Politics
Over lunch a few days ago the couple I live with told a story about another student they had had staying with them, an American. They said that each time he tried to bring up politics, the husband pretended to not to hear or understand him.
I took this as a kind of instructive allegory and haven´t tried to sound them out on Spanish or world politics. We spoke a little bit about the gallego language -- if galicians should speak it instead of spanish, etc, but they very quickly assured me that the whole debate over gallego was "just politics."
This is 180º degrees different from the people in Catalunya, who couldn´t wait to give you their opinion on every divisive political topic conceivable, from catalunyan nationalism to their opinions on Iraq.
In my mind, these incidents are related to another that happened a couple of days ago. I was in the kitchen with Señora Matos when we heard several very loud booms. I immediately ran to the window, trying to find out what it was. Señora Matos continued peeling potatoes, explaining that it didn´t much matter what it was, since it wasn't in our neighbourhood.
I later found out that the city has been testing fireworks every day at noon in preparation for the big festival on sunday. I can't figure out exactly why, since testing fireworks seems to make as much sense as testing a match.
I took this as a kind of instructive allegory and haven´t tried to sound them out on Spanish or world politics. We spoke a little bit about the gallego language -- if galicians should speak it instead of spanish, etc, but they very quickly assured me that the whole debate over gallego was "just politics."
This is 180º degrees different from the people in Catalunya, who couldn´t wait to give you their opinion on every divisive political topic conceivable, from catalunyan nationalism to their opinions on Iraq.
In my mind, these incidents are related to another that happened a couple of days ago. I was in the kitchen with Señora Matos when we heard several very loud booms. I immediately ran to the window, trying to find out what it was. Señora Matos continued peeling potatoes, explaining that it didn´t much matter what it was, since it wasn't in our neighbourhood.
I later found out that the city has been testing fireworks every day at noon in preparation for the big festival on sunday. I can't figure out exactly why, since testing fireworks seems to make as much sense as testing a match.
1 Comments:
There's some tricky timing involved with fireworks. But you'd think they'd hire professionals who already knew what they were doing. Maybe the festival fireworks use some innovative technique(s).
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