact, one of the first places I remember seeing a numbered waiting line here in Spain was at the post office. 

Before these magic machines were introduced, I had always suffered trying to figure out whose turn it really was or worse, explaining in my rudimentary Spanish to elderly women in the fish shop that I had been waiting much longer than they had. So imagine my surprise when I walked into the post office the other day and asked for a book of stamps and was met by a surprised look. 

I had already been to two or three tobacco shops where I was told they no longer sold them, so I thought I would go directly to the source. It’s not that they don’t sell stamps at the post office, it’s just that it isn’t very common anymore and the teller wasn’t even sure where they were kept anymore. Fifteen minutes later, after a thorough search, I had my stamps in my hand but the entire episode made me think of how quickly things can change. 

It wasn’t so long ago that those magical stickers were the only way to share news with far away friends whereas now, ideas are shared faster than it takes to drop a letter into a postbox. Taxis aren’t the only ones facing extinction in the uberization of society but until letters disappear completely, I’ll keep believing in the magic of the mail.

Why Granada is our favorite city in Spain

Revisiting one of my favorite cities in Spain. A trip though Granada for Matador Network where the Alhambra isn't the only stop.

Almost 10 years now since another piece I wrote for them about the same city through a much different lense.

Ideas on Empty

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.

What color is an idea? It might sound like a strange question but in today’s hyper-polarized world, one that needs to be asked. Are ideas blue? Do they suddenly appear and reflect the pure, clean sky above us? Are they maybe more red, filled with the blood and energy that courses through all of our veins? Or are they maybe newer colors like orange, bright as the fruit hanging off of the trees in winter or perhaps a bit darker and more difficult to define, like the reflection of the clouds as the sun sets during the same season? How about purple, like that wine stain that stubbornly refuses to come out in the wash? Or even an unlikely green, lush, brief and violent as the dehesa that surrounds us when a little rain falls here in our beautiful yet forgotten Extremadura? It seems to me that if indeed ideas are made up of colors, they would be a mix of shades rather than one solid hue. If indeed ideas were colored, they would be a blend of the different shades that reflect the different influences behind them rather than some sort of pure, single thought. So why is it that we, for some reason, attribute ideas to political currents rather than to the people who actually come up with them? Of course it’s impossible to completely excise someone’s political beliefs from the ideas that may occur to them but, especially at the local level, ideas should be judged on their content and how they would make our city a better place to live rather than the color behind some political ideology. Would a brilliant idea that brings much needed investment and employment to our region only be blue? Or would an ambitious plan to energize our youth only be red? To paraphrase the great Duke Ellington when asked about the kinds of music he liked, to me there are only two types of ideas: good and bad. To which I’d add those that can be bettered. I’m not sure if ideas in fact are made up of colors but I do know what a city and a candidate for mayor without them will look like and that’s a dark, scary place indeed. 

Reluctant Prophets

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’m starting to hear voices. Not the scary ones that tell you to do naughty things nor those deep and ominous tones informing you that you’ve become the new prophet of a new religion, but familiar ones, in English, as I walk through the streets of the city. Voices that I’ve heard my entire life around about this time of year. There’s Frank Sinatra reminding me that Christmas probably won’t be white here and next is Mariah Carey somewhat ironically rallying against consumerism with her amazing range all the way from the Plaza Mayor up to Canovas. I walk past a robot Santa who wishes me ‘Merry Christmas’ in perfect English and I see pictures of his reindeer in shop windows; it’s definitely navidad. It comes at a time when more and more voices can be heard blaming immigration for the problems the country faces. Angry voices claiming that imported customs are destroying the fabric of traditional Spain and replacing things deeply ingrained in the cultural DNA of the land. I then hear a song about fish drinking in a river and see images representing the three kings of the orient that had traveled so far in search of a refugee child born in a manger in far off (and obviously not Spanish) Bethlehem. The mix of the different songs and images reminds me that change and the crossbreeding of traditions is inevitable, like it or not. Once upon a time Christmas carols in America were solely religious but as society became more varied, a need arose for songs that celebrated the season but were not necessarily religious and some great music was created. Christmas trees started off as pagan symbols and now Cacereños flock to the Plaza Mayor every weekend to take selfies in front of the metallictree-cone. Adopting and adapting is how I will be spending Christmas, enjoying some jamon iberico, wine from la ribera del Guadiana, some English cheese with a drop or three of irish whiskey by the fire while reading a Portuguese author and of course listening to Frank remind me of the snow that I’m certainly not missing. 

Medieval Kebabs

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.

Walking up the hill from my house and towards the Plaza del Socorro, the smell first hits me. It’s not unpleasant but certainly misplaced. An odor that I definitely wouldn’t expect as I walk to work and it takes me a moment to realize exactly what it is.

I walk under the large tree in the square and realize that what I’m smelling are...donkeys and then I remember, it’s once again the time of year for the "medieval" market in Caceres. A smell that, if you forgive the monstrosity of the prison-like looking Archive to my left, wouldn’t be so out of place among these definitively medieval surroundings.

As a stranger from a country where history was unwritten before the arrival of the Europeans, I always find it curious that once a year so much effort is made to make these streets appear even more…medieval. Renaissance jewels fronted by artisanal kebabs, medieval pizzas and knightly potatoes just don’t seem to jive, no matter how rustic the font used in their signs is. The hand-cranked rides in the Main Square do seem to fit in with the intended atmosphere but the plastic junk from China sold in the stall next to them makes the entire exercise seem a bit forced. But if indeed such jarring contrasts are what they are looking for, why not go a step further? 

How about inviting an upstart IT company to test its 5G along the cobblestone streets and in the process hopefully leave behind fibre optic cables for those us who live behind these walls? What about funding a contest to find ways to make the Arabic tiles, shielding so many building around the country, produce solar energy? Or apps that can scan a building and take the visitor on a virtual tour of what it might have actually looked like some 500 years ago. 

If nothing distinguishes our fair from all the the others that are tented up around Spain and Portugal, rather being a real, interesting attraction that attracts tourists, it ends up being just another place to eat overpriced kebabs, not matter how medieval they are.

Oh, He's Just Playing...

Daily Garden Gnome left by my neighbors

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 must have missed the email. Or perhaps the message came via SMS, like the ones Donald can now send out in case of national emergencies and it somehow got lost. I guess it could have been an old fashioned letter but whatever the case is, I didn’t get it. As a result I missed the decree and I am now the only person left in town without a dog. While this may seem an easy enough cross to bear, not owning a dog does come with its inconveniences. Just the other day while attending some Blues festival concerts in el Corral de las Ciguenas and later in Santa Maria, I wasn’t able to fully participate in the shows as those who had brought their dogs could. Without a dog, I couldn’t add to the barking and howling of those around me and I have to admit that I felt a little left out. Then the other day as I sat in a terrace having a caña (wee beer), I think that my relative silence must have annoyed those around me. Just next to me, four, respectable looking middle-aged people sat, talking somewhat loudly as they struggled to hear each other over the constant, sharp barking of the dog that was impatiently wailing from beneath the table. Their impassive faces, as if they didn’t even notice the urgent barking, was surely some sort of signal to me of their disapproval of my doglessness. This sentiment must have also been shared by the three or four other tables with dogs who also joined in with the little terrier under the table. But perhaps my biggest regret is that I can’t repay my neighbors and visitors to the old town who leave little presents every day for me in my street, taking the extra time to liven up my door with some eau de toilette from their little Rover. I’m not sure if my dogless state will result in an infraction or fine, but in a city where they say there are now more dogs than children under five, I hope my own kids don’t scare your animals because, while they may seem ferocious, “they only want to play” and will hopefully help pay your pension in the future. 

Canadian Thanksgiving?

Writing for the Matador Network on my memories of Canadian Thanksgiving and what it meant then and what it means now.

Hibernating Bears and Music Festivals

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.

While it seems that summer doesn’t quite want to let go, it’s that time of year again. The time of year when the croaking of storks, ringing of church bells and clanking of processions are replaced by sounds that are normally heard on the banks of the Liffey, Tajo or Mississippi. Autumn in Caceres means music. A time of year when every other weekend the old town fills up with thousands of people taking advantage of the somewhat cooler evenings in order to enjoy the sounds of eclectic Pop, Irish music, Jazz and Blues in the open air. The normally quiet UNESCO core comes alive with this exchange of cultures from around the world and the more intimate nature of these concerts allows for more relaxed viewing than when the masses invade the city in spring during WOMAD. Children dance and get up close to the band in the calle Moret during the welcoming street party for the Blues festival, amazed that three or four people can get together and create so much fun. The steps in the Plaza Mayor become an impromptu stage as the Irish Fleadh says goodbye for another year and the city vibrates with the positive feelings ringing behind long after the stages have been packed up for another year. But as autumn turns to winter, the nights get longer, the weather becomes less inviting and the clanging of the bells once again becomes the old town’s primary soundtrack, what happens to the music? Unlike the storks that come once a year or the penitents taking the saints out for an airing in spring, music stays with us year around, sliding from the city’s squares indoors to the intimate places where music is born. Every weekend, live music pulses inside one of these rhythm temples, keeping alive through the darker months of winter those beats that give so much life to the city. But if the throngs that danced and laughed in Santa Maria don’t come out to hear it? Unlike the bears of my homeland, music, the musicians that play it and the brave souls that promote it can’t hibernate and without the support of music lovers throughout the year…well it might not make it through the long winter. 

An Odyssey

The regional newpaper HOY has been hosting a series of articles on the state of the University of Extremadura. I was asked to contribute and rather than offer an in-depth academic analysis, I opted to tell my story and experience of working there. 

First the English version:

It came as a complete shock to me. It was during my first weeks teaching in Filosofia y Letras at the University of Extremadura and one day as I walked into class, I noticed a thick, heavy tome weighing down the table in front of one of the young students.

Being curious by nature, I wanted to see what young people were reading beyond Harry Potter. But perhaps what drew my curiosity even more was the size of the book. It was as thick as a dictionary yet from afar I could tell that it was a novel and not a reference book. I walked over and asked the student what they were reading and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that it was James Joyce’s Ulysses. I cautiously asked the student if they were reading it for pleasure and was completely floored when he answered that it had been assigned to them to read in another subject. 

Not that it’s a bad book. After all, it is considered to be one of the most important works in modernist literature in English but one that is also extremely difficult to understand, even for educated native speakers of the language. It is a book that makes Goytisolo’s triologia de Alvaro Mendiola look like easy reading and here was an English student that was still struggling with basic verb tenses being asked to read and analyze it. 

I found myself asking, why would something so incredibly dense and difficult be assigned to learners who were just beginning to explore the language? I wondered what possible interpretation could be expected from the learner when even a dictionary would not help clarify some of the puns found in the opus? Was the student being asked to analyze the book on his own or was he simply being asked to memorize what others had written about it? I found myself feeling sorry for the students and began asking myself what exactly was the purpose? A doubt that would continue to plague me while I taught at the University. What were we trying to achieve with these students?

Informal surveys over the years have shown me that at large majority of the students enrolled in the English program at the University had done so because they wanted to become English teachers and those that hadn't would probably end up doing so anyways. Yet the program they were studying had only one elective/optative subject in the whole four year degree that dealt with applied linguistics and not one that specifically focused on methodology or language acquisition. Could this glaring oversight be due to the fact that the next step was a rather expensive Masters that would, in theory, convert the graduates into professionals? Here we had students being assigned Joyce and musty Victorians when they would never use anything even remotely similar in their hoped-for jobs as English teachers. Modern concepts such as corpus linguistics were beginning to creep into the teaching but only to show stylistic patterns in the works of writers long since dead who would never have dreamed of something like Twitter and how it is influencing the way the language is used today. And my doubts were raised again, what is the purpose? Were professors meant to be teachers or researchers? And if they are meant to research, should that research necessarily be related towards what the field of language teaching and acquisition in order to ensure that their students were as up to date as possible? Were these due to an inherent disregard for being 'teachers' and even teaching within the University?

It was only some years later when I began to help people prepare for oposiciones that I would find a possible answer. In my initial confusion to grasp exactly what topics such as the legal history of the United States had to do with language teaching, I suddenly remembered that book on the table and came to a realization. The University wasn't preparing language teachers or even proficient users of the language but instead was readying them to face an arcane exam which itself has no real tangible meaning in relation to the job they would be asked to do if they somehow passed. Rather than preparing them for the job they dreamed of, they are being moulded for the exam that they have to sit in the future in order to get that job.

I have met and had the pleasure to observe some great teachers, both within and beyond the University. I have also heard of a few brave, questioning voices within the system that are raised now and again, but that are also quickly silenced or isolated. The closed, endogmatic nature of the selection process for university teachers ensures this pact of silence. If you want to get on, and get on easily, you learn to keep your head down and which group you need to join, agree with them or not. A truer version of Pablo Iglesia’s casta would be hard to find.

So indeed what is the purpose? Some would argue that it isn’t to create workers for specific jobs, but instead to focus on producing creative thinkers adaptable to any job and they might be right. Yet the mere word philology sounds ancient and Greek to my Canadian ears and memorizing the analysis of others contrary to this purpose. Others might denounce this utilitarian, practical view of University study as neoconservative thought and the antithesis of the Humanities in general. But then I think of that student facing Joyce, armed with the arguments of others and think, there must be another route in this odyssey. 

*In the Spanish version there is a translation error. It should read literatura modernista en ingles rather than literatura modernista inglesa.

Medieval Tests

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.

After having lived here for more than a decade, I still catch myself looking up in wonder as the last rays of the setting sun hit the Torre de la Yerba in the Plaza. The layers of history present as I walk under the Arco de la Estrella send my imagination reeling only to suddenly be brought back to the present when I see groups of tourists taking selfies under it. That mix of tradition, history and modernity, that ability to meld the past with the present is one of this region’s biggest resources. What I can’t understand though is when some things remain firmly mired in the past, frozen in time like the face of the Amazona that cries out from the facade of the Obispado.

These past weeks, thousands of brave opositores have been struggling through an exam process that perfectly fits in with the 16th century palaces that populate our old town. A medieval system that selects the teachers that will then guide our youth through this new age. I can easily envision a table of cloaked monks sitting in Santa Maria while opositores recite what they have memorized without having to internalize nor analyze the content, just as today’s opositores are asked to do. It’s a system so deeply engrained in Spanish culture that it’s the one issue that is never questioned when the prickly topic of bettering the Spanish education system arises. A curriculum more innovative than those of Finland or Canada could be developed, where investigation and project based learning are the pilars but if the very teachers are still koranically memorizing enormous quantities of what will amount to be useless information in order to get the job, what can be expected of them when they actually reach the classroom? The cognitive dissonance between how they are chosen and how teaching is in this new century is a gulf too wide to bridge.

The past and knowledge of it is important but what is crucial is to know when it is time to move on and adopt new ways of thinking before we truly get left behind. It’s like those warts stuck to the Almohad wall that I see as I walk towards the old town, if they have to go, they have to go.

Vino (or Viñu as it is known locally) in the Sierra de Gata

A place close to my heart, just north of here where the scorched summer earth becomes green once again. Cool water runs off the sierra and where the wines are meant to enjoyed, not examined. Writing in Roads and Kingdoms about a toast to an old friend.