Dobleve

When we first moved to Granada 2 ½ years ago, I worried pretty much constantly about doing the “right” things and behaving in the “right” way in all manner of social, business (and other) situations. This is not because I believe that there is in fact any right way to behave but because I wanted to show respect for our new culture, our new peers, and our new community. To this end I watched and watched and watched. I eventually figured out (I think!) the most polite way to order beer or coffee, to ask for a check, to greet newcomers, and so on. For me, it’s fairly simple: in social situations women almost always greet everyone – even those they are meeting for the first time – with a kiss to each cheek. It’s possibly more complicated for men who also employ handshakes, slaps on the back and the occasional hug depending who they are greeting. We never really figured it out however because unlike me Brian never worried much about the “right” way to greet people and for well over a year just kissed everyone (women and men) he met on each cheek. At first this drew some complicated looks from people. We figured out that it was not necessarily “normal” but with his sincere and unabashed cheerfulness, no one seems to really mind anymore and they seem to have adapted to him as much as he’s adapted to them.

All of this becomes a bit more complicated when you introduce even more cultures, as is often the case with our large group of international friends in Granada. We host a fair number of parties and events at our house, and as often as not several guests arrive at the same time. This is the true test of the etiquette paranoid. The first person through the door could be Spanish, Italian, Dutch, British, Japanese, Swiss, or even, American. In a situation like this your guests may or may not follow the “when in Rome” philosophy and may still greet the way they do in their home country. I’ve found that some British people (but only some) do not like to be hugged or kissed for example. If I’ve read the body language correctly I’ve scared more than one Japanese guest in my home by leaning in for the double cheek kiss at the same time they start to bow at the waist. The most difficult of all of these however are the three kissers that start with the opposite cheek. In Granada, you always lean in to kiss a person’s right cheek and then you kiss the left. If everyone follows this it’s comfortable and passes without incident. However, if both people lean in the same direction your first contact is a big crack on the cheek bone. Once you’re off on the wrong cheek it’s nearly impossible to recover and on the most dramatic of these occasions I once nearly brained myself on my guest’s forehead.

The following is an account of a bullfight and may not be appropriate for all audiences.

So I found myself at a bullfight the other day.  I say “found myself” as if 2 ½ years of hard thinking and contemplation about whether to go hadn’t gone into the decision to be there.  Normally (that is, when I still lived in the United States) it wouldn’t even be an open question, but now, living in Spain, it was no longer that obvious or simple to me.  Bullfighting, more than any other cultural phenomenon, caused an irreconcilable conflict between my values of the way I want to live on this planet in harmony with all creatures and the way I want to live as a foreigner or outsider in a new culture.  Or, more basically: I am for – hugely, passionately, fervently – the ethical and humane treatment of animals and I value, above almost all else, keeping an open mind about new cultures and being willing to critically think about my own reactions/judgments when I think something is distasteful, rude, bad, or even “wrong” in a new culture.   And therein lay the dilemma.

It was with these unresolved conflicts still swirling in my mind that I approached the bullring and I didn’t know until the moment I stepped through the arches whether I would finally attend a bullfight.

I was so immediately overwhelmed by the scene inside that all thoughts of the bulls and what lay ahead temporarily vanished.  The stands – rows upon rows of cement steps – were packed to, or well over, capacity.  The din of the excited crowd was overpowering and a bit mesmerizing.  People were laughing and calling out as every single spectator crawled across nearly 50 other spectators to get to their (tiny) square patch of cement.  Vendors called out, hawking drinks, seat cushions, sun hats and candy.  The men wore suits, ties and hats and the women were similarly decked out in their Sunday best.  The laughing, excitement and general camaraderie was contagious and we found ourselves immediately befriended and enchanted by 2 elderly gentlemen sipping their way to happy land in front of us.  There was no hint (to my untrained eyes) of the gladiator style spectacle that lay ahead.

After some pageantry in which all the key players (except the bulls) paraded around (and then exited) the ring, the first bull charged in.  If you don’t know how a bull “fight” works…  The bull enters the ring with one spear/stick already stabbed between its shoulder blades.  The end of the stick is decorated with streamers or ribbons that if they aren’t already will eventually become soaked in blood.  Once the bull is in the ring a highly scripted performance begins.  The bull is taunted and harassed by several peones or capeadores – men in costumes swinging bright yellow and magenta capes.  This is supposedly so that the Matador can watch how the bull moves in preparation for his own show down.  The capeadores run around the ring yelling at the bull and trying to get him to charge at their capes.  If he does, they make a bee-line for any of a number of wooden shelters placed around the edges of the ring. 

After several minutes of this, a picador enters on horseback.  The horse is completely blindfolded and covered with a mattress-like armor.  The Picador carries a long pole with a sharp end and his job is to stab the bull in the neck to help weaken him for his eventual conflict with the Matador.  The bull is taunted until he (they are never shes) charges at the Picador.  The Picador is considered skilled if he adroitly stabs and destroys muscle tissue in the bull’s neck without severing the spine, thereby killing the bull too soon.  The bull is stabbed repeatedly so that it becomes harder and harder for him to raise his head and gore his attackers.  At this stage the bull fights mightily and tries in vain to gore the horse; to raise it up on his horns.  Historically more horses were killed during bull fights than bulls due to this, now however, they stand covered in their mattress-like protection, completely still as the Picador stabs, pokes and taunts the bull. 

Eventually the Banderilleros enter the ring (three of them in total) and the torture can begin in earnest.  Each has a set of special short pointed and barbed sticks festooned with even more elaborate decorations.  The Banderillero’s job is to further weaken the bull.  There is more taunting and harassing of the bull until the Banderillero simultaneously drives both spears into the neck and shoulders as near as possible to the bull’s other wounds.  At least three Banderilleros do this until the bull is stumbling around the ring with several spears sticking out of his back and blood running down his sides. 

If it’s not obvious, by this point in the “fight” I was truly starting to panic – my reaction was visceral.   The bull was running after almost anything that caught his attention.  His stomach heaved violently – whether due to belabored breathing or due to some of the internal processes of dying, I do not know.  He was pissing all over himself and stumbling, futilely trying to raise his head in defense against his attackers. 

At this point, enter the Matador.  (Matador means Killer in Spanish).  The entire crowd fell eerily silent.  You could hear the Matador’s calls of “¡Toro!” as he tried to get the bull to charge him, although to be clear there was no “charge” left in the poor bull.  The crowd at various times called responses in unison like Catholics in church on Sunday but I do not know what they were saying or what prompted their unified shouts.  The Matador engaged in an elaborate “dance” (called a faena) that all the Spaniards seemed to anticipate and understand.  He held a long spear and a red cape and drew the bull towards him and around the ring in moves called veronicas.  Popular myth is that the cape is red to antagonize the bull but bulls are color blind.  The cape is red to hide the bull’s blood.  At this point the bull is in the throes of death and although there does seem to be almost fluid movement between the bull and the Matador it is sickening to see.  If the bull tries to walk away the taunting and harassing begins anew until he re-engages with the Matador. 

After what seems like an eternity it is clear the bull will die soon.   At the bull fight we attended, moments before the Matador delivered the fatal blow, the bull, in one last effort to defend himself and protect his life, gored the Matador.  He rammed his horns up and under the gold and beaded jacket.  The Matador was lifted off the ground like a marshmallow on a campfire stick – although the  bull’s horns and the damage they were doing were concealed under the elaborate costume.  Men came running from all directions to his (the Matador’s) rescue as the crowd murmured sounds of distress.  My reaction was “GOOD – he (the Matador) goddamn deserves it – kill him”.  And before I even had time to marvel at and process my own reaction, the bull finally and fatally crashed to his knees and then fell over in one final, heavy slump.

Seemingly simultaneously – it was hard to tell amidst the death and violence – the Matador stood and was helped limping out of the ring.  The crowd went wild.  They burst into thunderous applause as I burst into tears.  I choked out several loud sobs as I looked around me, stunned.  I couldn’t believe or fathom the crowd’s response.  I wanted to yell “my GOD are you all barBARians?!”

I looked at the clock.  It had been 12 minutes from start to finish.

————————————————————————–

Six bulls are killed in every Spanish Bullfight like the one we attended in Sevilla, España.  In Sevilla alone, during this season, there will be 29 bullfights.  There are 70 other Bullrings in Andalucía.  Bullfighting is a pastime in several countries worldwide. 

Of the many basically obvious things that seem to escape our dog Roscoe’s comprehension (like that moving cars are dangerous but water sprinklers are not) is that when you go out into our 2-door patio through one open door, you probably re-enter the house through the same open door which you exited. This weekend he would walk out one door and then wait patiently at the other, closed door, looking perplexed. Repeatedly.

I remember snow days growing up in Denver, Colorado with a nostalgia bordering on romanticism. I remember awaking in the morning and first noticing the absolute and almost deafening silence that a few feet of snow brings. Out my second story window I’d see tree branches wilting to the ground under the weight of snow and forming (what to me as a child was an almost magical) snow canopy as the branches touched each other across the street. But the best part of snow days, of course, was getting a free day off school. A day where everything was just a little bit more fun and cool because you know you should’ve been in school. We’d watch too much TV, eat whatever we wanted from the fridge, stock up at 7-Eleven on junk food, and go out in the streets and play with everyone else who got a free day off.

It’s spring in our neighborhood in Granada, the Albayzin, and one of the hallmarks of this season is frequent power surges that blow our fuses. Due to this we have several monstrous surge protectors throughout our highly computerized house. The best of them however only provides enough power to allow for some time to try and save data and properly shut down the computers in the case of a true power outage. Yesterday morning we had just that, a true power outage. As Brian rushed around trying to shut down the computers securely I began to worry about the food in the fridge, realized we’d not likely get a hot shower, and that the entire day might be blown in terms of getting anything done.

I went upstairs marveling at how dependent we are for every little thing on the electricity in our house and noticed right away how deafeningly and beautifully silent it was without any of our computers, clocks, hot water heaters, etc. running. As I thought about what we’d do for the day, I got that old snow day feeling. We could do whatever we wanted; it was a freebie day where we should have been working and responsible but during which we absolutely could not without electricity.

After Brian took a short but intensely painful (judging by the sounds coming from the bathroom) shower, we decided to head downtown. Along the way we passed many of the day laborers who work construction in our neighborhood who clearly were waiting out the power outage as well and enjoying sitting on the wall along the river in the sun. Bar/Café owners stood idly in doorways waiting for the lights to come back on and watching the world go by. An already relaxed neighborhood took on that not-your-average-workday feel and everyone was smiling.

In town we had a beer and tapa before noon, bought lots of fruits and vegetables to have a “cook out” on our grill (in case of a truly all day power outage) and shopped for a long anticipated new camera. In short, I’m pretty much already looking forward to the next “snow day” in the Albayzin.

Brian’s just too tall for Madrid, Granada, and probably most of España. The poor man is continually whacking his head on all manner of awnings, street lights, hanging plants, flags, and of course, most often, cross walk lights. I honestly don’t remember how low these things hang in the US but I don’t remember Brian even once nearly knocking himself out by (carelessly) walking down the street.