Andalucid

Don Quixotel

Chalkie was a troubled teenager who turned up at the gate one day. He'd been disciplined with knuckle-dusters once too often.  Derek is a little guy with a penchant for punch-ups after suffering many beatings from his previous owners.  Flash was an unwitting gofer in a drug-running operation.  And Woody was an overburdened fairground donkey whose legs gave way under the weight of too many merrymakers. 

They're just four of the 15 donkeys currently in rehab at the Nerja Donkey Sanctuary. just a few minutes drive from the famous Caves.  The Sanctuary is run by the extraordinary efforts of MD Jim Horne and a dedicated team of volunteers --angels in mud-spattered teeshirts.  It's kept open by the tender hearts and open hands of Nerja locals and holidaymakers, and coastal magazines including SolTalk, which regularly publishes advertorials for the Sanctuary free of charge.

The Sanctuary has rescued more than 6,000 distressed donkeys and mules, horses and ponies over the past 12 years and opened its Nerja centre four years ago to try and help even more.  Predictably, they have since then been inundated with fluffy, feathered and furry castaways.  As a result, the Sanctuary is also currently home to 15 dogs, a dozen cats, three pigs, two turkeys and 14 chickens, who all arrived wearing false hooves and tossing non-existent manes to get past the gate. 

That last bit isn't true, but what is true is that mending all these broken hearts and bodies costs the Sanctuary between €5000 and €6000 every month.  "We dread seeing black rubbish bags thrown over the gate," says Jim Horne, "because they will inevitably contain dogs or cats, kittens or puppies."

The good news is that they are making a visible difference in the Nerja region, especially with their outreach project.  When they started it just two years ago, they were bringing medication and care to around 250 animals.  "You'd see animals tethered with wire which cut into their legs," says Jim. Today, their dedication means that only 20 animals within a 50km radius of Nerja need that kind of care.  That's a whole lot of happier animals, and another bill of around €3000 a month.   

Anyway, Fred and I are sponsoring two donkeys.  Petra is a feisty young woman who keeps the boys in line with some well-placed kicks.  And Woody is the little fairground donkey who will now flirt for carrots. It costs €25 to adopt a donkey for a year.  And you can go visit them anytime!

The Nerja Donkey Sanctuary isn't the only establishment helping the hoofed.  Nose through this beautifully written article on the SearchIberia website, and find out about Pascual Rovira García and his life work, ADEBO (Associación para la Defensa del Borrico) in the small village of Rute, in Andalucia.

I hope you'll all gallop to your screens and help these chivalric individuals in their bighearted quest to bring comfort to donkeys and other animals in distress.  

      

Expatting Ourselves on the Back?

Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson writes an often amusing, always provocative regular column for The Times newspaper.  At the end of August, he wrote a piece called 'The hell of being a British expat'.  The online version generated over 400 responses, ranging from the unintelligible to the unrepeatable. 

I urge you to do as we did; grab a glass of nice chilled Rueda white or (now it's the end of October) a full-bodied Rioja, gather around your computer and read a selection of these comments - you won't be able to stop until the very last misplaced comma!  Download ClarksonComment.doc

The vast majority of expats who replied were only too glad to fit the description, glad to get out of Britain, glad to be in the sun and on the cheap.  There were a few dissenters who agreed with Clarkson's view that leaving is for losers, but only about five out of the 411 were happy to stay in Britain.

In the same vein, Fred found another article, a more extended rant entitled: 'Who would live in Britain?' at Guardian Abroad. 

I'd love to know what you think.  Those of you who moved from Britain to live here in Andalucia or elsewhere in Spain - are you glad you did it?  Would you ever consider going back?  Has anyone got a good  word to say about the U of K?  Post a comment in the box below and put yourself on the expat map!

A Mixed Bag

Hi dear readers,

Are you feeling the heat?  Since I got back from my London trip last week, I've found it hard to focus...and it's not all down to the cooling gin-and-tonics I'm taking to calm my nerves. If you too are  finding it a bit much, you might like to check out the wisdom of Dr. Antonio Martin in the latest issue of The Olive Press (Issue 28, p.14) on 'Beating the Heat'. 

If you're in Granada, you can get away from heat and dust by diving into a cup of perfumed tea.  Find out where in my article for Lonely Planet Online, in search of the teterias in the Albaycin.

Anyway, a few things have got through the haze, and I'm here to share them with you:

I thought I was hallucinating for a couple of days last week; whichever channel I switched to, the highly-varnished shell that is Mrs David Beckham glared out at me, blazing in the lights from a thousand flashbulbs.  I was horribly fascinated for the first dozen or so sightings, then reality jabbed me in the ribs.  This multi-millionaire housewife spends incredible amounts of time, money and energy keeping herself top of the mass-media mind.  Think what she could do if she put Brand Beckham to work just once a year to publicise the plight of millions of women who are suffering deprivation, rape, torture, oppression...instead she is a byword for dumb compulsive consumption.  And she doesn't even look happy doing it.

So I was delighted to stumble on a piece of US journalism history recently doing the rounds online.  A newsreader on a high-profile early morning show turned a deaf ear to her producer's frantic instructions, and refused to read a 'story' about Paris Hilton.  Live.  On air. In fact, she set fire to the printout, just to make her point.  Revel in this victory for commonsense yourselves, then pray that newsreaders in the grip of the BBC and UK commercial channels might have the guts to follow suit with our own home-grown pointless person.

Finally, those of you who, like me, cherish delusions of grandeur and believe that someone might want to keep your contact details to hand, might like to know about a great low-cost business card printer online.  Vistaprint will take your design (limited customisation, but enough to drop in your own photos and choose typefaces) and send you 250 cards, for around £22.00 a set.  I had great fun choosing a photo for my own card.  High-minded editors might go out of their way to avoid my calls, but so what?  At least I didn't put my Bearded Collie Macduff on there. Come to think of it...

Well that's it for this week folks.  I'm off for a cold bath and a quick look at  pumpkin pie recipes - roll on Thanksgiving!

PS:  If you're feeling hot and tired, spare a thought for all your extranjero neighbours embarking on the construction of their cortijo in the rugged Alpujarran hills.  My article on Guardian Abroad takes a look at the dusty trail of building permits that must be trod on the way to their dream. 

By the way, if you want savvy local advice to find the shortest route through such bureaucratic byways, speak to Hildy Fuller or Anne Cook at Insiders on (+34) 958 953 017, or email them at: insiders@cablesur.es.  For details of services they offer, see their ad in comprehensive Granada guide, Where 2

Unsung Celebrity

An article in the News Review section of last Sunday's Telegraph (European Edition) made me think of better uses for the power of media than reporting on the over-coached hostilities of C-list celebs. 

Mukhtar Mai is 35 years old, an illiterate peasant woman from the tiny village of Multan in Punjabi Pakistan.  Five years ago, her then 12-year-old brother allegedly attempted to rape a woman from the area's most powerful clan.  Clan heavies decreed an 'appropriate' punishment: Mukhtar should be gang-raped and the elders themselves would undertake this onerous corrective procedure. 

Her father and uncle obliged by giving her a lift to the venue.  The sentence carried out, everyone naturally expected her to go home and kill herself out of shame and respect for tradition.  Instead, Mukhtar publicly denounced the rapists and campaigned for their arrest and the death sentence.  Pakistan's President Musharraf first praised her stand, then rewarded her with cash.  But when she was invited to speak about her experiences in America, he forbade her to travel and denounced her.

Mukhtar has stayed on in Multan, using her award money to start two schools and run a charity promoting women's development.  She has also dictated her autobiography, published last month by Virago. 

Incidentally, her brother was not the rapist.  He was the victim of rape by a group of men from the clan. Clan members have issued several death threats against Mukhtar and will almost certainly kill her one day.  In the article, when journalist Isambard Wilkinson asks Mukhtar "What if you are killed?" she replies:  "I am just the first drop of water in the village.  I believe it will rain after me. "  Condoleeza Rice and Hilary Clinton might get more airtime, but this is one impressive woman.

Dirty Water

DIRTY WATER

Impelled by blogging zeal, I amazed myself by attending a protest in Orgiva’s Plaza de la Alpujarra this morning.  There were about 300 warm bodies there including kids and dogs, who all seemed enthusiastic though rather confused, as the sound system failed to carry the rousing messages of the speakers to their waiting ears.

The theme of the protest is water, or rather lack of it.  An existing dam in the Contraviesa region of the Alpujarras contains 450,000,000 litres of water, allegedly more than enough for the needs of local inhabitants. The Ayuntamiento, or local council, wants to build a second dam with a 335,000,000 litre capacity.  They say it’s for local residents, but according to opponents, the numbers just don’t add up.  Opponents say the water, taken from the already low Rio Trevélez, is destined for intensive fruit and veg cultivation and illegal, unsustainable housing and golf developments on Granada’s Costa Tropical and in the Alpujarras.

The ancient system of irrigation channels on which the Alpujarras’ fertile landscape and eco-tourist economy depends is under threat, as are the livelihoods of many subsistence farmers.  Diverting more water away from the Alpujarras exacerbates shortages already being felt due to global warming, such as depleted snow melt. 

Plans for the dam are being rushed through the approval process, apparently because the water is so urgently needed, but opponents say this is being done to obscure the lack of proper reports on environmental impact, information demanded by law.

It seems that as water becomes an increasingly precious commodity, it’s going to the highest bidder.  The Water Wars predicted for later in the 21st century may already have begun. 

A group called Mesa en Defensa del Agua de la Alpujarra organised the protest.  To find out more, albeit in Spanish only, please visit their site.