Christine and Keith's Travels: Zafra, Spain, Tuesday December 2nd

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There was nothing for it but to go to the internet café and send off some emails to my school asking for information. I was certainly stressed. Poor Keith had to help me along with all this, and was absolutely wonderful, even when in days to come I woke in the middle of the night and started to email a friend in Australia about my situation, and Keith was woken from a deep sleep.

But back to December 2^nd. A much more enjoyable task was some shopping to find a birthday present for our son, Rohan. We looked vaguely, and then our ideas jelled into finding him a little item of art, something representative of the parts of Spain that we had been seeing. We walked every street, we thought, and could not find any art or arty gift shops. We called on the help of the tourist office again, and for the fourth time she registered Australians as visiting tourists. Her statistics said that there had been eight Australians in three days, but not that they were all us. She directed us to an art shop, where luckily the proprietor spoke French. He produced some folios of work by local artists, and eventually we chose a painting that we liked, and were sure that would appeal to Rohan. It was of the village of Burgillos del Cerro, only about twenty kilometres away.

After lunch we raced up to the bus station, with the idea to visit the village in Ro’s painting, and were very disappointed to learn that we could only go there in the later afternoon, and only ever come back in the early morning. It was all too tricky once accommodation would be needed, and walking one way also seemed impossible at the hours available at this time of year, so we had to give up on that idea. Maybe next time, and I hope Rohan goes there one day.

We were a bit disappointed, but we still had the Convent of Santa Clara to visit. This is a convent which is still operating, but some parts have been set aside as a museum and other parts can be looked into, if not entered. We were greeted by two gentle and very friendly ladies who looked after our back packs while we went through. The convent was founded in 1428 by the first Duke of Feria, Gomez I Suarez de Figueroa, and his daughters took a great interest in its ‘monastic purpose’. I read about the ‘monastic porpose’ later. At the time my mis-translation of the Spanish information had me believing that the daughters had joined the convent, a much more impressive devotion to the cause than just money and treasures. The family gave it great support up until the eighteenth century. The convent museum included paintings and other treasures, many of which had been given by the family.

A cell showed the simple bed and tiny room that Sister Cecelia had lived in. She had a whip for self mortification, which was practised here. The nuns originally had to find a balance between work that would keep their convent operating and contemplation and prayer. A video showed that that was achieved these days by cooking a kind of biscuit for sale, maintaining an excellent vegetable garden, and taking care of all the chores in the convent themselves. The cloisters had a beautiful garden in the courtyard which was said to represent God’s world. The video showed the nuns to take their time to walk and to work and to praise God, and to be immensely cheerful and smiley with each other. Their faces were open and innocent. Bells kept being rung while we were there, and we could hear some singing.

A little gallery near the cloisters was devoted to images of baby Jesus. The nuns here have a special interest in Jesus as a baby, which stems from Saint Clara having visions with Jesus as a baby in them.

Upstairs there was an exhibition by modern artists of their responses to the convent. Some represented Saint Clara and others the building. Keith had had enough, while I was still examining the collection of religious paintings and treasures in an inner room, and had the video to go, so he left. He was soon back because the kind ladies downstairs had offered to show us in the church when I had finished. I picked up my pace. The lady who took us to the church, kept saying to us that we could have ‘dulces’ around the back afterwards if we wanted. I looked that up in the dictionary and it meant ‘sweets’. It was all very strange, but there was no time to ask since she had opened the church door and then disappeared.

The church was small, but lavishly decorated with gilded carvings and painted statues. It had a very large altar piece. We could hear someone in one of the chapels and didn’t stay long. I was all for going around to try the sweets, which I thought must be the biscuits that the nuns were making in the video, since the whole area was filled with the sweetest and most enticing smell. Keith had been trapped once, and could imagine what would happen if we started on the sweets around the back, particularly if anyone could speak one of my languages. He said that he wasn’t going to, but that I could if I wanted to. I did want to, but felt awkward without his speaking skills to assist, so also walked away.

Keith went on to the internet café, and I went shopping for tea. It was now less than three degrees, but the shops were open after the siesta that ends at five o’clock, and people were out on the streets. There is an amazing number of children’s wear shops selling expensive children’s wear that looks like it is straight out of the 1930s. Toy shops and lolly shops are also plentiful. There are whole kiosks devoted to lollies, where children line up to make selections from trays of small lollies. At this hour, and in this cold, there was no-one at the lolly kiosk, and the lottery ticket man, who had been standing on the street all day with his strips of tickets, had no customers. I noticed them because the ticket man was dancing, not just to keep warm, but for pleasure, to the CD that the lolly man was also bopping along to. With nowhere they could go, they were making the most of their situations, laughing and talking and having a good time. I walked away with a smile on my face.

During that stroll alone, several people greeted me and I replied, but of course did not have the language to chat. I wondered what it would be like to travel alone, and how many more chance encounters you might make. It was dark, but the streets were well lit and lots of people were out and about.

Back at the hostel, I watched a TV program about dog training and a show in which people had sent in their reasons for who was the best member of the Spanish nobility. Maybe I got that wrong, but everyone nominated was titled. The nominators had to send in a video of themselves explaining their reasons and then the program showed footage of the nominee. One woman nominated a man because she had always wanted to sleep with him! A costume drama was more my style and it was amusing to see the Spanish yokels in it who were very stereotypical, but so was everyone else from the earnest star crossed but beautiful young lovers to the city slicker visitor who got fleas. A quiz show followed the usual formula of giving the contestant a bit of a chance to guess, but was good for me because each question was presented in writing. It is amazing the rubbish you can watch in the name of language study and relaxation.

Keith finally came home feeling satisfied, having sorted out some couch surfing letters and published some blog pages.