Senderismo

Oregon is not my home state, but my love for this state, that evades definition, abounds. As I continue to settle into Spain, echoes of what who I am, what I do and why I love it so much continue to resonate with in me. I could be having a perfectly lovely day, but then a treacherous thought of a previous Spencer’s Butte hike will sneak up on me, raining, figuratively of course (we aren’t in Eugene), on my sunny Sevilla day. Though I continue to miss Oregon and the amazing friends and fun I have there, I have found a bit of a remedy to my predicament of homesickness, that being “senderismo” or hiking. I have only been on two hikes in the nearly two months I have been here in Spain, but they have managed to lift my spirits more than I can describe. The first hike was in an a national park near Huelva, a region southwest of Sevilla. The 8 mile hike followed small paths used by animals, ancient Roman roads and cobbled streets through the towns we traversed. As we passed through a dry forest, my friend Hannah and I could not stop exclaiming to each other how much it looked like Oregon, how it smelled like Oregon, how it evoked the sensation that the next turn we took might just lead us to Eugene. Though no road turned into a street aimed for Eugene, the roads did reveal an astounding amount of history and culture of the region. One of the guides explained the changing culture of Spain after the Roman roads, that we were currently walking on, were constructed. He also explained the culture and lifestyle of rural living. He pointed out special gutters where water flowed, feeding cisterns when blocked with a stone. We tasted fruits and were warned off others, such as the dreaded “tapaculos” which essentially translates to “butt blocker”, a little berry that would make you constipated for a week if you hazarded a bite. At the half- way point, we stopped to devour our bocadillos or sandwiches prepared for us by our señoras. The little village we stopped in was described as very hippy, “aquí fuman mucho cannabis” (here the smoke a lot of weed) and was currently having a market for seed exchange, maybe we had, somehow, stumbled into Eugene! We continued on our journey, winding up steep roads and absorbing the fresh, crisp air that surrounded us.

            The Sierra Norte was the second region I visited to go hiking in. This hike was with my interest group, so rather than having fourty loud Americans traipsing through the idyllic Spanish countryside, there were only about fifteen of us, those of us who had not come down with a mysterious illness at three o’clock in the morning, the night before… After a two hour bus ride, we arrived at the trailhead. The guides reminded us to put on sunscreen, asserting that red is not the same as tan and that skin has a memory. After walking through shady trees by a cattle pasture, we found the trail, originally train tracks that have since been paved over. This hike was similar to the last hike, the guide explaining the fauna around us, me attempting to pretend I was in Oregon. My friends and I chatted in Spanish with our group leaders about differences betweent the United States and Spain, which language was harder to learn and other random topics that always faciliate conversation between people. We stopped and attempted to talk to some bulls and made our way off the path to rest by a waterfall for a while until we finally made it to the town where are bus was waiting. All in all and en enjoyable day spent in the sun, practicing Spanish in an environement that makes me happy. Hopefully the hike coming up in two weeks near Cádiz will be as enjoyable and informative as the past two.

Oasís en la frontera

Students sneak in one last cigarette as others chat and joke around before the bell signals them to start their day at Instituto Ramón Carande. Upon entering the institute one is greeted with signs that encourage sharing peace and camaradarie between themselves and the world. The halls are silent and empty, awaiting the presence of the 565 students that attend this school that Encarnación Quiroga, the school psychologist and academic coordiantor describes as existing in “the border between the city and las Tres Mil Viviendas”.

            Many of the students at Instituto Ramón Carande come from Polígono Sur, known also as las Tres Mil Viviendas,  a housing project conceived by the government of Sevilla in the sixties to provide housing to the marginalized, an attempt to avoid the creation of shanty towns. What has evolved from these intial efforts is a neighborhood surrounded by barriers.  Train tracks border the south,  a “wall of shame”lies to the east and the old River Guadaira lies to the west, creating a neighborhood described by Professor Ibán Díaz Parra as “vertical shanty towns.”

Physical barriers have geographically isolated the neighborhood while social barriers, created from delinquence, violence, drugs, and stigmas of Polígono Sur  lead to problems of marginilization and social exclusion. Yessi, a sixteen year old student from Las Letanías at Ramón Carande explained that she thinks that the United States has less delinquence becuase the “police are stricter”, preventing what Almudena, a 15 year old student from Los Amarillos at Ramón Carande described as “shootings in the street at people who were not to be blamed.” When asked about problems with drugs in her neighborhood, Jessi simply replied with an emphatic “Ufff” before continuing  with her description of her world. Though they hail from a marginalized neighborhood, where circumstances may prevent their success, Jessi and Almudena look to the future with hope. Jessi wants to work as an employee in a prison while Almudena wants to work in a daycare.  Both dream of visiting New York, iconic for the possibility it represents.

Almudena and Yessi are like any other girl in secondary school. They enjoy hanging out with their friends, spending more time in their house as the weather cools, and at times like to sing flamenco.. Like true sevillanas, they had an opinion about la Feria and Semana Santa, Almudena assuring me that though “Semana Santa is sad, this is what makes it beautiful.” They speak with a true andaluz accent and speak with their hands at times more so than with words, but theses two girls, Almudena and Yessi, have to battle stigmas that might cloud their  future plans. As described in an article from the Diario de Sevilla, “When the people of the neighborhood look for work, they never say they live in Polígono Sur.” Encarnación Quiroga gave another example of social exclusion due to these stigmas when she said that “some parents from la Oliva reject that their children go to school with students from las tres mil viviendas.” Aware of this, Quiroga helps to fight this stigma, saying she “works for coexistence”, helping students to adjust to their background in context of beliefs and opinions held by others. Quiroga facilitates an environment of coexistence with the other programs she coordinates such as orienting students to the university system, keeping track of their absences, identifying their areas of weakness from previous cycles of mandatory education and overseeing diversification groups or “remedial school”.  Diversification groups, where Quiroga instills her ideals of coexistence, are composed of students, including Almudena and Yessi, who are “good kids that have a lot of motivation” who may have some learning disabilities caused by gaps in their education, perhaps a lack of appropriate primary schooling. Gaps grow in the educational system due to schooling in poor neighborhoods and lack of motivation to learn. Gaps that cause half the students to drop out before they have finished their ESO, contributing to the dismal statistics of Polígono Sur where the illiteracy rate is high:  14.8 percent son analfabetos, 10.8 percent no han terminado ESO and only a small portion, 0.7 percent have finished their baccalaureate.

            Though the overall statistics do not show rapid improvemenet in housing developement, eradication of drugs, decreases in violence, unemployment or schooling rates, Instituto Ramón Carande offers hope. Though it resides in the “barrier between the city and las Tres Mil Viviendas” it serves as an oasis that fosters coexistence, peace, camaradarie and education.