Bigoted

After a steep climb east out of San Enrique, a great view to warm the hearts of patriotic British friends and raise the hackles of ardent internationalist friends from various countries ... a little piece of England parked on the Iberian Peninsula ... just across the water, a little piece of Spain, parked in Africa ... Ceuta ... viewed from the moon these boundaries don't exist at all, apparently (I've never been) .... and for observant readers, England and Britain are not the same ...

Anyway, en route to the view, this scruffy little house for sale ... surrounded by some rather grand villas ... fenced like a prison and called Bigote ... which means moustache in Spanish, but feel free to imagine an amusing use for the place ... in the interests of peace and harmony, I decline to comment ...

Hola vacas!

Settled into solitude after some serious enquiry and energised to set off early for a longer walk ... over the hill to Secadero ... contemplating fears of cows, passing those grazing at the top ... and statistically it is wise to be aware, since in Britain it is not unknown for walkers to be attacked and even killed ... maybe by mothers concerned for calves, sometimes spooked by canine companions, less often by charging bulls perhaps ... and these Spanish ones have big horns ... and the difference between awareness and fear is the key maybe ... its frequency operating beyond species language barriers ...

... so, past the herd and relaxed into gentler thoughts, around the corner of the wooded track, face to face with two fine bovine creatures ambling up ... close ... we assess the situation ... my surprise settles to a cheery introduction in Spanish ... friendly confidence being the chosen strategy ... they don't stop to chat, turn round and stroll down the lane, find a passing place, park there and watch me pass ... I thank them and wish them adios and start musing whether the collective consciousness of cows includes the knowledge of what humans do to them ... in the abbatoir, the Bull Ring, the kitchen ... the factories where the flesh of mammalian relatives is separated from any ancient link with hunting and survival in inhospitable climates ... mixed with some chemical concoction to further conceal its cowness ... Big Mac anyone?

At Secadero in time for the 9 am bus to Guadiaro and a chat with Francisco at the stop ... freedom, doctors, football all covered in a few minutes' scrambled Spanglish ... a wander round to the Correos to collect the Post, then blogging and breakfast at the Lemon Bar ... an expanded early routine ... possibly inspired by Claire's consistent theme of expansion and contraction ...

A rather hot walk across the autovia bridge, musing on redesigning walking routes hereabouts. .. since public policy people perceive, albeit tardily, the trap of  transport designed for cars ... the effect on mental and physical health and all that ... and observing my processing pattern of redesigning the world to be simpler, better for people in the whole and not just the atomized car borne units ...

At San Enrique a social call to Russ and from the bus come his old friend Mack, who needs a jack to change a wheel (really ... do let me know when the rhyming becomes tiresome) ... and Gato ... quite a party ... Mack and I head to the Casa in search of a jack from the Disco ... discussing a little on the topic of wishing life were sometimes different ... Eckhart Tolle expresses it well: change the situation, leave the situation, or accept the situation - all else is madness ...

Claire comes to visit ...

Claire's quest for the Truth ... sometimes described as the search for Reality ... Enlightenment ...led her to Stanhope some months ago ... Stanhope is a bit like that ... having had some insights into the worlds beyond the mundane, hungry for more ... keen to explore inner space ... she came along to sit, share, walk and talk ... and during some lighter talking told of her friend and Pilates student, working at the university in Durham, whose childhood home in Spain needed someone to look after it ... the Casa del Puente ... intrigued, your blogger signed up for the assignment and abandoned the paradise of Stanhope ... recklessly ... Claire, unsure how much her quest was served by Stanhope, how much by the reckless blogger seduced away to the sun, possibly feeling slightly responsible for the situation ... spent a few days here finding out ...

Claire is currently convinced by Krishnamurti's core teaching ... Truth is a Pathless Land ... and we spent many hours exploring what that means for the seekers ... advised by K not to follow gurus ... and a trip away from the shallow Costa, into the mountains, to Ronda, seemed to elevate the thinking as well as nurture the soul ...

And whilst that is true, paradoxically, as always, Truth may be found anywhere (and especially nowhere) ...the sun is lovely, the mountains uplifting ... but the quest is an inner journey ...

A visit to Russ, who lives on a bus, on a field in the middle of San Enrique, leads to more enquiry on various themes ...including where freedom lies ... a bus, a rucksack, a house? The blogger's current experiment with ultra light living is fun and whilst the temporary base at the Casa is more than is needed, it is easily enough put down in favour of another wander (responsibilities to Poppy the ancient cat and Juliet the Casa owner given due regard, of course) ... Russ's bus is slightly heavier, but serves his needs for now .... and buses are his thing, his embraces him, he says ... Claire, younger and with more responsiblities has her house, partner, son, cat and dog ... which is not going to fit in a bus or a rucksack ... she has created her sanctuary and is  rearranging her work-life balance ... each of us taking our own path ... 

Next a trip to Susie down the road at Torreguidiaro. .. long time resident of these parts ... pack leader of six canine friends and gifted inter-species communicator  ... she and Claire bond immediately ... Susie, at 76, is about to embark on new adventures ... in Ronda ...

So, as for the questions around the visit ... the blogger is energised, the visitor finds new information and unexpected expats to discuss with ... all sorts of topics are explored and Claire is reassured that the blogger's reckless relocation is unfolding as it should ... even though he still has no idea why he's here!

And you, dear readers, have met three new characters in the drama ... plus a bus ... and a great view of the beautiful town of Ronda. ..

Expatery

Conversations with Juliet, Julia, Susie and Russ, along with last year's wandering with the expats set me musing about a book on the subject of the British diaspora in Iberia … after all, I find myself here in San Enrique for no apparent reason, so perhaps it is best to create a purpose … not as a cage but as a frame …

The Costa del Sol is perhaps the epitome of the the traditional expat colony, so where better to start?

These four informants are well qualified and not typical, since they speak Spanish and socialise with the locals …. integration apparently being uncommon … “home” conceived as Britain, however long they have been here …

The evolving story will of course discover and describe Northern Europeans of many nations, along with other immigrants … the term expat seemingly reserved for a particular type of immigrant. Language is such a tricky customer ... purporting to explain, posing as a neutral medium, yet, upon examination, its very structure dividing up the world into subjects and objects, nouns and verbs, rich and poor ... as if that could help us understand what is going on ... Newtonian languages for a quantum world.

Susie tells the story of her Spanish friend and her family …. impoverished vegetable growers in the fertile flood plain of the Guadiaro back in the 50s before tourism took off … surviving and connected to the land, Nature and each other. .. they became wealthy from selling their land for development … villas, apartments, hotels, golf courses and polo pitches … a frenzy of activity with scant regard to planning or building regulations … corruption endemic as usual wherever easy money arrives … the infrastructure followed, accelerated by the European Union as the industrious North ensnared and colonised the laid back South with loans ...

So, who will define the difference between immigrant, invader, slave, guest ... and expat? Looking closer we can see that power plays a part and perspective varies the name ... a brief while ago in 11th century England uninvited visitors from across the English Channel or La Manche took power, redistributed the land to the Norman expats ... not a narrative playing these days ... 

Expatery implies ties to a country other than the one currently lived in ... not home ...not where the heart is ...curiously, notwithstanding the tendency of travel to broaden the mind, part of expatery is a reluctance to fully embrace the new country ... to hold to an idealised version of home .... one of the great ironies discovered in random research is the North East Spain branch of the English Defence League ...

Back to purpose and where it comes in to the story ... sitting in the warm evening sun, listening to Placido Domingo, editing today's blogging, maybe the shallow coastal strip is not the point at all ... perhaps expatery is not the subject after all ... maybe inland, to the sierras is where the Beautiful New World grows ...away from the mainstream madness, the separation, the fear ...

Purpose, in any case, will turn up along the way ... meanwhile life is led lightly ... as Russ eloquently explained, "sitting by a river, spotting a passing log, hopping on it for the ride ..." 

To Be or ...

...is that the question?

How to be free? That's a seductive question and it's led up some blind alleys ... your blogger took up communism in search of freedom ... like many before, in many countries, inspired by heroes like Che Guevara, who had the sense to leave the stage before the polar switch ... freedom in revolt morphing into repression in power ...

The hungry and dispossesed of decaying Europe sought their freedom in the virgin lands of the Americas ... African slaves came along to help, themselves cruelly captured commodities ... source of capital for Empires ... wandering locals lived lightly on the not quite virgin land ... in tune with Nature ... but this was freedom's dark period ... Nature was to be tamed ... great wealth ensued ... for some ... and then the polar switch ... the Land of the Free rings hollowly now ... subtler forms of repression convince us that we are freely choosing these ways which separate us from Nature ... who reasserts her power ....

So, is the question to Be ... pawns in a game ... players in a dystopian drama, authored by aliens, directed by quislings, cheered on by the hypnotised .... or not to Be ... to decline to energise it ... to be aware of the futility and step out of it ... to Be instead co-creators in a new game, which serves us better ... a Utopia long dreamt of, where Nature and we cooperate ... see we are not separate from Nature or each other ....

And after that?

One drama at a time!

Life is full of spaces to rest from playing the various parts, to review performances, try different roles ... all the world's a stage ... apparently ....

Seaside Sunday

It's 11.15 am on a warm Sunday in May, at one of the two chiringuitas, or beach bars, at this pretty bay just round from Torreguidiaro ... the season not in full swing ... the campers making their own coffee ... folks up late last night ... maybe all of that ... grateful for the tranquility anyway ... and some fun rock scrambling and exploring off-road routes ...

Suspecting lunch is the main event ... that's 2 pm round here .. ...

Rewinding ...

The first trip to Spain, indeed the first trip off the island of Britain (except the Isle of Wight, which was the local "abroad" for us, growing up quite close to Lymington where the ferry docked )... was from Southampton to Bilbao in 1967 ... following a daring escape from the mind control and enculturation institution where I had been incarcarated since the age of eleven ... Dad was very keen on this process, since he had aspirations to intellectual achievement without the opportunity ... times were hard, his parents' own escape to Canada ended in his father's premature passing and his mother, daughter and son's return to Southampton ... work was hard to find ... his tales of the humiliation of standing daily outside the dock gates begging for work led him to find a trade, create his own work ... create a narrative to fit the life that emerged ... Protestant Work Ethic ... not that he was religious ... but he encouraged his children to study hard to have an easier life ...

All this was at that brief moment between history and herstory, when children expected higher living standards than their parents and women were just preparing to restore their rightful roles ... it takes a while when viewed in 3D time frames ... in this blogger's lifetime big changes have happened ... the Age of Aquarius dawned, dimmed for a while, is now settling in for a time of simpler living, softer values ... though like the butterfly, wrapped in its chrysalis, imagining its new form and feeding off the decaying old one, the process is not always pretty or clear ... and maybe there are choices of emergent possibilities  ... in this scenario to choose the butterfly and note the passing of the caterpillar with compassion but not too much focus is to energise The Beautiful New World Our Hearts Know is Possible of Charles Eisenstein ... not to be confused with The Brave New World of Aldous Huxley, pharmaceutical pioneer and inner space voyager, whose cheerier and final novel, Island, has been much less discussed up to now ... 

After a brief spell building a road (well, someone has to hold the post so the surveyors get the bends in the right places), it was off to Scotland to be a waiter ( a job already practised in Dorset, which is another tale) then enthused by Kenny from Aberfeldy, off to hitch-hike round Spain. Hitching was tricky at the best of times in Franco's Spain and two blokes together is harder still, so we soon parted company and your blogger discovered the joys of solo wandering... wonderful!

Hitching along the coast and over the French border, to easier lifts along the Pyrenees and over to Andorra, then down to Barcelona and across to Majorca ... back via Almeria, Algeciras and the only way to visit Gibraltar - a ferry to Tangier, since the land crossing at La Linea was closed ... a wander down to Marrakesh and back with complete culture shock, a flirtation with kif and a mild temptation to bring some back through Spain (maybe one of those key moments in a life) ... easier communication since my school French was passable and recently polished ... back along the Costa, just beginning to take shape and up to Andorra with a couple of pounds in my pocket and a possible job at El Faisa, an English pub then and a posh restaurant now ...

So, rewinding over four decades and the drug trade is still going, eased a little with the re-opening of the La Linea border perhaps .... Spain is a sophisticated country, notwithstanding the economic difficulties .... and the Costa del Sol has blossomed into the paradise one might expect from its founders and supporters over the years ... the poverty of the peasantry transformed by economic activity and tourism driven development ... the old ones still look a little dazed by it all ...

[insert pic of dazed looking peasant here]