A Foot in Two Campos

My fifth Christmas in Spain.  I thought that must be wrong, but it’s not.  Four and a half years since I bought my house, three and a half years since I retired and moved here full-time.  Such a short time, yet it feels like forever.

It’s the little things that tug me back to the “old” life.  December comes round, and the shops fill with Christmassy food.  Common sense and rational thought disappear, and my hand instinctively reaches out for a bar of Pan de Higos, fig cake.  Mum’s favourite.  I never visited Spain without bringing her back a bar.  Sometimes I remember before picking it up, sometimes it gets as far as the basket before reality hits home and I put it back.  Four and a half years since she died.  My head and my heart know it, but there’s something in the body’s memory that programmes the muscles to reach for fig cake.

I unpack the box of Christmas decorations.  Each piece has a memory – a little glass tree that reminds me of Winchester Christmas market with my friend Jo, who I have known her whole life, 56 years of my life;  a little nativity scene from my German grandmother;  some elves and choristers which my mother put out every year;  the “Scrabble” letters lit up in my study window, spelling out “Navidad” outside and “Christmas” inside, a gift from Margaret;  and finally the Spanish addition, a Papá Noel climbing a rope outside the house to an upstairs balcony.  An eclectic mix of traditions, coming out of their box each December, reviving memories, good memories.

A year ago, a woman I had never met, living 20 kilometres away towards Torre del Mar, messaged me via a Facebook group to say she’d had an idea after reading my blog post about Los Ángeles Malagueños de la Noche.  She wanted to help homeless people by “selling” socks on her market stall, which the buyer then donated back with a sticker to say it was a gift.  It worked brilliantly well, and over 600 pairs of socks were “sold” over Janet’s stall and donated to Los Ángeles.  Since then, her brilliant idea grew, and this Christmas we were able to deliver over 100 filled sponge bags, lots of cash donations, multiple car-loads of clothing and bedding, and a huge stock of new toys to be given to the children on Kings’ Day on January 5th.  We now have a wide network of collection points and half a dozen drivers.  And whenever a “foreigner” turns up to deliver at Los Ángeles, the volunteers there ask “¿Amigo de Tamara?” and the answer is usually “¡Sí!”.  The founder of the charity included us in his radio interview this Christmas, mentioning a large network of extranjeros who collect for Málaga’s homeless people.
 

I also clocked up almost a year volunteering at the charity-run day centre next to Málaga town hall’s homeless hostel, but as this year turns to the next, we closed the doors of our portakabin for the last time.  A lack of funding meant the charity could no longer subsidise the Málaga service to the detriment of the other centres where the local town hall does make a contribution to costs.  Mostly I was sad for the service-users.  Without our day centre their world may shrink into just the hostel.  And now there is nothing for the rough sleepers who aren’t in the hostel.  Sad too for the four workers there, who had welcomed me so warmly into their team and from whom I had learned so much.  Sad for me – I had enjoyed my Tuesdays there and had felt useful.  Though the social worker at the hostel has asked if she can still count on me when a British person in the hostel needs a passport sorted.  Of course she can – it would be a waste to ignore the useful contacts I’ve made at the British Consulate, now I’ve found my way round the system!
 

So, at the turn of another year, there is space for a new project.  I shan’t rush into anything, but have a few possibilities to consider!  Watch this space …
 

Christmas this year seemed a million miles and a million years away from those of my far distant past and even from my first Christmas here.  This year I led a guided tour of Málaga’s belenes (Nativity scenes) in Spanish for a multi-national Meetup group, and had two Spanish families behind us in the town hall queue to see the municipal belén thank me for a lot of information they hadn’t known!  Then a short weekend away in Granada with Emma, and finally La Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) with my neighbours, my Spanish “family”, before returning to British traditions and spending Christmas Day with good friends in the next village.
 

Five years ago I had no idea I would live here, nor that I would ever be comfortable chatting away in Spanish or spending an entire week without speaking a word of English aloud!   Five years ago I was working for charities and helping them manage their volunteers,  I never thought I’d be volunteering for two Spanish charities!   Five years ago I had no idea I was spending my last Christmas with my mum.  Five years ago I had no idea that I’d still be reaching out to buy her fig cake, pressing it tight against my chest for a moment before slowly putting it back, unneeded, on its shelf.  Many, many changes.  Almost all of them very good.

©  Tamara  Essex  2016                                                               http://www.twocampos.com

First of all it was remiss of me not to thank you all for the lovely thoughts and messages you sent following my heart attack.  I really did appreciate every one of them – “the kindness of strangers” means a lot.

Since then I’ve been doing a lot of catching up.  Trying to slow down, catching up with old friends, and catching up with long-delayed tasks.

After the last blog, it has been heart-warming how many people have wanted to help Grumpy Norman.  I have been offered shoes and books for him;  someone even offered to take him out for a meal.  I went to see the social worker the week after doing the two passport applications, and somewhat surprisingly received the money for both.  The ayuntamiento (town hall) refunded me the cost of Margaret’s application, and Norman himself had left the money for his (he receives his UK pension into his Spanish bank account).  He had also asked the social worker to thank me.  I was touched.  Leaving her office, the queue for lunch had begun to form and Norman was sitting in the row of chairs for the older residents and those with limited mobility.  I gave him three novels and he thanked me profusely, and repeated his thanks about the passport.  He’s easier to be with in the mornings, before he pops out for a “coffee” or two.
 

Belén is still working at Los Ángeles Malagueños de la Noche, though mostly supervising from a seated position as she now has only a fortnight or so to go before her baby is born.  The appeal for a buggy and baby clothes for her has widened the network of both donors and collectors for Los Ángeles, and now it is not only my little red car that makes the regular journey to the comedor (dining room) to unload sacks of clean second-hand clothes, but two vans as well that collect from the ever-generous extranjeropopulation of the Axarquía.
 

At the day centre we are preparing for Christmas, and at the same time preparing to close permanently.  With no grant having been forthcoming from the Ayuntamiento de Málaga for four years, the charity is unable to continue funding the Málaga service, when in the other dozen cities across Spain the local council at least contributes towards the costs.  The new volunteers I had recruited to take turns with me running the Tuesday English class (my strategy for cutting down on my commitments) have brought an artistic flair so we are making decorations for a Christmas tree while chatting in English and Spanish with los usuarios (the service-users).  The workshops have been successful in attracting some who have not previously participated in anything, which is simultaneously gratifying and frustrating – the day centre is ridiculously cheap to keep open yet its closure will leave people wandering aimlessly during the day instead of writing CVs, applying for training grants, applying for jobs, improving their English, learning bike maintenance, playing football, visiting art galleries, or writing, painting, or sculpting.
 

It’s been great to revive my intercambio language exchange meetings with Jose.  A weekly coffee, chat, catch-up and grammar debate, with the beaches of Pedregalejo offering a marker to the changing seasons.  Our cafe-bar is quieter, and it is easier to park now that the summer visitors have gone.  Over Jose’s shoulder the sea is dramatic, the waves crash in, and the earlier sunset over the cranes of Málaga provides a stunning backdrop.
 

Last week David came along too.  Good to catch up with him too, after his far-flung postings with the Guardia Civil in Lebanon and Afghanistan.   It is fascinating to hear about his work and the confusions that arise in these multi-national conflict zones where he liaises with military police from many countries, often using English as the common language, but sometimes struggling along in a mixture of half-understood languages.  Now back in Melilla he can visit his home in Málaga more often, see his family and his girlfriend, prepare for his next exam, email me his “writings” in English to correct and help me with my “writings” in Spanish.
 

In my Spanish lessons our theme for study and writing was “Refugees and Immigration”.  I wrote in Spanish the story of Yousef (1) and of Yousef (2), though I changed Syrian Yousef’s name to Sayid to save confusing the readers.  Syrian Yousef is still working in Germany, settled there with his young family.  Palestinian Yousef is back home with his wife and child in his village in Palestine, still hoping one day to bring them to Andalucía.  We speak regularly, and I really hope we will see each other again one day.
 

Facebook and Skype are the link back to the UK.  Friends never seem so far away when you know that Zara’s painting has been accepted for an exhibition, Margaret’s Christmas photoshoot went well, Olga’s cat returned safely, and Jane’s Christmas puddings are in the larder.
 

And in the callejon in Colmenar we welcomed the rains, much-needed to fill the dreadfully low reservoir.  Out come the braseros (flat, round heaters that go under the table, which is then covered with a shaped tablecloth that reaches the ground).  My neighbours opposite deal with their latest harvest, and watch the skies with professional interest.  The family next door with the coffee ever-ready on the stove drag me in as I pass, to catch up on news and to talk about the weather.  Why on earth do we imagine it is only the British who obsess about the weather?
 

The village works its way through the annual cycle of festivals.  Indoors, the wood-burning stove has been lit and the winter duvet has been dragged out of storage.  Another year meanders towards a close.

©  Tamara  Essex  2016                                                                      http://www.twocampos.com