Spanish News: Perhaps No News is Good News

Yesterday, at a meeting of the Congress of Attorneys in Cadiz, Gregorio Peces Barba, former President of the Spanish Congress, made a couple of interesting comments concerning Catalunya.

First he said,

            What would have happened if we had gone with the Portuguese and without the Catalans?  Maybe things would have gone better.

Coming from someone high up in the Socialist party, the party of the nation’s President Jose Rodriguez Zapatero, this is not a statement to inspire national unity nor very respectful to Catalunya.  He went on later to add, after a comment that Spain is fragmented with people seeking independence, that he is not pessimistic:

            We are better off than in other times.  I don’t know how many times we had to bombard Barcelona.  I think this time we can resolve the problem without having to bomb Barcelona.

I sincerely hope I am not living here if those bombs from Madrid ever arrive because in the Spanish constitution is says that the army has the responsibility to maintain the unity of Spain.  Many in the military (and also not in the military) take that to mean they will attack any area that wants to secede.  Is this a not-so-veiled threat from the Socialist party to the Catalans who want independence?  Or just a thoughtless remark from a person of high standing in one of the country’s two largest political parties?

On another Spanish note, we have the issue of the 300,000 babies that were stolen from their mothers upon giving birth in hospitals and given to families more appealing to the Franco regime.  Looking into various crimes committed during the Franco regime is not legal in Spain.  It was what got the Supreme Court Judge Garcon removed from the bench.  Luckily, there are others who are also interested in some of these crimes.  Here is a short video report on the stolen babies.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/around-the-world-abc-news/ninos-rabados-spain-stolen-children-135154171.html

Sell, Sell, Sell!

My desire to sell my house turned into a need and has now become an obsession.  I don’t think obsessions are a good thing, but there you are.  Might as well call it what it is.

Under normal conditions, this house would be easy to sell.  It’s cute.  It has a lovely garden and pool.  It’s a two-minute walk to the sea.  It’s well priced.  Lots of agents are peddling it (there are no exclusive listings here and no MLS).  And furthermore, the owner is willing to negotiate.

But the market is lousy.  It’s not only that prices have dropped (and so has mine), but that there are not many buyers.  Those buyers who are out there need to have lots of cash because the banks aren’t giving much in the way of mortgages.  And yet there are buyers out there and some of them do buy.

One realtor told me it will take five to ten years to sell.  That’s not a realtor I care to talk to often or that has the right attitude to get the deed done.  After all, a buyer could walk through the door tomorrow and how the heck does he know that one won’t?  The truth of it is, a realtor needs several buyers in the course of a year in order to make a living.  But I need only one.  One qualified buyer to see my house and fall in love with it, or see it as the good rental-income property that it is, and voila!

The cats don’t give me any encouragement because they don’t really want to move.  The two words “move” and “cats” don’t fit well together.  The apartment we will all be moving to will probably be small, but there will be windows and I’ll get them a big indoor cat tree and they’ll be happy.  After all, it beats being an orphan, wounded, and living out on the street.  So really they shouldn’t complain no matter what kind of digs I provide for them.  And sweet cats that they are, once they get over the car journey to wherever we move, they’ll be just fine.  I know they will.

So please, think “sell, sell, sell.”  And send me your good wishes or karma, or pray that I sell the house soon, very soon.  Thanks!

Spain's Secret Conflict

Today, rather than write, I am providing a link (below) to an excellent video (provided to me by my good friend Trini) that addresses the issues of Catalan independence and does it extremely well.  It is titled Spain's Secret Conflict, it's in English and easy to understand, however, it is 40 minutes long, so you need to set aside some time to watch it.  If you are at all interested in the issue of Catalan independence, Catalan relations to the rest of Spain, or just modern Spain in general, I highly recommend that you watch this.

Briefly, some of the topics covered are:

1. That within what is supposed to be a democratic country, a referendum on the subject of independence is not allowed by the Spanish government
2. That the extreme right is the main driving force behind anti-Catalan sentiments and misinformation
3. That several of the current EU nations became independent by the process of referendum and are now viable countries
4. That although it is constantly criticized for not paying its way and being selfish, Catalunya actually enjoys less benefits from the general taxes it collects (which are sent to Madrid and then reapportioned) than other Spanish communities
5. That the strong feeling behind those who maintain that Spain is indivisible reaches irrational, religious fervor, with people saying “One Spain blessed by God, great and free!

A question that isn’t dealt with and that I have wondered for years is why, if Catalunya is so vigorously disliked by the rest of Spain, do the Spaniards not want it to separate and go off by itself?

http://vimeo.com/24052492

Spanish Mortgage

Even capitalist countries tend to reject the practice of systematic usury.  If bankers don’t, governments usually do by imposing limits to protect (at least somewhat) consumers.  Spain, however, as Catholic as it might be, has been comfortable with usuary embedded into its system of mortgages.  At least it did until today. 

Today Spain, or at least Catalunya, made a pass at leaving its outdated and usurious practice concerning mortgages behind and joining the enlightened world.  Today a court tribunal in Girona ruled that the owner of an apartment that was repossessed and sold at auction by the bank, now owes the bank nothing.  This is something new here.

You might think that of course the former owes nothing once his property is repossessed.  But that hasn’t been so here in Spain.  Here, when you obtain a mortgage, you are not only using the property as collateral, your total personal worth is also part of it.  What had happened with this owner, and what happens with every property owner in Spain who has a mortgage and his property is repossessed by the bank, is that the owner still owed the bank the money.  The amount the property sold for at auction was deducted from the original value at the time of purchase and the property owner owed the remainder.  In this case, it was over 100,000 euros, and the bank had taken steps to put a lien on the owner’s salary.

This is the first court decision giving the right to the property owner who loses his property to lose no more than the actual property that is mortgaged.  Until today, in the case of repossession during a period of time when prices have fallen, the owner lost his home and still owed.  There was no way out of this forced and unfair debt.  Usury is nothing compared to this.  For the average person, it meant being left without a home and owing money forever for the home that the bank now owned and perhaps had resold.  It has made me very worried about my own situation, owning a house I can’t afford to keep and not being able to sell it either.

I understand that this decision, which took place in Catalunya, will stand as a precedent for future court decisions and the application (or change) of the law in all of Spain.

Well good.  One more small step forward.  Perhaps next, someone will take a look at the local governments who take private property, paying little or nothing for it to the owners, and turn it over to private developers.  If the First World contains those countries who embrace capitalism and the Second World those who subscribe to communism, Spain seems to still sit firmly in the Third World.

This afternoon, after writing the above post, I went to a party.  Most of the people there were British plus one Dutch guy and one American couple.  From my English friend Dorothy I learned that mortgages work the same way in England.  If your house is repossessed, you still owe the full amount of the loan, which can be reduced by the amount that the bank sells it for.  I couldn’t believe it.  England allows such a barbaric way of doing mortgages?  Then from across the table, Hans told me it’s the same in The Netherlands.  What!  The Netherlands too?  Yes, said Hans.  In fact, he said, it is the same all over Europe.

I follow the news here in Catalunya regularly.  Ever since coming here, I’ve always made it a point to know and to try to understand what goes on around me.  But I never knew that about the rest of Europe.  My first thought was to rewrite the post now that I know that Spain isn’t the only country with kind of mortgage practice, but then I thought, no.  I’ll just leave it as I wrote it, and add this note at the end.  The people at the party all seemed to think that this was normal.  But from an American perspective, or at least from mine, it’s outrageous.  It’s interesting, though, to see how much one’s assumptions are based on the society from where one comes.  

You Can't Have It All

Yesterday as I was watching the news at midday, the electric box switch clicked and the television went off.  I went to look and it wasn’t the main switch, it was the one marked swimming pool, which also happens to include all of the living room and much of the rest of the downstairs, but not everything.  Whoever arranged the switch box was not particularly logical or organized.  They paired the pool with much of the downstairs, but the refrigerator is on a different switch.  Like many things, it is chaotic.  I haven’t made a survey of the rest of the house since it is almost always either the pool or the hot water heater that gives me grief.

I had turned on the pool control earlier in the day when I noticed that the pool was turning green.  I had had a leak and George, who maintains the pool, had come in and repaired it.  It looked like everything was done, paving stones beautifully relaid, but he had forgotten to turn the motor back on.  Well, perhaps it was best that I leave it off until he got back from his short vacation.  How green could it get in three days, and anyway, it wouldn’t work if it kept short-circuiting.

Later, at around 1 am when I woke up to turn over (or maybe a cat woke me up so that he or she could turn over) I heard the switch go again.  But the pool was off.  What could it be now?

Flashlight in hand, I went downstairs to take a look at the breaker box and this time it was the main switch that had plopped down.  Now it couldn’t be the pool because I had turned it off.  Surely this was a mistake.  I flipped the switch back on, tested a light, waited a few seconds, and headed back to bed.

As soon as I got to the bedroom I heard the switch click.  Back down I went, turned off the pool switch, flipped the main switch back on and went back up to bed.  Once again, as soon as I got to bed I heard a click.  This time I decided the switch had won.  I would sleep through the night without electricity, hope for the best with what was in the fridge, and deal with it in the morning.

Morning brought to light the fact that water was dripping, drop by drop, from the hot water heater. A call to my electrician brought him almost immediately.  But unfortunately the part needed to fix it didn’t come today because it’s 7:30 and he hasn’t returned to repair it as he said he would if he got the part in time.  It would be tough to have to go the weekend without hot water, he said.  This is true.

What’s more, the swimming pool was causing a short circuit and the pump had to remain off until Monday at least.  It is getting greener by the minute.

It seems you can’t have it all.  I can have electricity but no hot water for the time being, and I still have a pool, but it’s green instead of blue.  

Divorce!

For the third and last time in my life, I am divorced.  I’ve been on both sides of a divorce and I’ve never figured out which side felt worse.  I also never thought it would happen again.  But it was Manuel who decided that he wanted a divorce, I just filed the petition rather than wait for him to do it.

When he told me he wanted a divorce, I found myself some free counseling help.  I had no idea what to do.  I would probably qualify for free legal help, so I went ahead and applied and got assigned an attorney to take my case – the same woman who had been my counselor at the Women’s Help Center.  It’s apparently a small world over there in Tortosa.

It could have been a lot easier and less painful if we had come to terms at the beginning.  But the two of us met once with my attorney and didn’t come to any agreement, and Manuel got himself an attorney too, but his was expensive.  It would have been standard procedure for his attorney to contact mine and the two would see if they could negotiate an agreement for their clients.  But his attorney never did that.  Instead, he filed a response and the two attorneys put on battle gear.

My two previous divorces in the US were both done out of the Nolo Press Do Your Own Divorce book.  They were simple and no property or alimony was involved.  But this time I needed alimony to survive.  There is no way I could get a job in Spain at my age and in this economy.  And there is no Nolo Press here. 

My attorney is a woman’s rights supporter.  What she doesn’t like to do is explain things.  In the middle of the process I decided to change attorneys and hire someone who would listen to me and would explain when I didn’t understand something.  After all, it’s my divorce and my life and I want to understand what is going on.  But she quickly nixed my attempt to change, saying I would have to pay big bucks to her if I did.  I couldn’t afford that, so I dropped it.  At our next meeting I received a severe scolding and very long lecture on how the client doesn’t need to understand all the legalities and procedures, just as the patient doesn’t need to understand the doctor.  Clients and patients need to leave these matters in the hands of the professionals.  Not a Nolo Press mentality.

Clearly this woman had never worked with an American before.  Since I seemed to be stuck with her and I wanted to get the divorce finished, I did my best to placate her, apologized several times, and eventually we got on with it.

In my petition for divorce, my attorney asked for a sum much larger than I knew Manuel could afford and more than I had originally asked him for before I started the legal process.  I thought it made me look greedy and assumed it was a bargaining ploy.  Manuel’s response (probably dictated by his attorney) was that he would agree to no alimony at all.  No alimony would also mean no Spanish widow’s pension later if Manuel were to die before me.  In addition, the response said that although we had been married 12 years, we had never actually lived together.  This came as a shock.  Surely the judge wouldn’t believe that.  If my attorney made me look greedy his made him look dishonest.  Too bad we couldn’t just speak for ourselves.

Our hearing was scheduled for 18 July, but at the last moment was postponed.  In Spain, they don’t do divorce (or any civil suit) in August.  Except for the criminal courts, judges are all off on vacation for the month.  No new date had been set, but it certainly wouldn’t be before September. 

Months before, as soon as she had filed the petition, my attorney gave me strict instructions never to talk to Manuel about the divorce and never to agree to anything.  If there was to be any negotiating, it had to be done via the two attorneys.  But I was fed up, and the attorneys had never spent one minute negotiating.

When summer was over, I called Manuel and suggested that we meet and talk about the divorce.  It didn’t take us long to come to an agreement.  This negotiation should have taken place a long time back.  It would have saved a lot of money and a lot of bad feeling.  I don’t know if we had gone to court if the judge would have favored me or Manuel in his decision.  What I do know is that Manuel offered a sum he was comfortable with, and I proposed an additional ten euros, to round off the number, and he accepted that.  It’s less than I had originally asked him for, but it’s an amount he feels is fair and so he won’t resent it for the rest of his life.  I’ll figure out how to make it work.  Selling my house is key.

Before we actually signed the agreement, his attorney told mine he wanted changes.  My attorney called to tell me and warned me not to talk to Manuel about it.  Why not?  It seemed to me that we did much better talking than not talking.  And besides, this was our divorce, not theirs, so why should they make up the agreement ignoring what we had agreed upon?  I told her I wouldn’t call and then hung up and called Manuel.  And I was right.  His attorney was demanding things he had not discussed with Manuel.  Once again we ironed it out and finally, after several days of delay, we signed this Wednesday.  The judge decreed it final the next day.  I’ve been a third-time divorcee for one day now.

More Castells

Castells – the human towers that the Catalans make -- are so special that I think they deserve another mention here.  Castells are unique to Catalunya.  As an expression of Catalan culture, they stand for working as a team, making an effort while enabling the spirit of personal achievement.

A team (called a colla, which means a group) might have dozens and sometimes hundreds of members.  The members vary in age from about 5 to over 80.  It is one of the very rare activities, outside of family gatherings, and probably the only sport, that brings people of such disparate ages together.

There are 7000 castellers (people who make castells) belonging to 54 colles.  Altogether they make 16,000 castells in a year.  The groups compete starting in spring and running through summer.  They perform at the festa major (the festival honoring the patron saint of the town) of their own town or village and are invited to perform at festes majors in other towns as well.  Every time a team performs, it is competing.  The teams get points for the difficulty of the construction and how well they pulled it off, that is to say, whether they succeeded in building it all the way up, and then were able to dismantle it without falling apart.

The large base upon which the rest of the tower is built is called a pinya (which also means pineapple).  To fer pinya (make the pinya) has come to mean to work together in Catalan, an expression that originated in this sport and has become part of normal speech.  It is usual to see people from other colles helping make another team’s pinya, thus enlarging upon the meaning of cooperation.  You can tell from the colors of the shirts at the base when other teams join in.

It’s the small children who climb to the top.  This top can be as high as nine or ten storeys in the best of the castells.  One of the videos below shows what that looks like if you’re up there looking down.  From my perspective of standing on the ground looking up, I have to say that seeing those people, with the small child as the final climber, reach the top and lift his or her hand with four fingers up (representing the four bands of the Catalan flag) it quite simply takes my breath away.

As someone who is not happy past the second rung of a ladder, I can’t imagine standing on the shoulders of another person, who is also standing on the shoulders of another person, etc. on the eighth storey of this living tower.  How do they do it?  They practice and practice and practice.  And either they are fearless or they overcome their fear.  They also practice falling and, those below, how to receive the falls.  

The accompanying music is always the same, played by two or more gralles (shrill-sounding wooden flutes) and a small drum.  If I hear that music, even from another room when the television is on, it brings tears to my eyes.  It seems that some people cry in response to things they find very beautiful, and I’m one of those.

Last year (2010) Catalunya succeeded in its bid to UNESCO to have Castells entered on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list.  Flamenco and the Chant of the Sybil from Majorca were also included on the list that year.

Any performance is always more moving in person, but if you can’t get here to see one, or if you’ve seen it before and just want to see it again from the comfort of your own home (like I sometimes do with operas) use the links below.  Don’t forget while you’re watching that the pinya, the foundation, is on ground level and isn’t visible through the crowd.  If you’re counting, don’t forget to include it! 

If you want to read or reread my earlier post on Castells, here’s the link for that.

Video Links of Castells:

This video, from the UNESCO site, was prepared by the Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan government) as part of their application for Intangible Cultural Heritage status in 2010.  You have to scroll part way down the page and the click on “video” to see the film which is almost 10 minutes long.  After a minute, before the narration beings, the cap de colla (head of the team) is shouting out to his group saying they’ve done it!  They made a 4 by 9, which means the tower was of four people on each level and the whole castle was 9 storeys high.  It’s only at the end with the credits that you hear the music that always accompanies the performance.  Actually, the music begins after the pinya is made (sometimes there is a second smaller pinya atop the first called a folre, and for the tallest and heaviest, sometimes even a smaller third called les manilles), and the cap de colla decides he has a viable structure going.  So, if you watch the video and want to hear the music and get the sense of the whole thing, watch it to the very end! 

http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00011&RL=00364

Filmed by Mike Randolph, the 3-minute video below has no narration, but the music is there and it shows some of the castles falling apart. Shot in Tarragona in the bi-yearly competition held in the bullring, it’s a good place to shoot because at the festes you stand on the ground and can’t get the same good angles as from the stands.  My best photos are also from that bullring (the only time I’ve ever entered a bullring!).

http://vimeo.com/16392519

This 5-minute BBC production was filmed in Vilafranca in 2010 before the UNESCO decision.  It begins with an advert and then goes into the program in which there are some errors in narration, she has no idea which team is which, (the green team is not the green team, it’s the Castellers de Vilafranca, always one of the top three teams and number one this year) but it’s a good video overall and allows you to get a good feel for the music.  My favorite shot is of the middle-aged casteller with the cigar!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11742399