Extranjero Communitas

Day 56

Sunday


Just to test the limits of the logical I decided to go for a hobble before it started to rain. Desperation to leave my flat drove me out. Making it to the beach I felt safe that the rain clouds were just brooding hens, guarding the wealth of rain beneath their plumes, not ready to let rain fall any time soon. But like the cocky rooster I was wrong and paid the price for my strut. Having to admit to myself that I in fact was not so dexterous as to be able to use two arms for two crutches and juggle an umbrella with my invisible third arm, I trekked on in the rain. I think that if Miserable were to have a poster child, in that moment I took the crown. The saddest little Paddington Bear, hobbling along in a soggy yellow pea coat dragging the bum foot along for the aquatic slog back home. And then through the rain I hear, “Katie? Katie?! What happened?” (In English, which made it weirder because I had to think, who do I know here that speaks English??). And it was Shay, another Language Assistant who I had met at a Halloween Dinner Party she had hosted. We were what I’d call casual acquaintances, but being fellow English speakers in a foreign country completely out of place, casual acquaintances is code for secret allies. Hurrying over to me with her out of town boyfriend she popped her umbrella over my head and asked me what happened to cause me to be on crutches. So I related the supremely embarrassing story of slipping on marble steps in wet flip flops. The wonderful soul that she is asked what she could do to help, immediately asking me if she could go grocery shopping for me, at least. And then offered to get me a cab home. All the while I felt a secret stab of guilt for having thought it not worth it to find American friends because I was in Spain after all, I should be searching out Spanish friends…and here she comes gracing me with kindness.

Then, later that night when I went back out for a hobble after the rain subsided and I had dried up like a Caucasian raisin I ran into the owner of a local café that serves me the same cheap Mercadona brand tea that I buy for myself at my flat. He is a German German if you know what I mean. He walks with stout legs and his chest stuck out as if his spine were the back bone of the letter B and he stood for Burly. We met at the Spanish birthday party BBQ and became friends, as foreigners seem to do when not in their mother country. We had a delightful exchange that made me laugh as I crutched home afterwards. An American girl was talking in Spanish to a German man. In Spain. Glorious. And knowing what it is to be alone and on your own he as well immediately offered to “do what I needed to do” roughly translated. In his darling Spanish, which is still after 6 years living here rather rudimentary, continued to ask me if I had people to “do my things for me” saying he would be the person to do my things for me if I had no person to do my things for me. I’m going to assume he meant, grocery shopping, but I loved his unsure phrase, ‘your things.” Assuring him that I would get by and thanking him profusely I began to depart when he said, “You come to my café. We sit you down and put your foot up and you are not bothered. Yes, yes, That is good.” I just laughed and said that would be wonderful.

And after all that, I think about my anthropology teacher, the marvelous old soul, Edie Turner and her theory of Communitas. The theory that investigates what creates, sustains, and develops community. And I know she’s smile at the communitas of foreigners watching out for each other in a country that tells you to go buy your own crutches.