Celery and Salsa

My flatmate supervises the celery harvests out here in Spain, and one day this week he invited me out with him to survey his “rigs”. I wasn’t entirely sure what this involved, other than it would surely be out of the office and into the field… so naturally I jumped at the offer. A rig, as it turns out, is a mobile contraption which appears to sail slowly along the field (in reality of course it has wheels, but they’re hidden by the crop), and in which work a team of harvesters. So, claggy, rich soil clinging to my boots, we tramped over already decimated celery plants in the wake of the rig in question, the air rich with the smell of celeriac roasting in the oven. My flatmate cut a celery plant for me and showed me how to look for signs of a bad crop and to look out for a whitish mould on the plants, which he warned me not to touch as it would provoke a rash. He told me that although the inner stalks would probably still be safe to eat, they would have a nasty taste. We hopped up the ladder as the rig was still moving – it felt like being aboard a ship - and I saw men cutting the celery under the rig, putting it on a conveyer belt at field-level. It then came up to the workers in the rig itself – about 12 in total - where they sorted it and piled it up and wrapped it ready for the supermarket shelves. These packets were placed into crates which were piled up and labelled ready for the warehouse. My flatmate showed me to question weight and quality of the products, and to check that health and safety rules were being adhered to. It was an interesting experience, and it was so wonderful to be outside and in the field… and I’ve since nabbed myself a copy of the “Celery Harvest Manual 2011” – a weighty tome of everything you would ever want to know about celery – for a little light bedtime reading. But anyway, I can’t complain. No doubt my time for the field will come, even if not in Spain! And I really don’t have the shoes for it out here, so maybe it’s just as well – I’ve made a proper old mess of my only pair of boots!!

So what is it that I do? Obviously for reasons of company confidentiality, I can’t give too much away, but now that I understand my role a little better, I can give you an idea. My working day starts at about 8:45 a.m., finishing at 7 p.m., with a 90 minute lunch break thrown in, and I’m in the office for 99% of that time. In the mornings I liase with hauliers and the depot that we send most of our produce to in the UK to try to make sure that the depot is prepared for the arrival of the lorries, and knows if there are delays. I also chase up any problems with discrepancies between what product was allegedly loaded here in Spain, and what actually arrived in the UK. This means liasing with various colleagues in the UK and in the despatch department here, staring at a lot of documents and dates and product codes, and trying to make sense of it all. It also means logging everything in Excel spreadsheets. In the afternoons I’m in charge of processing orders from the national customers in Spain, making sure the hauliers and warehouses know how many pallets of goods are needed at which supermarket depot and when. It’s very much an admin role. Though I know it’s not what I want to do eventually, I’m certainly learning a lot! And Christmas is our peak time, so the next month is set to get ever more hectic. I’ll be very ready for a holiday when it finally comes. 25 days to go….!

My gym-going is working out quite well. I went back to my crazy weight lifting class…

... and although I still didn’t say any more than “hola”, some of the others clearly recognised me from last week. Besides, it makes me feel strangely powerful. Maybe by the time I get to my next placement, this will be me....

I hope not, though!! That would be a little scary!!! I have also been twice now to a latin dance class – a bit of salsa, a bit of chachacha, a bit of folk dance, and that was really good fun. Everybody was smiley and laughing, and because a lot of the dancing is partner work, it should be easier to talk… although I’ve discovered that I don’t know what to talk about! Any ideas…? The only guy I managed to talk to properly was a pest-controller from Bradford (!!) - but as we were the only Brits in the class, I feel it doesn’t really count. I want to feel confident talking to the Spaniards. My challenge for next week: say something more than just pleasantries, even if only to one person.

On a Sunday morning jaunt with a couple of colleagues, I ended up driving down La Manga. If you don’t know what La Manga is, it’s a holiday destination, favoured by all from the rich and famous to the common man. It’s a thin spit of land, about half a kilometre across, reaching out into the Mediterranean Sea. It has one road leading down the spine of the spit, and this road is flanked with hotels that have seen better days, and shops selling touristy tat. On the other side of the buildings are beaches. The sea to the west is the Mar Menor, which is effectively a sea lagoon. It has no tides, and is connected to the Med by the smallest of channels. Because of this it is warmer than the Med, but also semi-stagnant to the point of being reasonably revolting. To the east is the Med itself, and these beaches, probably littered with tourist litter during the summer months, had a liberal November scattering of small jellyfish when I ventured onto them. Apologies to anybody who has been to La Manga and enjoyed it, but I just don’t see the attraction.

And speaking of lack of attraction, I saw the lead singer of 70’s band The Saxons sing this weekend. I had never heard of the Saxons, although apparently my mum saw them when she was in 6th form. Anyway, he was singularly unattractive, and fairly out of tune. He lives here apparently, and is well known here for his thrusting his tight trousers drunkenly at women, and for being stoned. So that’s this week’s claim to fame.

I’m looking forward to this week, and the beginning of Advent. Partially because this means beginning my advent calendar… my family has a rather curious tradition with advent calendars… all will be revealed next week! But also because I hope I will begin to experience Christmas from a Spanish perspective. I don’t know why, but I expect there to be obvious – and interesting - differences between December in the UK and in Spain. I know very little about Spanish traditions at present, so as I learn, I’ll let you know. Hasta luego!

Half a pig’s ear is better than a full one

I decided that an element of my unhappiness of the past week was born of inactivity and lack of fresh air – oh the joys of the office job! So in the spirit of proactivity –in every sense possible – I inserted two novelties into my Hispanic adventure.

First, I joined a little Spanish gym full of little Spanish people (seriously, I was the tallest person at the class I went to… I’m not tall!!). This was mostly to give me something active to do in the evenings if sitting at home didn’t appeal, and I thought that maybe if I went to a few classes I might meet some friendly non-work-related people. So I gamely walked into the first class I came across. There were 7 other, fairly normal looking women in the room, so I figured I’d be okay. And then the barbell weights came out… An hour of squats and lunges and bicep curls and various other weighty moves later, and I came out feeling surprisingly light. I tried talking to a couple of the women, but as soon as I opened my mouth I got the “oh-you’re-foreign-that’s-too-much-like-hard-work” look. I decided to try again next week. The following day I was feeling the burn, and the day after that, and the day after that... As I said, I’m going to try again next week!

Second, I started going for early morning walks along the seafront. It’s dark when I leave the house at 6:30, but as I reach the sea, the sky is just lightening on the horizon and as I walk I watch the colours change, minute by minute. The wind’s in my hair, the air’s fresh from the night, and the birds are just beginning to sing. It’s calm. It’s just me and the sea (and the road sweepers, but they don’t quite fit the romantic picture). At one point there’s a fleet of boats moored, and they silhouette beautifully against the dawn, and a few times now I’ve seen herons fishing at the water’s edge.

Around 7 o clock, other people begin to appear. It’s always the same people – old Spanish men with friendly, crinkly eyes. And they make eye contact and smile and say good morning. Of course, I don’t know them, but I’m beginning to feel like I do, just because they’re familiar faces in a still unfamiliar place. The sleazy men are clearly still in bed – I feel safer walking at this time than I feel at any other time of day.

The week had a pretty awful start – I was finding everything overwhelming – the language, the job, the culture… it was all too much and I was imploding from the disorientation of being out of every comfort zone I have. But slowly it began to get better. Emails from friends and family proved a welcome diversion, and a phonecall from my employer in the UK helped me to put things into perspective. An hour or so speaking Spanglish with a colleague made me laugh, and I realised that I haven’t laughed much recently. But it’s amazing (and hilarious) how no Spanish people seem to be able to pronounce “crisps”. Always criPSPS. Always!! It’s like every French person pronounces “law” as “low”, and Germans pronouce “clothes” as “clotheses”. Plus, the bar tender gave us free, freshly made popcorn with our drinks – bonus! AND I managed to parallel park…once…

Added to that, I had a few small breakthroughs at work. Tasks which last week seemed impossible now seem just difficult. I even had a mini phone-related triumph. I’m terrified of speaking Spanish on the phone, and until now have made a complete pig’s ear of every phone conversation I’ve tried to have. This week the phone got thrust at me and eventually I managed to get the required information out of the haulier without him giving up on me half-way through. It was still painful – and still half a pig’s ear – but it was more of a sprain than a full on dislocation.

So yes, my bruised self-confidence is on the mend. It’s entering into that fascinating yellowy-purple stage of bruise when you just have to stare at it because you can’t believe your own skin can be that colour, and you get the urge to poke it to see if it still hurts as much as it did when it was blue. Or maybe that’s just me. In any case, I leave you with the words of wisdom that sum up my turning point, emailed to me by a family friend:

“Don’t underestimate the enormity of what you’ve achieved this year. You are in the world of work for the first time, in a foreign country, using an unfamiliar language away from family and friends! That’s a tall order!”.

Yes, it is a tall order. But I can deliver it, and if I can deliver it with my head held high, then the fading bruises will soon be forgotten.

Lonely and inept… thank goodness for lettuces!

Look at my Lollo Rosso!! It landed in the office 2 hours after being picked in the field, and it was free, and it’s such a good-looking lettuce, and all this combined to lift my spirits. Guess what I had for lunch today!

But why do my spirits need lifting? The turbulent landing that my plane made into the airport presaged the emotions of my first night back. I was happy to be going to work the following day, but socially I wobbled. Despite the amicability of my flatmates, I didn’t feel at ease at “home”; didn’t feel I could sit and read a book without somehow being judged for it. This triggered the realisation that I haven’t yet any friends here – I haven’t met anybody “like me”, whether British or Spanish. There’s nobody who I’ve clicked with. At work I’ve felt very much the “new English girl”, lacking in skill, experience and words, and outside work… I just don’t know where to look. I was pretty down.

But then I pulled myself together. Told myself to relax, and go with the flow. Told myself that things would get easier socially, one way or another. Told myself that this was just the shock of coming back to Spain after such a sociable week in the UK. Told myself it was all good and character building. Told myself above all to throw my efforts into my work and learning Spanish – 6 months isn’t long, and I’ve so much to learn.

And learn I have, this week. There have been times when I’ve felt that so much is expected of me that my head can’t take it. Wednesday lunchtime found me taking refuge in the toilet with a few frustrated tears. I didn’t understand the pallet-scanning processes that were being explained to me, and so how could I hope to solve the pallet-scanning problems that I was charged with? And once again I pulled myself together. And eventually I began to understand, and by Saturday lunchtime I was getting there. Not perfect, and not even close to perfect, but passable. The founder of the company I’m working for was known for saying “’that’ll do’ wont do”. But for now, passable will do for me.

A lot of colleagues from the UK headquarters were over in Spain this week for a “Growers’ Meeting”. This means that there has been a certain expectation to socialise with my colleagues. Although I’ve felt out of place with them – they have all been with the company for a long time, know each other well, are predominantly male and much older than me – they’ve treated me well, and it has been interesting to meet some of the more important company bods. And it goes without saying that I’ve been well fed, courtesy of company credit cards. Last night we ended up in a fancy fish restaurant (followed by my first –brief- experience of clubbing in Spain, and clubbing with non-students. I’d still prefer a book and a cuppa!). I dread to think how much it all cost, and I never thought I’d hear the argument “it’s on the celery account today” – “No, it’s the leafy salad account’s turn!”. I also never thought I’d come across quartered boiled eggs in a soup (not at the posh restaurant, I hasten to add, although a beautiful piece of baked mullet did come accompanied by fried eggs on toast!). And yet both of them really happened.

On the subject of strange things, I met my first praying mantis this week – look!

I hope it got away before the car it was playing on drove off. My boss told me there was a big green splat on the ground when he left work that evening, but I didn’t believe him - it was dark when he left, so there’s still hope. Did you know that female praying mantises have a tendency to eat their mates after mating? Feminism taken to the extreme?

I also saw a robin in a palm tree, which pleased me immensely, mostly because the words fit to the metre of the punchline of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. I’m considering rewriting the song to fit a Spanish theme. So it is that little things have got me smiling this week. The simplest thing to make me happy? This grass, shining in the sun.

Here in Murcia, grass this green generally only exists on well watered golf courses (a source of strong political contention in the area: should water be conserved for agriculture – the backbone of the region – or does the tourism of the golf courses merit the same claim on this limited resource?). This, however, was growing wild amid the beige dust, and so a smile grew with it.

Cinderella and the forklift trucks

Knowing nobody who would be attending the ball, I was understandably nervous as I made my way down the stairs towards the function suite of the Peterborough Marriott. But, walking tall (helped immensely by a set of bronze heels to complement my turquoise silk dress, sequinned with bronze), I soon found myself at the door of a room bustling with Bucks Fizz, noise and hundreds of well-dressed people. Also at the door, peering in, were two other girls. They asked me what function this was, so I told them, and we went in together. It turned out that they were new, too – if relief wasn’t etched in my face, then I’m a better actress than I know. Soon we were joined by three other newbies, making our group almost complete… the seventh was on a plane back from New Zealand, so she had a good excuse! An evening of jollity, good food (but a most disappointing Crème Brulee – no crack of the sugar whatsoever!), getting to know each other, and dancing into the early hours ensued.

Sunday provided me with an excellent opportunity to drive into Cambridge to spend a couple of hours with my sister, and another couple with an old friend, before the working week began. It was wonderful to see them, but also to be outside in the autumnal weather.

Autumn is my favourite time of year: the rusty colours of the leaves, the evenings growing darker, the temperature creeping down to the point where it is perfectly reasonable to snuggle up in fleeces and slippers. I feel a little bereft of it in Spain’s eternal summer.

Monday and Tuesday were spent in the UK headquarters of the company that I work for in Spain, putting names from emails and telephone conversations to faces, and being introduced to different logistics roles – who knew that organising lorries could be so difficult?! I was also offered a tour of the factory… and I wasn’t about to refuse! So, high-vis jacket, blue coat and hairnet on and jewellery off, I was introduced to celery processing machines, radish packing machines, boxes of baby leaves piled ceiling-high, lorry loading bays, a warehouse full of packaging, freezing cold-storage areas, pallet prioritisation techniques and forklift truck charging docks. I came quickly to the conclusion that forklift trucks are possibly the most terrifying thing in the world – they’re so heavy and they move so fast… usually backwards. I stuck religiously to the designated walkways, but there was still nothing but air between me and the killing machines. Every time I heard one around a pile of pallets, I was on edge.

And, as it transpired, rightly so. The rest of the week was spent in Grantham on a training course (the real reason for me being back in the country), reunited with my new friends from the ball. First aid training, food safety legal awareness, health and safety seminars and far too much food were the order of the day. The images we were shown of forklift truck accidents – and the high percentage of accidents in the workplace that they are responsible for – were shocking and more than a little sickening… although 1^st prize for revulsion went to images of an arm that had been through a mincer after the owner of the arm had tried to remove a blockage while the machine was still running. Amid the intense training sessions there were occasional moments of calm, when we could sit and talk, have a drink in the bar or a cuppa in one of our rooms, finding out more about each other and how we were each finding our different roles – ranging from logistician to junior buyer to agronomist, and amusing the bar staff with our hilarity-inducing pen-and-paper games.

After a week of travelling around East Anglia (becoming a much more competent driver and map-reader in the process!), I returned home for a quick hello, and my family’s annual “Coffee Cakes and Crafts” at-home craft fair, where I met, greeted, socialised, made countless cups of tea, witnessed the demolition of many a cake, and collapsed contentedly onto the settee at the end of it all. Back to Spain. But really, not for long. Time’s going to keep on flying, and it’ll be Christmas before I know it!

Hasta Luego!

Cold Custard

Apologies for the slightly tardy update – I naively thought that internet access might be free in a hotel. I’ve learned that lesson!

So I asked about how to deal with sleazy Spanish men. Responses were as varied as a box of Quality Streets:

“they’re not dangerous, if you want to talk, talk, but just don’t tell them your phone number or where you live the first time you meet them.”

“avoid eye contact and walk on by”

“don’t say anything at all – saying something shows you’re interested”

“Spanish men just want one thing”

“if they’re Spanish, it’s ok. If they’re Moroccon, run.”

“stick to places where there are lots of people, but don’t stray off the beaten track alone.”

Which leaves me in just about the same position as I was before. It looks like I’m going to be playing the dumb foreigner for 6 months. It frustrates me though. I want to feel that I can explore new places on my own – I don’t want to have to rely on finding someone to go with me – but I don’t really feel comfortable on my own anywhere that’s not Touristville. And the staring and the catcalling makes me feel… violated, somehow. A little bit dirty. It angers me that women – of every age and type – are objectified so much, and that it’s considered a cultural norm. I never appreciated the comparative reticence of The British Man enough!

It is with relief that I have started to fall into the routine of the working day. I have begun to feel confident in some aspects of my work, and my colleagues seem confident enough in me to leave me to it. In the afternoons I’m tasked with looking at the daily orders from the Spanish supermarkets whom we supply and calculating how many pallets of goods need to be shipped to each supermarket from the different warehouses, entering this information into a spreadsheet, and letting the hauliers and warehouses know. Once the UK export business has really revved up for the winter, my mornings will be occupied with chasing up problems in the UK with missing goods and late lorries… that will come in a few weeks. It’s amazing how much thought, preparation and work there is behind each lorry on the motorway… and behind each lettuce on the shelves of ASDA!

Lunch in Spain is by far the biggest meal of the day, and it seems to be fairly normal to go out for it. Many restaurants offer lunch menus for between €7.50 and €10, which include a drink, bread, a starter, a main, a pudding and a coffee. I’m yet to get my head around consuming so much in the middle of the day, especially when I have to go back and work after it. Fighting the well-fed snoozy feeling is a challenge! This week my foodie discoveries were Spanish black pudding (which have a much looser consistency than the British varieties, without the lumps of fat and oats, slightly sweet, slightly salty and seasoned with cinnamon), chips with lime juice (seriously, it works!), and the Spanish dessert “Natillas”. Natillas is a dish of cold vanilla custard, with a soggy digestive-like biscuit set into it, sprinkled with cinnamon. I actually rather enjoyed it (I think I’d enjoy anything with cinnamon…), but it amuses me that such an unappetising sounding pud seems to appear on every menu!

Still on the foodie track, I was touched this week to arrive into work to find a pack of porridge oats on my desk from one of my colleages. I’d mentioned last week that I was a porridge girl, and that I’d been surprised not to find oats in any of the supermarkets… but apparently he knew where to find some. So now, if I’m feeling in need of a little breakfast TLC, I can whip up a bowl of warm, yummy comfort. The people in my office are very welcoming. On Wednesday evening I went out to a bar with one of the girls from the finance department, and we spoke in Spanglish – that is, I spoke Spanish and she spoke English, occasionally correcting each other – and it was really good fun (that is, once I got over the embarrassment of having to let her parallel park my car. I’ve only parallel parked a car correctly once – it was in my driving test, and it was a complete fluke. I spent most of my free time on Thursday practicing. I still can’t do it!). It made me feel like I have a friend here, and that’s a really good feeling.

On Friday I finished work a little early at 6, drove to the airport, and by 10 I was back in Leeds Bradford airport, ready for a week in the UK. It seems odd to have only been in my new job for 2 weeks before coming back, but Cinderella had a ball to go to! Well, and a training course, and 2 days in my company’s UK office… I’ll be meeting the other 6 graduates who are being trained up by my employer at the same time as me and “bonding” with them over a night of food, wine and dancing, and a few days of theoretical training. I’ll also get to know some of my colleagues from the UK office – the ones whose names I see on emails and hear over the phone – I’m looking forward to putting names to faces. But more on the week to come next weekend!

Hasta Luego