Finally! I built a wall. A supporting wall for our garden no less. Is it a great wall? No. Is it a fantastico wall? No. Will it stay up for many years? I bloody hope so. Was it hard work? Yep. It’s something I have never done before and I thank various builders who made videos on how not to screw it up.
It was hard work in the sun. In mid October the temperature should not be 34 degrees. That isn’t right at all neither is having the fourth heatwave of the summer, a summer that has stretched for six months. You can see its effects each time you walk amongst the olive trees around here.
The lack of rain and extreme temperatures has meant that this year’s harvest will be pitiful in comparison with those of five years ago. It will be the third poor harvest in three years. Most of the plants have been too busy trying to survive to produce fruits. It’s quite depressing to see.
To confirm the lack of water here, a trip to Iznajar, a gigantic reservoir south of here made it plain. It is at 16% of capacity at the moment. No one has ever seen it 100% full, true, but 16% is a new low. The reservoir is so big that sailing yachts used to parade up and down for hours on end.
Now, structures 50 years old from when the valley was first flooded are appearing for the first time. The sailing clubs stayed shut for the summer – the water’s edge is at least a mile away now. An old bridge that connected two sides of the valley is now visible and being used by locals for the first time since 1963. Sheep are grazing on the valley floor.
We need water. We need it to rain. The olive trees are crying out for it.
The economy around here is pretty much 100% based upon producing olive oil. If you’ve ever visited us then you’ll know that there is no diversity in what is planted – it is olive oil or nothing. It used to be a very profitable business but not for much longer. And if these crops can’t bloom then there’s nothing to fall back on. There is no plan B.
It will mean less income for those that need it and, inevitably, people off searching for work in the towns and cities. Rural Spain does not need even more people leaving their villages. The future looks very far from rosy for quite a lot of people around here.
It is true that the government will step in with less taxes on what crops there are and with proving unemployment benefits which will top up meagre earnings but that isn’t a long term solution. We think that, around here, there will have to be change. They’ll have to diversify as they have done in places like Salamanca where we saw olives, wine, almonds and livestock on farmland. We’re also not sure if there is the courage to do that.
We shall see.
The building of the wall is one of many DIY projects that are required. Our house is old (and it’s big) and it has been neglected for about two years. It needs a bit of TLC in the next year, even if the repairs are a bit wonky. It is a good way to forget that Sonalee and I are living apart during the week.
The dogs are a bit confused by Sonalee appearing every other weekend and being driven to arrive at a strange house where their mummy seems to be. It isn’t ideal but it is much better than some situations we have had in the recent past. Our new big decision to make is whether we get a second air fryer so Sonalee can have one for the weekdays. It is nice to have worries like that rather than anything more serious.
Sonalee seems to think the new job is going okay, she is certainly so much more happy than at our last school. Not that that would be difficult. She is also very slowly getting used to Cordoba. It is an odd place in many ways, and I’m not just talking about their road system. It is a famous city within Spain, one that is steeped in history and with an important university.
But it also has an air of provinciality that is at odds with how we think a university town should be – the contrast with Granada is striking. Granada is a party town, a poetry/arty town, a town that has a vibrancy that is just missing in Cordoba. We think it could be that Cordobans have accepted that Seville is the king city around this part of Andalusia and that there is no point fighting it.
There is a lot of money in Cordoba, a place where landowning gentry still maintain their mammoth estates around the region. Because of this, Sonalee suspects that many of her students lack the will to really go for it in their ambitions. Why bother leaving when everything you need is right here for you and where you face no risks?
It is a tendency that we have both noticed in our time in Rabat, Lisbon and Madrid. The rich there are extremely rich and they will always be so. Their children will inherit a fortune with their status secured for the whole of their lives. So, why bother that much in school?
Things get a bit more complicated with Spanish kids of all classes and incomes. Spain holds the record for the oldest average age that children leave their parents home to live elsewhere. At the moment, the average age is 30. 30 years old before you move out. 30 – mum couldn’t wait till I moved out at 18 and I don’t blame her one little bit. And I reckon that the average is even higher for men. And, I bet, even when that happens, they’ll only have moved down the road and will go back to their parents every weekend.
If that feels like I am mocking the Spanish habit of spoiling boys, it’s because I am. In our village you can see it action everywhere from getting extra portions if you’re a male to not having a girl’s football team (there are 4 boys teams) in the village despite some decent players here and in the villages nearby.
It isn’t nearly half as bad in Priego, the town where I work. Of the 24 kids I teach, 18 are girls which speaks of an appreciation of the rights of the girls to make something of themselves. If they pass these exams then they will be allowed to extend the types of courses they can do at university. The requirement of competent English for a student to, for example, learn to be a doctor or vet seems to be a very forward thinking idea.
I’m trying to imagine that requirement coming into force in the UK – you must know a foreign language to do this course, and shouting loudly whilst pointing doesn’t count. I’m just glad there is no requirement to know Spanish in my work place or others that I might go to. My Spanish continues to range from terrible to awful on a daily basis.
Most of the time this is not a problem. It is when things go wrong that my lack of Spanish makes things difficult. Like if your bank account gets hacked and you have to deal with the police and the bank. Thank God I found the one man at the Guardia Civil who spoke excellent English.
It’s embarrassing. Really. Shameful might be a better word.
I’m hoping the free classes that the Fuente Tojar government have laid on for all us foreigners will help. There are four of us in the Level Two (Two!) class and we all expressed our desire to integrate more with our neighbours. That the teacher appears to be about the age of 15 is a little disconcerting because we’re all old and two of us are teachers. It’s weird.
Nevertheless, we will continue. Turning down free lessons would be the height of rudeness.
We have eight more months of this arrangement. It is okay and it is what it has to be. Sonalee and I have to adhere to that brilliant Sri Lankan phrase. We must “do the needful”.
I’m building more walls!
Hasta Luego, inshallah
Ayubowan
Ciao
Paul
PS Who wouldn’t love this? And I think this is appropriate.