back in america...

Wednesday, Feb 13th, 2008. That was Carme and my 9th wedding anniversary and we spent it crossing the international dateline on a German Airline. We were excited to get back to see our family and friends in the states but I was filled with more anxiety than I could handle.

I was already dreading the visit back after 6 months. I think it was too soon to return. Still I feel like I am trying to get things rolling and I had nothing to really show for it. Well actually I am realizing with each conversation I have with family members, all of them wanting to know how things are going, that I do have much to show.

The most important thing in life, well the one thing that most will say feeling it is the politically correct thing to say, is family is the most important thing. I love my family. I will protect them and care for them in ways indescribable. I am nothing without them and humbled just by their presence. But one thing I can say surely and with pride is how important this 6 month ride has solidified any feelings for my family unit, more so than I can possibly imagine. I spend more time with my family during the day that I cannot possibly fathom going back to any other way of living. I think that was one of my issues when I began working for my father in law. I never got to see my wife and son. I worked from 7am to 7pm and I was dying for some sort of connection to them having only been in Spain less than a few weeks and being overwhelmed with language issues. I never felt more l only than when I did that brief stint as a construction worker.

Still, the truth is becoming more and more self evident as the days go on. We cannot make a living in Spain at this current rate. I am not getting the customers I had hoped for, despite my in-laws’ feverish attempts at pulling on their circle of friends and acquaintances for more work for me. I am sure their motivation is true and strong but I am sure they feel that my efforts are not enough and they may lose their precious Carme and Alex to the evil American Empire that Carme so truly adores.

So after two weeks of American consumerism and a melting pot atmosphere, I can see the sadness in Carme's eyes as we prepare to take our flight back to Spain this Friday. I see her longing gazes into thin air as her mind races on what little we have in Spain and so much we could have again in America. The decision is being made in silence.

the prodigal son...

Tomorrow, I will be flying back with my family to America for a visit, pretty much 6 months from when we left. I am filled with mixed feelings and emotions and partially dreading this flight.

After 6 months here I have become, more noticeably, comfortable with the language. i notice I can "hear" it better it better than before as well as I think a bit faster. i say this is all due to practice and a lot of reading. Still I find it difficult to understand fully since my way of learning things are to read it and put my hands on it and there is no such luck in words floating from one´s mouth to my ears of accomplishing that feat. Still in time, i can only improve. Still i need to kick myself in speaking more often and with confidence. I just have to get over the reactions I have when i see people´s faces when they "scrunch" up thier faces while listening to me like they were reading a billboard 2 miles away like their lives depended on it.

I have since done more thigns to incorporate myself into daily life here. One of my biggest hurdles is the soccer team I have now. I am still struggling with basic things but that all due to the rapidness I have to say things. i do not have the luxury of thinking it over in my head and conjugating every words and polishing it before spitting it out. Still I feel the boys are very social and playful with me still so there is a little frustration. But they do not avoid conversations with me anymore.

I also was invited to play in an "old timers" game. this was a soccer match played on half of a field, for those older guys who enjoyed playing and wanted a bit of competition. I played with Jesus' team and we won 5-4. I scored 2 goals and had 2 assists in the first half so I felt pretty proud. So proud in the second half, their defense was more worried about me rather than my teammates enabling us to score more. Still there is not much to say about dribbling around 2 or 3 40 year old men. but one day i will be 40. Still I am working to open a monthly game since we seemed to have so much fun during the game.

Still my apprehension about going "home" tears me in half. I will have to see my mother cry when we leave again, her not knowing if we will return anytime soon. am still troubled with Carme's want to move back to the states and starting all over...yet again. Yes, we both can make a living in america and slowly build back up what we once had, but this time much smarter and more efficiently, but i wanted to give myself more tome here to fall in line with the culture and language. I know I will not be able to return to Spain again.

Why can't we return to Spain? Well we don't want to shake alx up too much even though he seems to be growing well here in Spain. he will it in just fine in America being that he speaks english with no issues. But there is a lingering feeling of racism here in Spain. Sometimes racism can be mistaken for the mere distrust and dislike for immigrants who mostly are African. You have to wonder if the treatment I get here is because of my darker skin and facial features. But my conversations with a few hear make me wonder. Spain has been such a closed sociaty siince the 1930's due to their dictator Franco, that it will take some time for Spain to be a true international comunity. Still I look at America and we still have our issues but that was based on slavery, Jim Crow, Civil Rights and so forth.

We will see how I feel once I return...stay tuned.

It´s been a crazy week...

So it´s been a crazy week. I think in the span of seven days I have gained a few more grey hairs and learned quite abit about the catalans arounds me. Some of the week has been worthy of a smile and snicker and other events...well let´s just say some adjustments have to be put in place. I will let you decide if i decide to write about it. For now...the smiles:

This weeks´s game was a very important one. Not that any game is to be taken lightly, but the team we played stomped us 7-0 in the second week of play. In the game of soccer, any team can beat another on any day. All that is needed is Jupiter to be aligned with Mars, the barometric pressure to rise or the stock market to take a plunge for some unforseen force to seperate one team from the others. Unfortunately, the first game was played in their home field. The field was made solely of leveled dirt. The game soccer balls seems to be made of some super rubber. I missed most of the game from the bench as a cloud of agitated dirt seem to rise ofver any action making it near impossible to view from one side of the field to the other. To make matters worse, the referee, unfairly, gave David (the keeper) a red card (that means expulsion) in the first 10 minutes of the game for a handball outside of the penalty area. David was trying to clear a ball and it got away from him. Momentum carried him over the line as an opponent struck the ball on goal. The ball bounced off David´s left arm and he recived a straight red car (rather than two yellow cards for two occasions which equal a red). Still afterwards, the ref gave the other team a penalty kick. If David was out of the box then how could the fault happen in the box for a penalty. Penalty kicks are like free throws in basketball. They are "gimme points" but if you are Shaq, they are a struggle. Even the best players have missed thier chances at scoring or, worse, missed the goal entirely. For the keeper...it is the epitamy of the mindset of a keeper. Think about it...your sole jobe is to not let the team get scored on. Sure you can use your hands but sometimes you need about 8 more sets of hands. And the story being told, we only had one keeper that game as Coris was away on a ski trip. So with one man down, we decided to put Oscar in the goal. Oscar is a few inches taller than me and solid as can be. But can he stop a goal...remember the score was 7-0.
So fast forward to now and how we prepared for this game. I spent a lot of time watching the boys and how they performed and tried to mend up any knocks and bruises. I spent a lot of time planning on defensive manuevers and some attacking formations. Being that we practice from 8:30pm to 10:30pm, a lot of warm up activities in our near freezing rainy nights.
So now it´s game time and I am amped. The boys are amped. and then the whistle blew. After some back and forth, we had a few attempts at goal but nothing brought a goal. Kader, who normally could out dribble their whole team, was not on his game and didn´t get a shot off. And as usual, Sebastain, the team hothead and fastest attacker, was getting frustrated. Still the halftime whistle blew and we were off to the dressing rooms.
After the break, the game when back and forth as usual. Their team started to make some headway and on their firt real chance attacking our side of the field netted a goal for them. They celebrated and I tried my best to find out what happened as I was speaking with Sebastian about some changes on the front line and getting our substitutions ready to come in.
Just then, there was an injury on the field, and I prepared to run out wiht the ref´s approval. As I made my way across, I saw Benito, also an incredible ball handler, slowly making his way to his feet. We spoke for a minute then made his way off the feild. after a few moments he seemed to spring back to live and entered the game.
As I made my way around the field and past the opposing team´s goal keeper, I prayed that no injuries manifested at the other side of the goal, I am too old to make that run. Luckily I made my way back to my bench just in time to see Ferry get fouled in the penalty area. Benito set up to take the penalty kick and he was spot on! now we are tied with 20 minutes left to go in the game. A definte nail biter!
The game went and on and seemed to be destined for a tie. tHe crowd...oh my gosh...the crowds here are an unruly bunch. I can´t understand everything, but the tone of speech is not one of niceness and support. I guess I am downplaying a bit...it was darn right hostile!

Just then, a scramble in their penalty box was building and after a few attempts the ball popped back out and our efforts seemed wasted and lost. But still soccer is a sport of being in the right place at the right time...and there was Oscar to send in a low and hard shot into the far post. In slow motion, the ball seemed to find a whole thru a multitude of bodies all taken by suprise at the fierceness of the screaming shot. A desperation yell and dive from their keeper told the tale of nearly stopping the ball´s entering into the net but his fingertips had not caused much of a defelction but just enough to put the ball off its course. The ball rattled the inside of the post and danced along the goal line. Now a goal is not officially scored unless the complete ball has crossed completely over the 3 inch wide painted line. as the keeper dove to his right the ball traveled off the post and travelled to the other post and slowly tipped itself into a clear goal. The boys lost thier mind in celebrating. The anger filled thier opponents and as I looked at the clock ticking away, their celebration was taking just long enough to piss the opponents off.
So 5 minutes left on the clock and surely some extra time to be added on by the ref. Now the game plan was to shut down the opponents and take any chance we could to further our newly created gap. To waste a little time, Jose fially got the call to come into the game. To his defense, no player wants to come into a game at this point but he is a team player and he knew his job. the other team were a bit wreckless and brutal and the boys were not liking it very much. Just as I saw the clock his the final minute, Jose got into a 1 on 1 situation with an opponent. Jose was not backing down and bumped the player as he frantically tried to not lose the ball in his defending half. the opponent turned and delivered a nice elbow into jose´s chin, mostly out of frustration. But in a blink of an eye, a second elbow was delivered to Jose´s jaw as he reeled from the realization of what was happening. Then it all slowed to a snails pace for me.

I saw Jose´s step to the guy as he stepped back to prepare for the thunder Jose was about to deliver. The ref blew the whistle denoting a foul and was running over to the action and before anyone could stop it, Jose through a right hand cross and connected with the other players jaw, to even the score i would say. Well I knew then Jose was getting the red card for 5 minutes of work. But the red card never got a chance to be shown as the benches cleared. I admit i hesitated joing in the melee, only from my american upbringing as Nurture has taught me not to run into a fight as there might be someone with a gun! But wait...I am in Spain...worse case someone has a knife.

SO i ran into the mess, my first objective was to get to Jose and make sure he was not being hurt by more than one person. I tossed bodies by the wayside with ease. I am not sure if it was adrenaline or that I was living up to my namesake of Big Hoss 9000. Still it felt good to toss around a few bodes like I was in Wrestlemania XXI. When I reached Jose, seemingly he was more than fine. a bit winded but smiling amid the chaos.
Soon cooler heads prevailed as I spent some time calming Danny (Jose´s older brother who was a spectator) and Sebastain (who got knocked down and kicked in the head during the scuffle) but we got the other team off to their showers and I settled up with the ref. Were there any red cards..no. Actually the ref called the game at that point and got the hell out of there. Still I am a bit embarrased as the boys showed me their bruised knuckles as they took the opportunity to get in a few licks.
When it was all said and done, felt like I was part of the team moreso now. I felt that the other members of the club looked up to me for protecting my kids and being for Tossa. I felt the pats on my back from unknown hands and knowing looks from that today and still I am feeling this today. It´s a good feeling.

Pelegrí (pilgrim) de Tossa

Tossa de Mar is a small town rich with history. Today I witnessed something quite amazing as a testimate to human faith and determinations. A little back story shall we...

During the 15th century, when a plague devastated a number of coastal towns, the inhabitants of Tossa promised to send a pilgrim every year to the hermitage of Sant Sebastià, in the town of Santa Coloma de Farners, to give thanks for having driven the epidemic away. The vow has been kept for over five hundred years. The chosen pilgrim, garbed in a short cape decorated with seashells, travels the forty kilometres which separate the two towns in total silence, accompanied by approximately one thousand people. The walk lasts a whole day, with the procession arriving at Santa Coloma by sundown. Next morning the entourage sets out for the return trip and, back in Tossa, the pilgrim is met by a procession which marches alongside the town's torch lit ramparts.

Carme called me around 6:15pm this evening to come witness the return of the pilgrim. So I quickly snatched up my camera ad headed toward the meeting spot. The entire town of tossa and a sizeable amount of tourists, lined the streets to witness the return of the pilgrim and all of his followers. Not sure what to expect, I kept my eyes open and my mouth shut.

Having Carme ,lead the way, she would drop a few stories about her experience with this event but quickly following her words with "I have not lived here in 10 years so I am not sure". I felt inclined to ask her where she had lived for the past 10 years since obviously I was not aware of her return to this small town. I guess she just did not want me to catch her in an untruth if she could not remember every fact completely.

The pilgrim is a male, over the age of 18 who was born in and still lives in Tossa de mar. Upon birth, I hear some parents will register their son´s name at the local city government office in hopes in the next 18 years, there son will have a chance. And we know Alex has no chance in hell unless all the boys go off to war or something. and I find it funny that it can only be a boy. sure they want to keep historical accuracy but why don´t they have a darker skinned baby jesus in the manger, huh?

The pelegrí is kept quiet until it is announced the day of the pilgimmage. Like it states before, this has gone on for 500 years and sure to go on longer. A promise was made and the people of tossa plan to keep it. The chosen one is adorned in a outfit adorned with sea shells and sets off on his 40km walk in total silence, accompanied by sometimes hundred of more devote followers. The reason for the others to follow is to keep a promise. A promise to God. For instance you might promise God to make the trek if you were to heal your sick son. To explain how devoted and grand of an idea this is, some do the entire trek barefooted. You know, keeping with historical accuracy. The following day the procession does the return trip back to Tossa, entering into the city by sundown. This is where the experiance picks up for me.

The family and I headed to the castle to wait for the procession to pass. I noticed many people carrying long candles and Carme noted that these people are the escorts. The line the passageways with their candles as the proocession makes it way thru the city to the church to report the completion of the promise. Outside the church, people were lining the streets as a handful of people prepared the fires. The only way to describe the fires is that they mount these metal baskets and fill them with more than enough firewood douced in lighter fluid of some sorts. These baskets are suspended about 15-20ft high and are lit with a long post with a blazing fire on one end. The sound of the wood lighting is reminiscent of a hugh gas leak igniting. The wooshing of air as the fire lit instantly made the whole crowd jump. with the anticipation of the pelegrí, we were on edge and I could not tell you why.

Then over the loudspeakers, which I had not noticed before but could have been mounted for this purpose, a man began chanting prayers to God. This felt surreal and mystifying as his voice cackled over the loudspeakers. Soon the chanting stopped and you felt a wave of energy fill the crowd. Familiar sounds of hushing was directing at playing little ones and the beginning of the candle bearing escorts were making their way thru the street to the church. Another puse for the procession as the voice over the intercom filled our ears and head with more prayers. Finally the group of 1500, including the pelegrí were allowed to enter the church.

As the group moved along, there was a sense of appreciation from the crowd and a since of pity for those who sacrificed themselves for the sake of a promise. Familiar eyes met mine as they shared a soft knowing smile with me. I would like to think with my smile I am showing them the appreciation for sharing thier culture with me. I think some were suprised I was visible at this event and it only paions me I am not able to express the awesomeness of this event for me. Still it's much more appreciated and understood on my part when you have famliarity with some of the people who were participating in this event. It gave a sense of depth to it all, even if I did not personally know the pelegrí.

The moving part for me was seeing the thousands of followers. Sure the clergy were in their finest and the pelegrí looked regal and grand in his costume, but the most moving part was yet to come. Groups of followers passed by walking on cold and unforginving ancient stone roads barefoot. This showed me the dedication and faith that man could hold onto during a serious journey.