Julia, la Inglesa

Trials by telephone

It has been a week of storms (thunder and lightning), and of dodgy technology, and if one is evidence of the gods, then the latter is almost sufficient evidence of Satan. Anyhow, as all other methods have failed, I have resorted to prayer as the only remaining way to connect to the Internet; it seems to have worked. It is an indictment of my faith that this was a last resort; but there you go, with religion, there are so many ways to fail.

About a week ago, I called Juanjo, the Telefonica engineer. Hallo, remember me, Julia, la Inglesa. A cautious yes. Well, the Internet here isn't working really, I said. Had I tried turning the power off? Yes, turning things off and back on again is about the only technology trick up my sleeve (as taught by my husband, the technology whizz). Are the lights on, he asked? I wasn't sure which lights; there are 3 sets. He said it was probably a question of power, if not. I said there was plenty of power in the house; the washing machine was on. Go and look at the little box, he said (I think it was "little box," but the "ita," "illa" endings can be confusing. The cat flap is a puertacilla, but the little wooden shutter on the door is a portigo, there is also a puertita somewhere about.) Well, I could have looked at the box, except that the phone goes dead when I walk in that direction. I said I would look at it and call him back, but he said, no, he would call me back. I forgot to ask when, not that there is much point here. Times are very vague, today can be tomorrow, and 2 can be 4, or even 2 tomorrow. Eventually I called him back. Hallo Juanjo, remember me, Julia, the Inglesa. Yes, he did. He had tested the line he said, there was nothing wrong with it. (I wonder why he didn't tell me this before I called, but this happens quite a lot.) It must be a problem with the computer. I said I had to work, did he have any ideas for fixing the Internet? He said he was very busy at present, but he would try and call by the house. Would he call first and let me know? I have learned this one - people like to turn up randomly when you are out. Of course, he said. So far, he has been once, when I wasn't here; Pablo called round yesterday (when I was in the bath) and said he had seen the Telefonica van come and go.

This morning and last night, the phone was very dodgy. I called Juanjo this morning, on the same number. A lady said they didnt know where he was and this was not his mobile (or something to that effect). Weird. I called Technical Assistance. They insisted, as they do when they hear an accent, on putting me through to the English speaking service, who speak worse English than I do Spanish. I sort of managed to report the fault. "Lady," she kept saying. "Lady, I report this. Give me your mobile number.," I explained that the mobile would not work in the house, meaning there was not much point in giving it to her. Aha! the lady said, you need to call another number; this is not the mobile technical assistance number. "I KNOW, LADY," I said, as politely as I could. "I don't want to report a mobile fault." Silence on the other end. "I want to report the fault on the fixed line, the one I am talking on." "OK, lady," she said eventually. "I report it, maybe somebody get back to you. Later. Goodbye!" Or something like that.

Telefonica is, apparently, the most profitable telecommunications company in the world, but it is hard to see why, though the way the ladies in the call centre appear to have a goal of getting rid of the call as fast as possible may have something to do with it. Meanwhile, our efforts to get wireless broadband have been thwarted: there is no signal in Saeti, our area, or not till Telefonica put in the long-awaited mast, definitely due this year, next year, some time, or never, according to everyone I have asked.

Fiesta

On a more positive note, it was the village fiesta on Friday. Pablo told me about this in advance: there would be a lady with an accordion and importantly, the food and drink, or most of it, would be paid for by the alcalde, the Mayor. In the event, it was a good do: the accordion lady, who looked a bit like Miss Piggy, with the tiny feet Spanish women often have, was done up in sequins, and did not look promising, but turned out well; her voice was massive, and she somehow sang and played various instruments and the accordion at once. There was a lot of meeting everyone's cousins and aunties, including all the people from Barcelona (there was a big exodus to work there in the 60s, but they kept their houses and land and come back at fiesta), and a lot of pasadoble style dancing, with skirts and heads held up very high. It went on till 5 in the morning, though I gave up after being exhausted in a kind of line dance which is apparently a standard fiesta exercise. I lay in bed at 4, listening to the music which by then was less Carmen and more the Birdie Song.

It is strange to think that not long ago, under Franco, the village - which is more or less one family, everyone is related - was divided. Pablo told me that his father and cousin had to run away across the fields and eventually to Madrid on one occasion, when the other side came hunting them; his mother was pregnant and told them they weren't there while they ran out of the back way. The cousin came back later and was shot. In my imagination, this time is coloured, horrifically, by the most frightening and nightmarish film I had seen for years when I watched it earlier this year: Pan's Labyrinth. I had nightmares afterwards, matched only by the ones I had after mistakenly going to the Saatchi gallery and got trapped in ghastly exhibits of headless bodies like Medieval hell. (Not that I like any gallery; the last time I went was in Madrid, to the Thyssen, where it gave me the creeps watching everyone walking around like a funeral cortege, muttering reverentially and staring at graven images in frames: most of them of powerful dead people, or tortured saints. Everything started to look like something on a butcher's slab: even the baby Jesus looked peculiar: much better to be outside, where there are some quite nice plants out the front. Anyway, I was hungry: I sat outside and then I thought of Walter Savage Landor lines I learned at A Level "Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art, only in my mind it was "Nature I loved, and next to Nature, food," which luckily was Sandy';s view too, so we went and stuffed a lot of tapas and recovered.) All the more reason to live here: there are no galleries for miles in any direction, except for the kind selling some Spanish town scenes by a local artist, probably a Brit.


Pan's Labyrinth, however, was good as well, and set in sierra not so different from this, now so peaceful and friendly it is hard to imagine the bodies that are, presumably, not far from the surface.In the same way, everything you read tells you there is a harsh, ruthless side to Spain, but it is hard to sense it; perhaps, having reached democracy late, they are determined to forget anything else existed.

I went round yesterday to see Antonio, the man in the wheelchair who brought me the tomatoes: I had a tin of Scottish Tartan biscuits , which I thought suitable exchange; however, he had gone out to see Consuelo so I was left talking to Juana, his wife (another Juana, another Antonio: everyone is related.) A lot of the discussion was about his illness; people generally like talking about illness here, but I suppose as most of them are retired, that is not surprising, but some of it was about her daughter, Maria Juana, but thankfully called Marie, whom I met at the fiesta. Juana said Marie had told her she had met the Inglesa (me) and she also knew everyone else I had met and spoken to. I said I would be pleased to get to know Marie, which I will. As I walked back along the rambla, I reflected on being "Julia, la Inglesa," clearly a different person from Juliet S, or Juliet A, both of whom I had been before. It is rather like the opposite of Cheers, "the bar where everyone knows your name," this is a village where nobody knows my name, or if they do, it is something like "Juli," or "Julia," (of course in Spanish it sounds quite different with the "ch" of "loch" for a J). I prefer it that way: it allows you to be anyone, or nobody - you are first and foremost defined by being the foreigner. I remember my great aunt Beate, who lived the last fifty of so years of her ninety six in a small village in Switzerland, telling me that the neighbours still referred to her, after forty odd years, or more, as "the foreigner:" now it seems I am somehow in the same place, and maybe always will be. Well, I know enough shrinkology to work out the appeal of that: after all, my other great aunt actually was a shrink, and everyone else in my family seems to have either been something like one, or else a mental patient. It is much easier not to have to live with the expectations of your society, peer group or family. This is why "only gay in the village" Neville told me he was only able to be gay when he left South Africa (well, not immediately, given that he was married to Moira at the time, but that didnt last and then slowly out went Moira and in came Jamie, black leather and earrings). It is a big relief not to have to be a success, earn a certain amount, look pretty - but only be a foreigner. It explains away a lot - basically, anything daft I do can be put down to the fact that after all, I am Julia, la Inglesa. And if spending an hour a week on the phone with Telefonica is the price I have to pay, then so be it; it is probably worth it.