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Functionaries

I suppose it would be par for the course to begin today with the classic blog apology. This, of course, is me sincerely apologizing for not updating this blog more often. Believe me, as they say, I've meant to write something. For so long. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. There was just too much to be said. No, it's not that I had nothing to say.

I had too much to say. And I couldn't figure out a way to encapsulate it.

Don't worry. It will all be in the book someday.

So here it is. The classic blog apology:

Sorry.

Today, I have to go down to the passport office in the Indautxu neighborhood of Bilbao. Some three-odd months ago, I went down there and made the official petition to get my visa term extended to nine months. This is important for me considering my contract does not end until May 31st, and I have already been here for a good-ol' long while.

However, staying true to classic tipical eSpaneesh Basque customs, I never received the essential documentation I was supposed to get in the mail. These documents, naturally, are necessary to be able to continue to process of renewing my visa. After my first pasaporte appointment, they were supposed to come in the fantastically ambiguous time frame of "14 to 35 days," but instead they came in the even more marvelous time frame of never.

So now I am beholden to go downtown and argue with funcionarios - Spain's [in]famous civil service employees. In reality, I am not going to argue with them, because unlike in other civilized, Western democracies, in Spain (and its occupied territories), los funcionarios are actually miniature dictators. They hold your life, and legal resident status/mortgage payments/tax rates/identification card validity/freedom in their hands. They rule with an iron fist over their own cute little dictatorships. Their powers over your are, in fact, limitless, and be not fooled by their cardigans and color-rimmed, fashionable glasses: they are tyrants, and they will execute upon you their every whim and will, be it for better or worse.

If they're feeling good that day, and they like you for some reason, it doesn't matter how long your card has been expired for. Sure, it may say "only valid for renewal within 30 days of expiry", but that doesn't really matter! They'll give you a wink and a smile and stamp your paper. They are the Roman emperor and they have just spared you, the wearied gladiator, from the starving lions of bureaucracy. Congratulations.

However, if their day is not going right...well, there is no one in the world who so closely remembers a power-mad, paranoid dictator than a surly Spanish funcionario. Oh, your paper says "Valid for a period of up to three months?" It's expired. Think you're in the right office? Actually, you need to go across town to this address, which actually doesn't exist - you'll be back here in a few hours. Oh, you have to be at work in 45 minutes and you don't have the required photocopies? Go get them. And get back in line. No, I don't know where a photocopier is. It's not my job to know. Have an urgent and pressing need? I'm going to keep talking to my cubicle neighbor for four or five more minutes while you sit in front of me waiting, and then I'm going to get pissed off and bitchy if you make any kind of body-language indication of dissatisfaction.

Oh, you never got your renewal letter? Your visa is expired? You already called and asked about it and we didn't tell your a single goddamn bit of helpful information, instead trying to pass the buck to another agency? You don't speak Spanish like a native?

Deportación.

A Morriña

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and according to this website I found, I am 3,747 miles from home. On Christmas I will also be 3,747 miles from home. Maybe even a little more depending on where I am that day. Perhaps a little less.

No matter the small change of distance, it doesn’t change the fact that I will be very far from home for this year’s holidays. But I am not unlucky, I have chosen to be in this position, to work here, far away from Kirby Ct. In fact, I’m having a pretty good time over here.

Some people don’t have a choice. For necessity of work or a better life, or trying to work for a better life, they’ve traveled long and far, far from home. Some people will never again spend the holidays with their families and friends, for one reason or many others. If you’re a solider, a scientist in Antarctica, a migrant worker picking berries.

There are these guys here in Bilbao, most of them are from Senegal and Equatorial Guinea, and they walk the streets trying to sell cheap watches and caps, mostly counterfeit. Some of them will never go home. Some can’t. There might not be a home anymore. Instead, they’re trying to sell things to passersby, many of whom pretend to not even notice them.

Imagine their holidays, whatever time of the year they may be. Eid. Christmas. Ramadan. They find themselves in Madrid and Marseille and Münich, selling fake Tag-Heuers and Dolce bags instead of being with their mothers and brothers and sons and cousins and friends, wherever they may be. And in a place where many people are at best cold and at worst openly hostile.

Imagine that. Imagine the sea they crossed, one that separated both lands and cultures.

I am grateful and I give thanks that these are things of which I know nothing. This kind of self-sacrifice is not why I crossed an ocean. I did it in search of a better understanding of what life has to offer, of what it’s all about. Along the way, the hard times like this, in rooms alone thinking, and also the good times of lights and colors and laughing, have shown me that so much of the meaning of life comes from simply learning and trying to understand.

So give thanks that you’ve got what you’ve got and that you know whom you know and that you love whom you love and that they love you right back. Somewhere, across many seas, is someone who wishes they had the food you have, the situation you find yourself in. I always took Thanksgiving for granted, but now I’m starting to understand.

And we go on learning alright.

A Respite from the Internet in Portugalete

It can't be.

Because we are changing internet companies at my house in Getxo, we have been most unfairly left without wireless internet for several days. I think it's almost been four days at this point. Barbarity.

I can barely live like this. Because of this most unpleasant interruption in the transcurrence of my normal patterns of looking up random bullshit on wikipedia, my cell phone's 3G bill will certainly have gone up significantly. In addition, this evening, after sitting inside for a while, in the dark, I decided to take my trusty MacBook for a walk.

 I crossed La Ría de Bilbao in the hanging bridge of Puente Vizcaya, and for the past hour I have been ducking into bars trying to find one that has wifi. Finally, on a small backstreet in Portugalete - a most quaint callejón if I do say so myself - I found a bar with semi-functional wireless internet.

I am somewhere over there to the left, in a bar in an alley near that church. 

To be here on my laptop in a bar amongst drunken, socializing Basques is a novel thing indeed. There are many groups of people, and though I am not the only loner, I think I am the only lone person who is not a sad, old, alcoholic government employee drinking by himself. I am, however, a somewhat malaised, young, alcohol-in-relative-moderation-consuming, government employee drinking by myself.

But because I have my computer, that almost counts as having company. I have the world at my fingertips. Or at least, a staggeringly small and narrow-minded part of it, as long as I keep reading The Nation blogs.

The computer's screen turns my face blue.

I think I am going to do this more often though. Go to bars with my laptop. I need to make this commitment, even when we get wifi back at my house. I'm not going to lie, I am downloading a few episodes of Tremé right now, so that is my ulterior motive for being here.

Now, more and more people are coming in, and I am beginning to feel more than a little bit awkward. There is a golden retriever tied outside the bar's front window and he is staring at me intently, with a sizable stalactite of drool coming out of his smiling mouth. He has significantly added to my joy.

And how would he not?