February 24, 2010--Poquito Problemo
The afternoon we arrived at our new flat in Spain, jet lagged and feeling nervous that perhaps we had done a foolish and extravagant thing by buying the casa, we immediately had reasons to feel at least some actual regret—the telephone line in the flat was dead. Really dead.
From all the evidence something was clearly wrong in the exterior wall where the line ran, a wall that had been repaired before the sale. “Spanish workers,” I muttered under my breath. “Everything here is mañana, mañana. It will take forever for Telephonica to get here to fix it. And in the meantime, how will we be able to communicate with the outside world?”
From her look, I could tell that Rona wasn’t feeling all that differently. “What will we do if something happens to one of us? Or if one of our elderly mothers has a problem? I’m not sure our cell phone will work.” I tried it and couldn’t seem to get an overseas line.
We wondered out loud if buying a place in Spain had been a good idea. If something like this could make us so upset, perhaps we shouldn’t have envisioned ourselves as constitutionally capable of spending months at a time this far from the comforts of home. Maybe we had overestimated our ability to live part of the year in a foreign culture.
While thinking that we should drive back into town (four miles away) to express our outrage to the real estate agent for selling us a place with infrastructure issues, and to put the place back on the market, Manolo, the groundskeeper, looked in on us. It was easy for him to see how agitated we were.
Using the little English he knew and using the less than little Spanish we at the time knew, plus much gesturing, we were able to make him understand our problem, frustration, and anxiety.
Pointing unhappily at the telephone, Rona finally said, “Problemo. Big problemo.”
Manolo smiled back at us as shook his head. “No, no,” he said, “Poquito problemo.”
Not understanding, our Spanish was that limited, I asked, “Poquito?”
He extended his hand toward us, and, moving his thumb and index finger very close together, he smiled again, broader this time, and said, “Poquito.”
Through the years, during flood times, when the septic system backed up, when we found mold on one wall in the living room, when the power failed and it couldn’t be restored for days, what Manolo said, what he taught us, became our mantra—Poquito problemo.
We realized that first day, after we calmed down, that this was the very reason we had come to love Spain during many prior visits and why we had decided to spend part of every year there—what for us back in our “real” life were problems fraught with tension and agitation in Spain evaporated with the setting sun and the languid moon drifting over the sea and mountains.
More, these big city frustrations—How are we doing? Are our resumes looking good? Do we, will we have enough money? Do we have the right friends?—slipped more to the back of our consciousness over cortados in the morning and a glass (or more) of herbas seco in the evening. All sipped slowly while gathering, more importantly, insights about the Spanish was of living a life.
I was reminded of this the other day from an article in the New York Times about Cádiz, Europe’s oldest city situated in Andalusia on the windy Atlantic side of Gibraltar. Cádiz is now best known for two things—it raucous two-week carnival (just ending) and its chronic unemployment. While in the rest of Spain the unemployment rate is a staggering 19 percent, in Cádiz it is much worse—29 percent. And it has been in double digits for decades. (Story linked below.)
You would think, then, that other than the carnival weeks Cádiz is a despairing place. But not at all.
As poquito problemo became our mantra, in Cádiz they embrace another Spanish saying: “Life is four days long. On one day you are born. On another you die. And during the two in between you have to have fun.”
Perfecto!
Of course Spain’s extensive social services help, but so does culture. It is for sure essential to poor Spaniards to have high quality, universal health care and extensive unemployment benefits, but at least as important is having a strong and supportive family. Most live in modest homes that have been in their families for centuries; and if even only one person has a job, that is enough. As Cádiz town official Juan Bouza put it, “If one person in the family works, he is a safety net for the whole family.”
And, yes, then there are the cortados and herbas.
From all the evidence something was clearly wrong in the exterior wall where the line ran, a wall that had been repaired before the sale. “Spanish workers,” I muttered under my breath. “Everything here is mañana, mañana. It will take forever for Telephonica to get here to fix it. And in the meantime, how will we be able to communicate with the outside world?”
From her look, I could tell that Rona wasn’t feeling all that differently. “What will we do if something happens to one of us? Or if one of our elderly mothers has a problem? I’m not sure our cell phone will work.” I tried it and couldn’t seem to get an overseas line.
We wondered out loud if buying a place in Spain had been a good idea. If something like this could make us so upset, perhaps we shouldn’t have envisioned ourselves as constitutionally capable of spending months at a time this far from the comforts of home. Maybe we had overestimated our ability to live part of the year in a foreign culture.
While thinking that we should drive back into town (four miles away) to express our outrage to the real estate agent for selling us a place with infrastructure issues, and to put the place back on the market, Manolo, the groundskeeper, looked in on us. It was easy for him to see how agitated we were.
Using the little English he knew and using the less than little Spanish we at the time knew, plus much gesturing, we were able to make him understand our problem, frustration, and anxiety.
Pointing unhappily at the telephone, Rona finally said, “Problemo. Big problemo.”
Manolo smiled back at us as shook his head. “No, no,” he said, “Poquito problemo.”
Not understanding, our Spanish was that limited, I asked, “Poquito?”
He extended his hand toward us, and, moving his thumb and index finger very close together, he smiled again, broader this time, and said, “Poquito.”
Through the years, during flood times, when the septic system backed up, when we found mold on one wall in the living room, when the power failed and it couldn’t be restored for days, what Manolo said, what he taught us, became our mantra—Poquito problemo.
We realized that first day, after we calmed down, that this was the very reason we had come to love Spain during many prior visits and why we had decided to spend part of every year there—what for us back in our “real” life were problems fraught with tension and agitation in Spain evaporated with the setting sun and the languid moon drifting over the sea and mountains.
More, these big city frustrations—How are we doing? Are our resumes looking good? Do we, will we have enough money? Do we have the right friends?—slipped more to the back of our consciousness over cortados in the morning and a glass (or more) of herbas seco in the evening. All sipped slowly while gathering, more importantly, insights about the Spanish was of living a life.
I was reminded of this the other day from an article in the New York Times about Cádiz, Europe’s oldest city situated in Andalusia on the windy Atlantic side of Gibraltar. Cádiz is now best known for two things—it raucous two-week carnival (just ending) and its chronic unemployment. While in the rest of Spain the unemployment rate is a staggering 19 percent, in Cádiz it is much worse—29 percent. And it has been in double digits for decades. (Story linked below.)
You would think, then, that other than the carnival weeks Cádiz is a despairing place. But not at all.
As poquito problemo became our mantra, in Cádiz they embrace another Spanish saying: “Life is four days long. On one day you are born. On another you die. And during the two in between you have to have fun.”
Perfecto!
Of course Spain’s extensive social services help, but so does culture. It is for sure essential to poor Spaniards to have high quality, universal health care and extensive unemployment benefits, but at least as important is having a strong and supportive family. Most live in modest homes that have been in their families for centuries; and if even only one person has a job, that is enough. As Cádiz town official Juan Bouza put it, “If one person in the family works, he is a safety net for the whole family.”
And, yes, then there are the cortados and herbas.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:45 AM
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