No Country for the Blind
Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs, which can now be seen online (in Spanish) as well.
Germany is no place for the blind. Or at
least that’s what my brother-in-law said last Christmas Eve as we carefully
picked our way around the cars parked on the sidewalks through the poorly lit
semi-darkness that led towards the Rhine. We had been in the country for a few
days and we couldn’t help but reflect on some of the differences we were
noticing between his country of birth (Spain), my adopted home, and the land of BMW and
Mercedes Benz. Differences that might seem trivial or even haphazard, like the
overflowing rubbish bins that spill into the Christmas markets, but striking
enough for us to comment on. It was only about seven thirty in the evening but
it had already been dark for three hours and the only company we had on our
walk were the ferries loaded with coal that silently fought their way upstream
against the current. Of course, there were admirable things like their
anti-graft laws and innate aversion to corruption. Then there was
the Teutonic efficiency of the public transport and the seemingly endless array
of shops, but you can’t effectively compare the ex-capital of a country with an
overlooked, distant provincial capital, lost on the fringes of Portugal. The
differences were in the little things, the things we take for granted in
Caceres and in Spain in general. The flat Coke they serve from open bottles,
the quickly poured beer with no tapa, and the mediocre glass of wine that I had to rob a bank
to pay for or and of course the lack of traffic signals for the visually impaired.
How we’re represented abroad and, somewhat ironically, who represents us do not
even come close to reflecting the reality we live here in Spain. The problem
starts if we start to believe the black legend ourselves. 2020 is looking like
a complicated year in which some serious decisions will have to be made but
from where I live, a slow train ride away from all that, my day to day life in Caceres
looks pretty good. The poor Germans can’t be blamed for their weather and I
could even overlook their fondness for jam on potatoes, but my life in Caceres,
no tengo nada que envidiar.
