January, 2009
Where has January gone? Well, just follow along and you’ll see where it’s gone for us!
The holiday season in Spain lasts until Jan. 6, Three Kings Day, the traditional Christmas season gift-giving day, although in recent years Santa has provided stiff competition to the Kings. Some kids get gifts both days – a great place to be a kid! I remember older Depression-era folks talking about it being a treat getting an orange or some candies for Christmas. (Maybe it’ll be that way again!) Anyway, the King’s Day Eve parade features clogged streets,
Live animals,
Floats with people on them throwing candy to the crowd (you can’t see the candy-throwing - you’ll have to trust me on this!),
The kings and their “entourage,”
even Ronald Mcdonald gets into the act! You didn’t know he made it to Bethlehem? Come on!!!
One hiking day we saw some olives being harvested I’d always wondered how this was done. They take long sticks and beat the trees and the olives (along with some leaves and twigs) fall into a netting where they are gathered together, put in sacks and hauled off to the olive presses. Poor trees!
Did we travel to Switzerland? No, this is just 45 min. from Granada, the town of Sierra Nevada (Snowy Mountain), the home of one of the top 10 ski resorts in the world. (We just went up to see the snow one Saturday – didn’t go skiing!)
This year it snowed early and often, the most snow in quite a number of years, the old-timers say, and there are more than 50 miles of ski slopes open. (It’s been colder, too – we are able to keep our living room in the 60’s while the rest of the house hovers in the 50’s.)
Snow has also fallen in places that usually don’t get snow, such as these olive groves along the road to Málaga.
Speaking of Málaga, one Sunday we attended a meeting of folks interested in like-faith matters. One neat thing was a “blessing tunnel,” where everyone had a chance to bless and be blessed.
We include in the “neat” category, this couple, Claudio & Carmen, who we’ve come to know and share with in a lot of similar experiences.
We also were able to attend a meeting of Anabaptist leaders in Madrid one weekend (this is only a part of the group). Except for one person, it was the first time we’d been able to meet them.
While there, we spent a quick evening and half a day with a friend and her family from Ecuador who now lives near Madrid.
Anita (4th from the left) has two daughters and a son – who we didn’t see, but the older daughter has a very nice boyfriend from France (left). The other two people (right) are Spanish friends – the lady took us to the train station where we ran to get aboard – the doors shutting 5 seconds after we got on!
Back in Granada, our friends, Jorge and Angélica, have two little “babies” in their house.
Judi went over one day to meet them.
Most of my month was taken up with preparing for and teaching English classes. In due time we’ll get some pics of that activity on the blog. However, I’m trying to reserve time for the weekly hikes with the “guys.” It’s body building, friendship building and faith building. This week we hiked through a mountainous pine forest. I was surprised to see so many of the trees fallen down. It looked like a mini-tornado had passed through.
The guys pointed out that snow and ice can accumulate on the trees and this, combined with higher-than-usual winds, sometimes causes the trees to snap off or fall over. Why? Take a look at the root system.
Yes, you guessed it – it’s wide and shallow, plus being planted in rocky soil. The roots don’t go down very deep. That’s why, when the tree gets loaded down and the wind blows hard, they fall over. Lots of good material there for faith lessons! Until next time…!