We´re BACK!

Happy Belated New Year!

After a long hiatus, it´s time to get back to telling the rest of the Spain story. For those who´ve lost the thread, here´s a recap:

We spent six months travelling around Spain in 2009 with the hope of finding our "perfect place". We volunteered for two weeks at a time in the homes and lodging establishments of a wide variety of characters, using the HelpX website as our means of making contact.

In our last posting, we were in the south of Spain in the heart of the Alpujarras Mountains (Andalucia) and had just been asked by our host to leave. Please use the Previous Post links to the left to read past postings.

Over the next several weeks, I hope to finish telling that story and will get you back up to date on what´s next for us. Thanks for reading and we love to get comments.

Kicked out

After our first Pueblo Ingles week we headed south to an area that we thought would hold great promise for us called the Alpujarras. In fact, several Pueblo Ingles participants had even suggested that we check out this region as one which might meet many of our criteria. The Alpujarras region is a series of valleys on the south side of the Sierra Nevada range, which is home to the highest mountain peak in Spain, the Mulhacen. The valleys in this region are dotted with small, white villages (pueblos blancos) which are huddled together to protect from the cold winters and painted white to reflect the extreme heat of the summer sun. One village in particular was well-known as being a bit of a haven for alternative expats and our HelpX resource listed dozens of hosts looking for assistance.

We chose a host who offered good food and comfortable, separate accommodation(at least that's what the reviewers said) in this "hippy" white village surrounded by mountains. Upon arrival, our Indian (by way of England) host served us a lovely Indian food lunch and we discussed the importance of "open and honest" communication in order for our host/helper arrangement to work out. She also asked whether we had liability insurance as we would be responsible for paying for any damage we incurred. This was a bit of a surprise as we had not encountered this sort of attitude or comment from any prior hosts. Furthermore, that evening she asked to have our passports so that she would have some "collateral" in the event that any tools go "walkies" (which apparently happened with a new weed-wacker). Aside from the fact that it is apparently illegal for a foreigner to walk around without a passport while in Spain, we were flabbergasted by the total lack of trust.

The next day, we started work on a difficult job doing traditional mud plastering over stone walls. Her generally crotchety husband did all of the training, but he barely spoke any English, so she did the translating and when they disagreed we had to wait for them to work things out. It was extremely hot in this part of Spain in late September but we were working inside a shed so we had some shade. We stopped work to have lunch, which was one and a half white bread sandwiches with a thin layer of tomato, a thick layer of mayo and one slice of meat and some potato chips. At one point during the work day, Michiel asked if we could have a snack of some fruit. She hesitated and said, "well, I guess you haven't had any time to go to town to buy and snacks so I suppose I could give you something" before bringing us some sugary biscuits.

Traditional mud plastering involves flinging trowel-fulls of sand and cement at a wall.


On the third day, the hard work, white bread sandwiches, grumpy interactions with the husband, no-snack policy and the total lack of trust ("you did lock the gate, didn't you?"..."why didn't you put the tools away during lunch. I told you to do that, didn't I?") forced us to test out her desire to have "open and honest communications". We told her that we were very uncomfortable with having our passports taken from us and that every other host had provided us with sufficient food to get through the day. She was pretty taken aback and claimed that none of her other volunteers ever complained about these things. In fact, there was another volunteer (a young British guy) who had no complaints about anything (not surprising, really, as most Brits are not comfortable with confrontation or complaining in person).

We finished our conversation, went to our room and 15 minutes later were visited by her with the message that "we just don't have enough time to sit around and talk about these issues, so we think it would be best if you leave." We were relieved that they had forced our hand and made the decision for us. We had spent both evenings discussing whether we should move on but hadn't made the decision to do so, now we had to get on the phone and make some calls to other hosts.

Luckily, we had already contacted a lady in the next town over and she was able to take us a week and a half early. Even more fortunately, we had decided in our 3 days in this alternative town, that we didn't like the feel of it at all.

The town - it looks nice enough, but we didn't take any photos of the dumpster-divers or the raggedy, skeletal and unwashed people.

English Village

For three weeks in the last couple of months, we have been volunteering for a company called Pueblo Ingles ("English Village" or English Billage, as pronounced by Spaniards). Amongst other services, the company puts on 8 day English immersion programs for Spanish-speaking adults. Most of the Spaniards attend the program at the recommendation of and paid for by their companies. Others choose to attend the training for new job opportunities or general interest. We, the Anglos, volunteer to live in this village and speak only English with the participants. In each program, there are about 21 Spaniards and 21 Anglos from all over the world. After a telephone interview, Michiel's English was deemed native-level and he was permitted to attend as an Anglo.

The backbone of the program are the one-to-one sessions. For the majority of the day, a Spaniard is paired up with a different Anglo for a 50 minute session of conversation. The Anglos are not necessarily teachers, so the discussions are just that - discussions on any and all topics (though we were counselled in advance that we might wish to stay away from potentially inflammable topics like bullfighting and the Civil War). In between one-to-one sessions, the Spaniards are required to give two different 5-minute presentations and participate in two different conference calls with Anglos role-playing business scenarios (sales meetings, team strategy sessions, etc.). We also have group activities involving games, theatre, presentations by Anglos, parties and drinking.

Normal people volunteer for only one one-week session per year, but we participated in three programs. After a tremendous first experience, we were asked back by the company to do two back-to-back programs as they were having difficulties finding Anglos to participate and we are conveniently located in Spain.

We've attended the program in two different locations - once in a restored, formerly abandoned village in the north-central part of the country. It was a very special experience because there were no outside distractions - no mobile phone coverage, no television signal and very few other people around. The feeling in this place was truly one of an English village.

Valdelavilla





The other location was in a spa resort, which was surrounded by mountains and the charming little town of La Alberca. The benefit of the location was that we had the possibility of walking to a shop or pharmacy, but the downside of outside distractions (other hotel guests, traffic, constant mobile phone calls, televisions, email access via iPhones and Blackberries, etc.) far outweighed the benefits.

Town of La Alberca




Tasting ham (jamon) and cheese in a bodega



Side trip to the Pena de Francia





Not only have we gotten to know over 60 Spanish people, we've also had the opportunity to get lots of information about possible "perfect places" to live. During each program, I have given a presentation on what we're doing (our volunteer placements) and have given our audience a list of criteria that we are looking for in a perfect place. Without fail, the Spaniards are at first confused and then blown away but what we're doing. Spanish people are not accustomed to moving and it is difficult for them to leave the town in which they grew up much less move to another country. They are generally quite conservative and not willing to live somewhere where they cannot eat their beloved ham. This lack of adventurous spirit is a bit of a concern for us and the more time we spend meeting Spaniards, even from the most open-minded region of Spain, Madrid, the more we think that we might find it very challenging to find a place that meets our most important criteria of a diverse and open-minded community. So, though the Spaniards we've met are some of the kindest, most generous and fun-loving people we've come across anywhere, we are, at times, put off by their inflexibility and lack of curiosity with regards to food and culture. It is not an exaggeration to say that we've seen grown men nearly come to fisticuffs over whether sweet red peppers are an acceptable ingredient in paella.

That said, if we conform ourselves to their customs, we are fully embraced and can have (and HAVE had) wonderful experiences. We've laughed and cried with them and some of them have become good friends. And every so often, one of them completely blows US away with his or her openness, friendship, generosity and humor. This is why we returned to Pueblo Ingles three times and why, though we are still not completely convinced that Spain is the right place for us, we continue to look for our perfect place...and now, we have a handful of new options to investigate.

Fun in Madrid

We left the nuthouse for three days of playing tourist in Madrid. We were unimpressed by our first impressions. In almost every Spanish city, the late nineties and early 2000’s brought an enormous building frenzy. Immigrants and the newly wealthy middle-class provided a ready market for the greedy building developers who went absolutely gangbusters with ugly and sprawling housing developments (urbanizaciones) ringing the cities. As you enter a Spanish city by car or bus, you find it hard to imagine that there are quaint old quarters or barrios and tasteful, beautiful architecture. This is certainly true of Madrid, which has sprawled outward in all directions for at least an hour.

Upon arrival at our hotel, Mom and I chatted on Yahoo Messenger and my reply to her question, “How’s Madrid? I’ve heard it’s beautiful” was “Hmmm. You heard wrong. It’s sprawling and unattractive.” I feel guilty about bad-mouthing Madrid, because after 4 days (on two separate visits), I am really fond of the city. The city center is chock-full of gorgeous buildings, plazas with elaborate fountains, lots of green park space and one of the cleanest and cheapest metro systems I’ve ever seen.

It’s a big city and exploring it on foot is quite a distance workout, but the streets are a delight to walk down (with the major exception of the fact that it was INCREDIBLY hot!) because of the profusion of attractive buildings and tree-lined promenades. I decided that Madrid seemed like a very livable city, albeit a bit expensive (especially compared to the rest of Spain). We have since been told that there’s a real problem with smog and theft, but that hasn’t diminished our enthusiasm for it (as a major city, anyway.)

We saw much in our time there so I’ll just mention the highlights, all of which were totally free!

The Prado Museum free hours – even though the place was packed, we enjoyed the fact that we had from 6 to 8 pm to roam the collection for free.

The cathedral with its Africanesque ceiling and its modern stained glass designs

The Royal Palace on the left and the Cathedral on the right


The rain forest growing inside the Atocha train station


The 1920’s era buildings, gates and fountains along the Gran Via – especially at night

The Bank of Spain


Puerta de Alcala


Buen Retiro and West parks

The architecture exhibit at the Caixa Forum

Walking around the different neighborhoods, from the hip Huerta area to the swanky Salamanca barrio



The Plaza Mayor



Of course, we did get a rather warped view of the city as it absolutely empties during the month of August. Many of the restaurants were closed for summer vacations and apparently, the traffic was reduced to nothing (at least that's what our Spanish friends said...we thought there was still plenty of car activity).

Family Affairs

As I mentioned in the last posting (before Michiel’s shameless plug for birthday wishes for me), our fourth volunteer gig was at a Bed and Breakfast in the center of the country. In Spain, rural guesthouses are known as “Casa Rurales” and are often very charming and restored old homes that may or may not serve breakfast as part of the price of lodging.

We travelled from Asturias by bus and crossed over the Cantabrian mountain range, which made for a tremendously gorgeous trip until we hit the high plateau that makes up the bulk of Spain’s interior. This hot and dusty plain is almost completely devoid of people as Spaniards have traditionally chosen to live in town groups where there was water. The rural farmhouse is not a phenomenon that is known anywhere else but Galicia (in the northwest) and Andalucia (in the south). For purposes of water, companionship and shelter from the roaring winter winds, much of the rural dwellers in the center of Spain live in small, sad-looking towns dotting the map. These towns have become all but abandoned as the young figure out that life is far more interesting in the city and never return to their village. As you drive through these small outposts, you see only some old people sitting on a lawn chair next to their front door; underfed, barking dogs and some cats.

In between these fountains of joy are dry fields of sunflowers. Spaniards are crazy about sunflower seeds. They bring their own bags of them – roasted and salted – to the terraces of their local bar and make piles of shells under their tables. It made perfect sense to us to see all these fields after our encounters with sunflower chomping enthusiasts.

To add to our increasing sense of entering the desert, the mild Asturian temperatures gave way to the blazing hot climes of central Spain that we had been trying to avoid. We arrived in our town with temps over 90 F (32C) and discovered that there was no one to pick us up. We had arrived late and we later learned that our hostess didn’t have a car. The taxi drivers refused to drive us to our destination but with our less-than-stellar Spanish, we weren’t exactly sure why. A friendly on-looker told us how to walk to our destination, “at the end of this block go up and keep going up" (“arriba, arriba, arriba!”). Damn! We aren’t exactly travelling light but we had no other option so we got on the big packs, strapped the day packs to our front side and hobbled up the ridiculously steep slope.

The height of the B&B above the not-so-attractive town was a definite plus later, but at that moment, I cursed every step. We eventually found our hostess and from that first moment discovered what she was like. The words spewed forth like a fire hydrant (which was lucky since I could barely breathe from the hill-climb and the heat), “I was so worried. I called my friend the bar owner to come look for you. I called my friend the shop owner to fetch you, but you’re so late,” etc, etc.

The talking didn’t stop all evening, nor did the name-dropping (“my friend, the ambassador/minister of” such-and so or “my bosom pal, the owner of a very successful company”) or the topic-jumping. It was tiring for me but utterly exhausting for Michiel, whose motto is "speech is silver and silence is golden". In fact, the talking didn’t stop at all during those two weeks, whether she was talking about how advanced the Chinese are or how great the Lebanese cuisine is (“far superior to modern Israeli cuisine, which has just stolen Lebanese dishes”) or how much better men are than women in spatial orientation or how those poor Kurds are struggling. She actually said more than once, “I downloaded Kurdistan on the internet.”

The first couple of days I was utterly irritated by her inability to listen to anyone; her insistence in swooping in on any task I was doing, taking it over for 5 minutes and then dropping it to do something else (she had the attention span of a fly); and her completely old-fashioned ideas about the roles of men and women. She seemed to only ask us questions about subjects that she wanted to talk about but never waited for our answers. After about three days of listening to her, I realized that if I just laughed at what she said, she would continue gleefully and I could manage not to go bonkers. The real turning point in my dealings with her occurred when I gained empathy for the impossible family drama occurring in her household and how devastating it was to our hostess.

We met our host’s daughter soon after arriving. She was the total opposite of her mother: gruff, unworldly, crass, chain-smoking, and shabbily dressed. She sauntered into the kitchen at 1:30 pm after just arising from bed and would plunk down at the table waiting for food. Then the yelling would start. Our host would begin with “you can’t just show up here expecting food without helping to set the table”, then the daughter would turn into Regan from the Exorcist, “why are you always #$^*&$ing on my case!” and so on. “My daughter has some mental and physical problems,” she told us later. And so it went…we had landed in the middle of a loony bin with two co-dependent family members: an adult daughter with no ability to control herself (including a suspected drinking problem) and a completely resentful mother who'd lost two husbands and now put aside all her dreams in order to "care for" this ungrateful and belligerent daughter.

Michiel did his best to keep his head down, work hard (especially if it meant picking and eating mulberries) and not be in the house. Since I was expected to be a “daughter of the house” (which is exactly how my duties were described to me in advance), I couldn’t escape. I was responsible for serving breakfast to guests (the daughter was conveniently sleeping when they were around) and cleaning rooms, as well as some cooking and other tidying up tasks.

We survived it by reminding ourselves that our situation could make good fodder for a future book. Furthermore, along this journey we've come to grips with the fact that even bad situations have good aspects - in this case, international cuisine, great location and whole wheat bread with sesame seeds (you scoff, but it is nearly impossible to find good bread in Spain). We even got some interesting advice from our host about possible places to search for a place to live. The question for us is always whether the good aspects outweigh the bad and whether we have other options in an area we want to explore. Sometimes schedules (the hosts' or ours) and money concerns simply don't allow for us to move on as soon as we'd like. It's character building (and we always have the blog to vent!)

Calderillo (pork stew) Fiesta


One of the oldest bullrings in Spain. We opted not to attend a bullfight, though I was sort of interested. We were advised that the amateurs in this town would make it more of a bloody mess than an artistic pursuit



Inside the bullring


View of/from the city's old walls



View from the Bed and Breakfast