My Rat Tail: 'If only this hair could talk'

For the past 6 months, I have been growing out a small patch of hair on the left side of my head.  From henceforth, I will call it rat tail.  The longer it gets, the more it actually does resemble the tail of a rat.  I cut the rest of my hair, but it keeps on growing, and the distinction becomes more pronounced.  Rat tail has both been braided in neat lines and turned into a dreadlock.  Rat tail dresses as it pleases, wearing thread and dental floss, wrapping around coins and beads.  It can be capricious, curling into my ear or sticking sideways straight out.  It loves attention -- people comment on it almost every day.

'Why?',they ask.  My answer to this pointless question is "its my souvenir from Spain.  My rat tail has accompanied me through adventures and trials, it has the sand and dirt of Spanish beaches and mountains.  I regard it more as an entity outside of myself, something that I've had the ability to grow and grow with."

But this is mostly a bullshit answer.  Anything can be sentimental as such -- shoes, underwear, unwashed sheets, bellybutton lint, etc.    So I guess the real reason is; I don't know.  Rat tail latched on one day and now it is pretty long and maybe a couple of months from now it will be longer.  It is just there, endearing and comforting, always ready to be twirled and played with.  I like the location, weighing my head down with a slight lilt, inspiring thinking and beard stroking.  In a similar hair-vein, I'll close this with a poem that I wrote 2 years ago about my beard:

Ode to a beard

When my beard grows

It is creeping tendrils of

My icy Scandinavian generations,

Grabbing onto something; showing

They still exist, there to help and

Protect, and warm the face in

Times of bitter cold;

Yes, I like you beard, you

Remind me of a time when

Proud Viking warriors could

Strut at the helm of their

Ship, head jutted out, salty ocean

Caught on the face, and

Crack a smile of yellow teeth

Through the matted hair

Dripping into their mouth.

So, beard, stay a little longer;

I am willing to sacrifice a

Few pieces of stale food

And the occasional ingrown hair

For you.

#13 -- WOMAD

This weekend Lolo and I traveled to Caceres to see a world music festival, WOMAD.  The activity drowned the normally quiet city; multiple stages for concerts, hordes of vendors, street performers, and lots of clowns.  The music, above all, succeeded because of its diversity; Spanish ska bands played after Somali rap that led into sad wailing Portugese singers.  The street performers were even more amazing.  I think that I saw the best beat-boxer of my life; a clown juggling 5 bowling pins; an old man with a dancing old woman suit; humongous puppets.  It seemed like the street vendors came from all corners of the globe; I saw hundreds of them.  They all sell the same artesenal things, poofy pants and braided jewelery.  Everyone lives in vans, travelling from festival to festival.  For me, WOMAD was really exciting, like a whole different facet of culture exposed.  But I wonder, what could life be like for these travelling people?  Is each festival like the one before, melding into a constant stream of crowds and music and hippies?

The old city district also lent an underlying sense of magic to WOMAD.  Wandering around century-old churches and stone stairs, you suddenly stumble upon a hidden concert with hundreds of people packed, literally, into a hole in the wall.  You feel stimulated and excited, with the urge to keep exploring, imagining that the city holds an infinite amount of these surprises, and that all you have to do is just open your eyes.

Some gigantic puppets riding on humans 

#12-- La Isla de los Gatos: The Isle of Cat, Cat Island, The Planet of the Cats.

For the past 2 days, Lolo and I have been (for lack of a better word) obsessed with Cat Island.  Upon first hearing these two simple words paired together, a spectrum of ideas danced through my head.  Cat Island cut the leash to my imagination.  Are they savage?  Do they eat all who venture onto Cat Island?  Or are they sympathetic and take prisoners?  Is there a king cat?  A catocracy?  A cat-tail-rianism?  A cat-unism? What do they eat?  How did they get on the island?  Do they every get bored of the easy-going island life?  Are there other islands, like Dog Island, Possum Island?  What kind of umbrella drinks do they sip each day?

We first heard of The Isle of Cat from our roomate, Alonso.  Apparently, two cats had fallen from Puente de Palma (a bridge 20/30 meters high) to an island below.  They survived, and people gradually started throwing them food.  The cats had babies, the babies had babies, and the cat population skyrocketed.  Cat Island was born.

But Alonso said it was just an urban legend, and had no idea where it could be.  So Lolo and I went out exploring one night and, as fate would have it, instantly found the mythical land.  In the light the next day, we saw Cat Island in all of its glory.  I counted at least 30 cats sunning themselves on the rocks.  White cats, black cats, dirty, Persian, Siamese -- it was a veritable cat Zoo.  The had all the food they needed, surrounded by loaves of bread and opened cans of tuna.  I have seen many strange things here in Spain, but I think that this might beat them all.  As we reluctantly left, I felt that some of my questions had been answered.  But, in their place, sprang a thousand new doubts.  The Isle of Cat has only served to heighten my sense of mystery and exploration.  Everything now carries the cat tinge, a mixture of pure ridiculousness, laughter, and absurdity.

#11 -- Olympic Games in Merida

A month ago, the P.E. teachers at my school asked me to be a chaperone on a field trip and (this melted my heart) to teach the kids how to wrestle.  The field trip took us on a grueling 2-hour-early-morning-scream-filled-bus ride to Merida, a city full of Roman ruins.  The occasion was a series of Olympic-style games, with more than 20 high schools from Extremadura participating, all of the events in the middle of a millenia-old ampitheater.  We took part in three different competitions -- pentathalon, races, and wrestling.  And they chose me to be the wrestling coach.

Before we even left for the field trip, I tried to teach the kids some basic moves.  It went horribly.  The hand control exercise degraded into a slap fight, and the half-nelson turned into fish flopping around on the mat.  Their actual matches went only slightly better.  Spanish 'wrestling' is worlds apart from any other kind of recognized wrestling in the universe-- it reminded me of a mixture of judo, sumo, and dirt-bike racing.  Points were rewarded just for pushing the opponent out of the circle. So, everyone turned into freight trains, sprinting recklessly at each other in head-on clashes that were determined more by momentum than skill.  My kids won a couple of matches, but only because of a stubborn Spanish inheritance that never lets them back down.

Unos chavales

We did better in the other events, winning 2nd place in one of the races and the pentathalon.  In spite of the relentless sun and the grueling 16-hour day, I had fun.  It was a good way to connect with the students outside of school, and to see yet another facet of Spanish life.  We dressed up in Roman togas and sandals, and all of the competitors marched through the ampitheater in a giant opening parade.  Watching the wrestling and the races, I suddenly became nostalgic for the childhood days of sports, where competition carried absolute weight and you didn't realize how you were the center of the spectator's attention.  In only 4 years my point of view has completely reversed.  Reality takes on a new meaning and you realize that the view from the outside, although less exciting, is wider and deeper.  It affords you a glimpse out of the corner of your eye where you see, unexpecting, that you are just participating in yet a bigger game.  It is sublter, equally as unimportant, and based on the same rigid web of imaginary rules.  Except in these Olympics, the Spanish kids shouting and playing are immersed and oblivious to the illusion.  It was refreshing, at least for a day, to share in this mutual excitement.

#10 -- Paella with Reme and the Valencianos.

Yesterday Reme (a teacher at my elementary school) invited me to a family lunch.  Now, having some experience in this, I knew what I was in for -- a ton of food being pushed on me, welcoming family members, and non-stop banter.  Since they are all from Valencia, they were cooking the specialty of that region -- paella.  I walked in to the apartment to find the men in the kitchen, wearing aprons and cooking a giant plate of that tasty, typical, tantalizing, T-Rex-sized rice dish.  The platter they use is enormous, 2 feet in diameter and meant to serve 15 people.  It is so big that it has its own separate heating system, multiple burners connected to a bottle of gas.  This paella had everything -- peppers, onion, pork, squid, prawns, tomatoes, rice, and all manners of spices and seasonings.  The men were so good at cooking it that they could tell when it was ready just by the smell.  I really don't know how they did it, but it definitely qualifies as the best paella of my life.

This being a typical Spanish meal, we also had chorizo and cheese as appetizers.  We drank Catalan wine and as an after-dinner 'digestive' had shots of lemon licquer (limoncello).  Dessert was strawberries soaked in orange juice, pastries called 'ensaimadas', ice cream, and coffee.  These kinds of meals always impress me -- not just the sheer quantity and quality of the food, but the overall atmosphere.  I know that if you go with a smile on your face and a friendly attitude, you will always will always leave full and warm and only slightly drowsy.

#9 -- Hiking and Biking with Yolanda

A teacher at my school is the epitome of adventure and openess.  She has gone on a month-long bike trip in the Himalayas; she camped in Finland during the 22-hour summer days; she does African dance and biking multiple times a week; to top it off, shes is a mentor for the classes that are struggling academically.  She lent me a bike to use during my time here, and always invites me on excursions.

I went hiking twice and biking once.  We always went through the 'Extremenan forest', a glorified name for mostly grassy flatlands, interspersed with gnarled and stunted acorn trees.  At the beginning, it is unimpressive.  But, after a while, one finds beauty in the repitition.  The clouds rise up looming like castles, forcing you to consider the kilometers of open land until you realize that your only other living companions are the pigs.

The first trip, we went hiking near a town called La Roca de La Sierra.  I found out that you can pick esparragus or potatoes wherever you find them, and that you can basically pass through any land, disregarding fences, signs, and barbed wire.  We explored an 800-year-old monastery; the roof and walls had crumbled from time and neglect, but a strange aura still hovered around the building.

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On our bike trip we forded mini-lakes and climbed around irrigation canals.  This terrain lay flatter, so we zoomed past birds, porcupines, orchards, and old men trudging home from town.  Yolanda is another example of Spanish warmth and hospitality, a constant reminder to alway say yes to new places and experiences

#8 -- Rick's troubled (and bruised) saga with Spanish police (and related hoodlums). Part 2

In March, Carnaval comes to Badajoz.  I wouldn't say that we celebrate Carnaval, but rather that it is an entity in itself, a third-person infection that enters the city and takes over all life for 5 days. It provides the perfect environment for all sorts of base actions that you would never see the rest of the year.  And, of course, Rick was the victim of one of them.

During Carnaval, everyone dresses up in ridiculous costumes.  Besides being entertaining, the costumes afford such a degreee of anonyminity  that you can see cowboys, flamenco dancers and ninjas peeing on churches and stealing bottles of liquor from bars.  Somehow, just putting on a mask lets people instantly fulfill their most primitive desires.  And, when the whole city is costumed, the chaos becomes amplified and you feel like you are just living in a dream world where people aren't limited by silly things like social norms or laws. Mix this with the sheer amounts of alcohol consumed, partying done, and pagan drumming, and Carnaval turns into an all-out bachannalian hot mess.

Carnaval during the day

Scene set.  Rick is dressed as a ninja.  I am a flamenco dancer.  We are in Plaza de Espana, and it is filled with thousands of revelers and multiple roving groups of drummers.  One of our friends, Ariela, had some problems with Spanish girls stealing her cell phone and camera .  Rick intervenes, America comes to save the day!

The next thing I see is Rick surrounded by 6 or 7 Spanish hoodlums.  He falls to the ground, they start kicking him, and suddenly everything clears out and there is just Rick still alive but with a mangled face.  Ariela didn't get her phone back.  It took a minute to process, but I suddenly realize, "Holy Crap, Rick just got jumped!".
My roomate Alonso, being a typical concerned Spaniard, took Rick to the hospital.  I think after his visit to the doctor,  Rick's Carnaval experience got cut short.  Luckily, he didn't get that hurt -- just some cosmetic damage to the old mug.

Fast forward a month and a half -- Rick recieves a letter in the mail telling him that he has to appear at court.  In front of a judge.  And if he doesn't, he will have legal problems.  We really have no idea why, but speculate that it has something to do with his hospital visit.  Rick's court date hasn't come yet, but I'm sure that its going to involve a Spanish judge speaking fast with obscure language, and Rick trying to explain that he was the one that got beat up, and was just trying to have a good time during Carnaval, and wondering to himself why the hell he has so many problems with the archaic and bureaucratic Spanish legal system.  Hopefully I won't have to write a Part 3.