The mysterious gold cities

The classicism. On a project of 9 months, a fortiori in a foreign country (if we think that the border still exists between Spain and France), the things have time to install and repeat. During this winter season which is not a really one, looking to these clement temperatures this oceanic climate of the south of Europa offers to us, I needed some sunny days to come back to Santiago of Compostela and Betanzos. I have visited the two cities in the last automn but my visit let me a unfinished taste. The mystery which is around them is still intact. And in Andaina, the things installed are moving. 

Santiago of Compostela, chapter 2.

Santiago of Compostela is on the road from A Coruña to Vigo, so the two most important cities of Galicia, the two most economic powerful and the two which count the more inhabitants. There are two regional locomotives which permit to the autonomous community to aggravate the isolation they are suffering yet but which makes also this singularity. It also preserves it to the negative turistic invasion. So Santiago of Compostela is the politic and administrative capital, in an central position and it is a town which not seems to anyone else. With 20 trains per day, the main airport of the north west corner of Spain, frequents and numerous buses, it is easily and often accessible.

My first visit was by night. It was raining (which is quite normal for Santiago), and I spent an European night with other volunteers, Erasmus students and indigenous people. The day after, a thinning permit me to discover some parks and to appreciate the historical centre, totally wet. It seems that umbrella's fashion is over. The radiant anticyclone present on Europa last week was a dreamed opportunity to put the city in the box of the camera and to go to meet new pilgrims. 

All begin in the train station or in the train stations.You can buy a ticket with vuelta abierta (come back opened). So you get a cheaper ticket than two singles, getting the freedom to choose the come back hour, which is a luxury with such a frequency of trips. The first picture in Santiago of Compostela is one of one person very drunk, which can stop go to the toilets and return from this place ! With a podometer, I could note a distance as a marathon. The quest of Obradoiro's Place, prestigious and singular, is simple. Compass and maps are not necessary, climb and look after the highest point is enough. A city with a lot of elegancy appears. There are a lot of citizens walking and I am shocked by the style. Imagine a lot a small alleys, straight and deep, with several taverns opened to enjoy the local tastes (or not). There are a lot of couples who are loitering, with a serious look. These ladies are dressed with a nice jacket, with black glasses, straight trousers and leather boots. These men are not looking incomplete too. Sometimes they are young students. Obradoiro's Place is out of people and deserted with surprise. Students have misteriously disappeared. Have they enjoyed nice weather to escape to Padron and the beaches ? Are they reclusive in the bars or studying ? I meet just one pilgrim, easily recognizable with the malicious folding of his saco de dormir (sleeping bag). The cathedral is still so nice and I swear I will come back walking. The architectural styles are frequently moving and are representative of a heavy history but still so prestigious.

The other Santiago is very more green. Excepted the historical centre, vast but not bigger than Pontevedra or Lugo's centre, the town extended itself because the relieve is tortured. So I quit the numerous and little shops opened, very designed, very tended, to go to the other side of the Porta do Camiño (Way's Door). Behind the museum of the Galician people, I discover a neverending park, where a lot of families are walking. I'm passing through a door and I'm on a very beautiful grass, where some ways are crossing, when a dozen of couples of young students are lying down. So this is the student way of life, very sensitive to the climate variations : if it's raining, they are filling the bars and if the weather is fine (which is unusual), they are basking under the sun. This is very typical of the softness of the place. The town has got a shape of a lizard, it is extended along the slopes which are falling far from here in an invisible ocean. Very extended, it lets 80 % of its area to the parks, which follow then in a green nature. Once the sunset come, it is really nice to scroll in streets just a few lighted by some little streetlights, alongs white buildings. So Santiago of Compostela is discovered in several days, during counter discusses, neverending nights, improbable walks, under the eyes of eternal bell towers. So the city has adquired an timeless charm evidently respectable, which has got so many options to a pilgrim exhausted by 50 days of walk. Like follow the adventure to Fisterra, an end of the world, just lighted by a lighthouse with an unbelievable whiteness. For me, at this moment, all of this is on the books, like an invitation...

To prepare the future

At the Andaina's college, I asked a little modification of the schedule. So I wrote an e-mail to the study's director, nothing exceptional, to propose it. The young student Xurxo, in practicas (course) comes to help the Physical Education teacher with the primary's pupils. I did not see the utility to be three at the same time, especially with pupils like angels, so I asked to join the plastic arts classroom which feels good the country from Asturias and the social sciences classroom. The opportunity so, during the Xurxo's course, to deep again in the atmosphere of a social sciences in secondary, 14 years after. The opportunity also and especially to see what is taught, and with which methods, in an Spanish classroom even if I said that it could not be representative of the teaching method in Spain. But this situation, provisional, is interesting to draw some ways for the future, well extended moreover by the director of the college, which gave me the feeling that she has been interested by my professional profile. Here or out of here, of course the idea merits to be studied... even if a teaching diploma is still missing for me and so a year of study (and so a year to pay) to teach. So I very have the intention to put one foot in Spain, but not the both, at least not yet. The hour will come. So the director was looking for informations, without offers to me concrete propositions. After this discuss, I was "positively disturbed", and at 124 days far from the come back to France, the theme of the future is boiling ! I drew a line to follow but the past let me think that is has not always been respected.

In my e-mail, I made a funny mistake, when we know my legitimate lack of knowledge of Galician language. I wrote Xuxo instead of Xurxo, which means sucio in Spanish language and so "dirty" in English ! There is only Galician language to put two "x" between two letters and that's it ! When it's known that the "r" is rolled, we does not need a lot to do to insult this friendly student with glasses, from A Coruña, with who young pupils have quickly sympathized. 

I have still two small intercultural anecdotes. The first one is about 2°ESO's classroom pupils. Last week, with the contagious voice extinction of their Technology's teacher, they have been invited by the (between other things to do) specialist of professional orientation and psychological following to complete an aptitude test, like we make in an employment office.

Pupils have been very interrogative... like this week after the first electronic course ! Coming back 20 years before, I succeeded to complete the exercise proposed about resistors, engines and lights after listening the instructions given in Galician language. The pupils have given up less and more quickly in spite of the explanations given by their teacher sick but perfectly clear and lucid. So I have understood 5 months after the limits of the mental capacities of the pupils and their autonomy's difficulties. The most difficult for me was not to resolve the exercise but to explain it to them ! A lot of souvenirs have come to my mind, about school support but also about my own Technology course when I was 9 or 10 ! Don't speak about working rythm, all is about to build in them... In addition, the director asked me just to speak in French with them, I can't imagine their face ! Because this is the main interrogation of this project : I am for sure force of propose and assistant, but how could I contribute to help to go on ? In the education environment, it can't be easily measurable.

On Friday, I received three calls of the college, without message. Nothing serious a priori and effectively. The brave teacher of Technology and her car are very useful to climb the 150 meters of ascent between Perillo and Andaina, like the 3,5 kilometers. No message, no reason to worry so because no information. A twelve o'clock, I succeded to connect with the college and the teacher, finally sick and missing. The opportunity so to join the EPS classroom in half an hour and avoid for a few moment the rainfall which fell just some minutes after... for a disastrous choreography of the 1°ESO pupils where I was perfectly unnecessary ! I still wonder how the EPS teacher works, with 10 classrooms and programs all differents, for follow such this rythm. When we know that there are more than 6 pages of titoría to write for each pupil, the extrascholars and her personal training, only an EPS teacher is able to follow such a rythm !

Breaking of rythm then. Since october, I work at an English teacher home, German born in Spain after a childhood in an arabic world. I am a particular French teacher for the perfect twins Lucas and Nicolas, and for their friend Martiño. The friends went to the bed too late and just the word "French" is contributing more to make them sleep. We tried to compare the sports in France and in Spain, with the help of the magazine called 20 Minutes but this exercise made them sleep more ! Fortunately, I always end the session with the game and the magic word puntos (points) is enough to wake up for them, because it's about a competition between the three pupils.

The week is ending rarely like this, because we often have the visit of volunteers companions or Spanish people. After the exit of Alexandra, old roommate in this place and now in coming back in Erasmus studies in Lugo, for Austria this week, we received the visit of Helen, who enjoyed this opportunity to discover Santa Cristina's beach. A Swedish men is announced in our flat, very european. So I put a european flag with our respectives flags (French, Italian and Estonian) in the entrance door...

Betanzos, little crystal town.

Betanzos merited also to enter in this Galician focus, two weeks after the Madrid-Andalusia's escape. Other town, other secret. It is evidently impossible to compare with Santiago of Compostela but it is really not out of charm. Before my camera suddenly died on the banks of the Mandeo River, I had the time to visit the totality or near the totality of this small town with counts about 12 000 inhabitants. The city is getting older without a lot of problems, the moisture finally winning the white paint. So I enjoyed a new sunny afternoon to go to discover the sandy harbour, regretting not to be able to go further, until Gandario at the north. The boats, totally free for navigate, are following themselves quietly. I have visited the Pasatiempo Park, unfortunately a little small, which can be compared to the Güell Park (Barcelona). Just to be compared, because the nice beautiful underground ways merit more maintenance and more depth. The children, a lot in the flat part, should enjoy it. The park, which the fences are too visibles (the mesh has not great effect), is an ideal place for relaxing, with an original spectacle space. It is built all in long sense and it is alternating between kindergarten, "natural" zone and park with a crazy architecture.

Out of this, two elements have been very charming. The Renfe's controller seemed to come from a cartoon (eyes which are not looking right, belly extremely round) and he was driving himself the Regional train A Coruña - Ferrol with the still nice full oil smell.

The second one is about the ticket seller of the football stadium, with is only one tiny tribune, with a cigar in the mouth. It reminds me the good amateur football world, but the snack bar was missing. I enjoyed the presence of a strain on the other side of the enclosure wall to take a picture. For the story, the team is in the 5th division in the Spanish football championship.

Next trips are not decided yet. I will probably not find gold but mysterious cities. The holidays are coming in three weeks, announcing probably a big Vuelta (Tour), especially because it will be the Entroido period (carnival).