I have been a foreigner for 14 years now.  In four different countries and on three different continents but no matter where I have been, it takes some getting used to.

In Sri Lanka, it was a bit odd since I was regarded as someone to be in awe of by some and as a parra suddha (bloody foreigner) by others and someone who is supposed to be despised.  And, naturally, I stood out as a foreigner to everyone.  In Morocco it was also easy to stand out and I was mostly treated well by the local populace.  The police there were very interested in me, mainly to be the opportunity to talk in English and to get my views on their country – hint; always say that Morocco is beautiful and their people wonderful.  It will make you many new friends.

And get you out of a traffic fine.

In Portugal, my foreigness was less obvious since it is genuinely one of those multi-cultural cities, as is Madrid.

Here in the village, it is obvious that I am a forrin since I am tall and skinny and I spoil our dogs relentlessly. 

In all of the countries that we have lived in, there does remain that barrier of language that separates you from the locals.  In the staffroom in Sri Lanka it was easy to recognise when you were being insulted or laughed at but less easy to know why since the language is so bloody impenetrable.  In Morocco I had no chance of interacting since my knowledge of French is at the same level as my knowledge of the political system of Azerbaijan.  In Portugal, English was spoken by so many people that it was easy to communicate and here in Spain it is getting a teeny bit easier.

But I am still a foreigner.  And that elicits different reactions from different people.  Some couldn’t care less.  Some welcome a bit of novelty.  Others are totally indifferent as long as you don’t get in their way.  And quite a few despise me just for being from another place and not merely for being a miserable sod. 

So we have situations where the local bank manager assumed I was an imbecile just because I couldn’t speak Spanish.  And where local police officers like to embarrass me by making me speak in Spanish even though their English is really really good.   

The best approach, for me, is to apologise straight away for my appalling Spanish and then try to speak it.  Most people appreciate that I am trying.  It is difficult here though – they don’t speak Spanish but Andaluse.  Andaluse is the equivalent of speaking Geordie or Glaswegian; impossible to understand unless you are from that particular area. 

But, it is important to try.  True, I have given up on the free language course provided by the village.  Basically the teaching style of the teacher was completely the opposite to my learning style.  I will not lament giving it up since I get quite a lot of education from the students that I am teaching, students who like being taught by a foreigner.

Because my students appreciate being taught by a foreigner, I thought I might extend that to coaching some football here in the village.  In my last blog I wrote that there was no team for girls here and then, about two weeks later, I finally realised what I had written and that, actually, why the Hell am I not doing something about it?

So, I contacted our town hall and offered my services once per week, for free, to start football for girls.  I naively thought it would be taken as a good thing. 

Nope.

My email was ignored to the point where I got a miffed and wrote that I was extremely disappointed and that the many readers (ahem) of my blog would also be disappointed. 

Our mayor, whom we do support, has a lot to deal with in a rural village in the middle of nowhere in southern Andalusia but the one thing she is rather paranoid about is bad publicity.  Suddenly, I was summoned to a town hall meeting whereupon I was apologised to and then scolded for daring to question the local party’s commitment to equality. 

The ‘misunderstanding’ has now been resolved and the town hall have now advertised for any interested girls in the local area to sign up for free football training sessions.  It remains to be seen if any take up the offer.

I hope they do.  I like coaching since it is one of the very few things that I am good at and I miss it.  Coaching has provided me with so many memories over the years and I have missed that engagement in the past year.  Watch this space…

Anyroadup, I sense that my desire to get involved reflected the wish of Sonalee and I to be more than just bloody foreigners.  We have discussed, many times, what we could do to get stuck into the life of the village and become more respected.

You have to understand that, from the viewpoint of many villagers we are absolutely loaded – no one knows where that came from and that we have no interest in getting involved.   Our friend Jan shot that second one down when she stood for the local socialist party in the village elections.  That she didn’t actually realise she had been nominated as one of the prospective candidates is neither here nor there.  She merely believed she was helping out.

Anyway, Jan quickly became aware of the politics of a small village and how locals can see foreigners as taking over as opposed to simply helping.  Many people here treat their roles in the life of the village as their own fiefdom which is never to be challenged, especially by a foreigner.  It would be fair to say that Jan was surprised by the sudden antipathy towards her by many.

Sonalee has kindly explained to me that my offer to coach can be interpreted as an attack on the current people in charge of such things; that it may be seen as knocking whatever structures have been put in place already.  In short, people would get uppity about it.

It is the way of things.  In Sri Lanka we found out that foreign coaches of teams made for a great target for local coaches who feared embarrassment at being beaten by a suddha.  It got quite ugly several times but you get used to it.  I kind of forgot that it might also be pertinent here; that fear of being embarrassed by a foreign person.

There was less of sense of that in Portugal but I do remember thinking everyone was wondering who this English twat was that wanted to coach football when, clearly, Portuguese coaches were far superior.  It took a few weeks but they all came round to the idea that, actually, I knew what I was doing despite being English. 

And there you have a kind of microcosm of what being a foreigner is like, that you always have to prove yourself in some way to become more accepted by those that dislike or distrust foreign people.  It is the way of things wherever I have lived and perfectly natural in many respects. 

Foreigners who go to live in any other country are always considered to be outsiders.   Always considered to be a bit strange to leave the bosom of their home country.  Always looked upon with some kind of suspicion or even disdain.

What to do?

Well, drive across Spain for the New Year, obviously.  To get to Bilbao we have to pretty much do the whole of the south to north of the country.  This takes eleven hours.  It is not nice.  It is extremely boring.  My god, is it boring!   There is nothing exciting about the terrain of central Spain except, possibly, the mountains of the Sierra Norte which we revisited on our way north.

Bilbao is an amazing city.  One of our favourites and not just because it is the spiritual home of my god-daughter.  We like the pintxo culture of bars and cafes.  We love the riverside and how could you not admire the Guggenheim, which sits like a gleaming affirmation of the daring of the Basque people? The white wine is pretty good as well. 

But the thing that we love most of all is being part of a family and not being foreigners just for a few days.  My best friend’s in-laws are such welcoming people and they have embraced me as part of their extended family ever since I became the godfather of one of their precious daughters.  That they immediately welcomed Sonalee when they met her has only increased our sense that they couldn’t give a toss where we come from because we are family and that is all that matters.

It’s quite nice to feel like that in this foreign land.

We spent New Year’s Eve in a Txocho (my spelling of it is terrible) which is a small fully-fitted members only meeting hall whilst trying various local and national dishes followed by failing to stuff twelve grapes down your gullet in time with the chimes from the clock in central Madrid – the grape thing is traditional and seemingly natural to all Spaniards in the execution thereof.   

It was great.  One of the more memorable entries into a new year that we have. 

It has also meant that there are a lot more photos for this blog since the Guggenheim alone is worth twenty snapshots; what an incredible building!  I apologise. 

I need to stop.  Hasta Luego, inshallah

Ciao

Ayubowan

Paul

PS:   Haven’t heard this for a long time.   This is pretty good as well and not unbelievable