Counterflow

At the Andaina's college, the patio (playground) is the place where the pupils enjoy to share a common moment, out of the classroom, out of the corridors overly large and long pour take a recreation time under the rain. It is also the moment to share free with young people. If I have a problem and only one with Spanish language, it is about expressions and it is evidently difficult to decrypt the language of young people. Yet in France, with my 29 years old, I risk not to be in the movement. Afortunately, Nikos'puppet in the TV set Les Guignols permits me to be actual.

We are basically latin people.

Some times ago, I was talking about the existence of a lot of details which make our culture different, between France and Spain. Even if I stay (and a few proudly) an eternal ununderstood guy, I understood that this culture is probably common in all the south of Europa. This culture is basically latin (feeling expressions but also protests everytime and klaxon with abuse in the streets) even if I am not going to far in this idea. Alice, my roommate since more than 5 months, is representing Italy, a country where I am not been yet (by anomaly). I am also using my lifetime spent in Spent to talk about this.

A lot of details in a ton of common games, between the most popular and the most current. At the first place, the omnipresent and the omnipotent fútbol. More than in France, it takes all the parts in the conversations here, of men people it is heard. Because the ladies are not interested in this, excepted when players are pretty boys. Cesar and Javier Fernandez, respectively pupils of 4°ESO and 2°ESO, are very addicted but are not playing. Everyday, I have right to follow the chronicle, the history and the bets - at the level that if I have not seen the goal of Pedro, Villa, Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, I seem to be the uneducated or a poor without any money. The worst is if Benzema has scored, because he's French... 5 months of cohabitation but also 5 months to make understand that, in spite of a season which is more and more disappointing, I am supporting the AS Saint-Etienne and not the Olympique de Lyon.

An other derby's story.

Yesterday, little Guille, from 6°EPO, was wearing the Celta Vigo's jersey, which should come back in the first championship and so play the famous galician derby with the team of Deportivo La Coruña. During my conversation with the secretary who is doing anything in the school, I understood the issue of this derby between two rival towns. Some lines before, I was talking about a common culture but also a lot of details which are different between France and Spain. The main difference between the derby of the Rhône-Alpes region in France and the galician derby in Spain consists in a competition between two cities perfecly galicians, root in a same region, even if one is in the north and the second one is in the west. The size of the town can be compared and the populations are in front of the same difficulties. Evidently, the same secretary who is doing anything are taking part of the subject talking about the climate difference... which explains without any doubt the chilliness of people from the Rías Altas (north) in front of people from Rías Baixas (south). The secretary was explaining to me that the rivalry was terrific, to kill (para matar) and I was remembering the only time I saw young guy wearing the Olympique of Lyon jersey and walking in the Grand Rue (the main street of Saint-Etienne). An other common point, the Depor and the Celta have known their famous period at the same time, with famous international players (Rivaldo, Mostovoï, Maurice, Makelele, Bebeto, Pauleta...) and they are nowadays fighting for stay or acceed to the Liga. Saint-Etienne and Lyon and also their two main football teams can't be compared.

With the secretary, we also spoke about Panini's albums, which not exist only for football. In the Liga's version, she explained to me that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi's stickers were extremely unusual... and so extremely wanted by kids who have only eyes for these two stars... with and unquestionable talent but true stars for journalists. Evidenlty, it is difficult to exchange the sticker of the small lefty from Argentina or the forerunner from Portugal for a Hércules or a Levante's player...

Today, during an improvised football game, I could throw a spanner in the works of the toque, which is played with the youngest people. Daniel Mouzo, from 4° ESO, who is not misunderstood but incomprehensible, mumbled so : "Ah, el francés..." ("Ah, the French guy...") when I came for take a lot of balls in front of the goal. The defense, more than it is collective, decidely does not take part of the luggage of these budding sportsmen. Because even during the balonmano (handball) classroom, in the games in opposition, I often was the only one to protect my goalkeeper. So stange was the game when I had the feeling to be the lonely to defend in front of four or five players, when the goalkeeper had not quit his goal... and with the same situation in the other side ! A few balls are flying, a few players are running, the ball is flowing. During baloncesto (basketball) games, there is a few more of defense. You will have noted reading words in italics that Spanish language use to translate everything, until the English word watt which is written watio.

With which rules are we playing ?

Because I don't want that fútbol takes every part of my blog, I will talk about the other patio, which Marusha offers to play with young people in cards or board game after every lunch. It's also for me the opportunity to practice other trainer talents and to explain the French rules of the game... in Spanish language. Fortunately, the director does not hear me because the information is to speak every time in French language. I am training for sure but I have difficulties to imagine young people always listening French... So I very put the difference between the language classroom where the French is the king and the rest of the time. There are only two exceptions : the presence of Enrique, whose grandmother is French, and Vicky, whose mother is Swiss. So these two young pupils of primary school can perfectly understand French language, even if they are speaking much more in Galician language, and are driven to be quadrilingual so. Evidently, on Mondays in the comedor, it's a pleasure to motivate them in the language of Molière...

So I was going to explain the rules of the President game (playing cards) but after 15 minutes of explanation, I understood that the same playing cards was existing in Spain, as the parchis also, and the juego de la oca too (snakes and ladders). There are a lot of differences. I hope not to forget to show you the futbolin (baby foot) with the colours of Barcelona and Real Madrid teams. I had a crush, at the opportunity of a enormous storage in the teachers room, for O Principiño ("The Little Prince"), the Antoine of Saint Exupéry's book translated in Galician language. I will skip the number of times when the teenagers with bubbling hormones ask me if I like women, if I have had a sexual relation, who is the most beautiful teacher or if I am smoking..., when they are not going to hide themselves in the girls toilet, lower the pants, sing in classroom or try to steal a ball in the kids place.

I ended the long chapter of Andaina, at least for this article. This is a small world, a small village, where everybody knows everybody, where the teenagers are testing adults, because they are teenagers and they need marks. So yes all is fine even if everyday thousands of events are taking place, those we are ending to laugh in next june.

When we live inside a closed environment, and even if we are not living locked up in a bubble, we are feeling the legitimate need of escape to breathe. If I understood one thing with the EVS, in a foreign country and with the family far from 1 500 kilometers, it's it's possible to live counter flow but not against the nature. The French label is sticked to you more or less since the first day. Sometimes, it's a real richness, sometimes it's bulky. That's the way we are different from the local population, beaucoup your diary life, your home, is just provisional - contrary to all these people who don't have, at least in appareance, this vision of the exotism - and so early or late it will be necessary to come back to home. The verb "will have" is not to be considered here as a regret but as an inexorable end of a story begun in september and which is in approach, as a light in the skyline.

Uxes, a door opened on an abroad.

To be in a counterflow, it is also to go to discover the ordinary places, which are not flashy, but which begins however to everybody. It is also enriching. So it was the subject of the two exits for the fin de semana (ends of the week), in Uxes and in Padrón (and also in A Esclavitude, a small village in the road of Portugal). What can we find in Uxes ? Nothing, the village does not appear in any turistic book. This is the first train stop on the A Coruña - Vigo way, in a small train station without any desk. I live since 1990 in the door of Saint-Etienne, in an ordinary country, when nearly nothing happens. So I would like to breathe in a environment where I use to live, where I find a teenagers group playing football (again !), or vagabondizing with a bicycle in the same paved and renewed place. There was a brick house, where the roof was finished yet, and slopes wihtout end in the landscape, wooded. The two channels cross by the train put his place away from my walking area, far from 9 kilometers from Santa Cristina's beach. However, walk behind a small intact chapel, meet people tinkering, young people without goal, completly remembered me the country of Haute-Loire, which are not far from the time.

Because there are a life in Uxes for good, where live this people from A Coruña who became adept of the periurbanization. However, the skyline is only limited to slopes and the Atlantic highway, which puts the cape to the south, until the edge of Portugal. To reach A Coruña, I have taken the camera and I have taken also some pictures of the map before leaving, which has been very useful. In spite of the compass, there is not always way... to recover his way. Climbing a strong slope, the skyline became clear and let appear the infinity of the ocean, looking to the west, while I came face to face to a private housing estate where is just missing the inauguration. Probably thought for the students, it's about a following of small houses, which seem to Britain houses just with the bricks. I have been surprised by the dirt of the neighbour place because the waste seems to take the totally part of the environment. However the selective sorting is established, but people need to get access to special package for organic waste. In front of the crowd of unemployed people, I am still surprised by the quantity of potential work for the environment. And about the culture of carpool, I don't see it, excepted for me because I use the assistance of the teachers to reach the college three days about five in the week !

As in Betanzos city but totally in an other style, the coming "in city" or in the "world really civilized" is very brutal. I left the country and I landed off directly in Culleredo, municipality in the other side of the limit with A Coruña, where the Andaina's college takes place. The sight became completely opened until see totally the second town of Galicia and its near suburbs. A perfect place to play guitar with friends, enough romantic and near the tennis town hall center.

Padrón, on the road to Portugal.

Paideia Fondation had invited its volunteers to review about active processes concerning the EVS (I don't know if it was the opportunity to share a common dinner in a creperie, or at the reverse). At this opportunity, I could meet again Anete, a Latvian volunteer who will achieve her project in two weeks in A Esclavitud. We had made a trip in Vigo together yet. Padrón is the nearest town, far from five kilometers to the south. It counts about 9 000 inhabitants, which permits local people to say is is a pueblo (which can be translated by village). Padrón is the country of Rosalia de Castro, a contemporary poetess, and of Camilo José Cela, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989. The small town is known in all Spain because of its green peppers, famous in summer. So beautiful was the opportunity to walk to the Sunday market, famous, where the merchants are magnificient of veracity and enthusiasm. Fishes seem to have been caught in the Ría de Arousa, very close to here, and octopusses also. Anete recovered a family eminently friendly, about the son went to work in hotel business in Mallorca, the day after. 

Padrón is small, a few more than Betanzos, but does not lack of charm.