Today I’m sitting under a new tree, in a new park, though the bird calls and wet earth seeping through my pants are familiar. I like to imagine I can hear the birds I often do at the river, but these are likely not the same ones. This owl I hear, calling out that it is not meant to be awake right now, is definitely not usual. While I heard their calls, flutters, and settlings, mixed with the inevitable human noises, my senses were more struck by what I was smelling. It has finally gotten warm, and the orange trees (naranjos) have dropped their first batch of fruit and are preparing for another. The sudden heat is bringing out every fragrance from their blossoms, spreading further than seems possible to let every creature know that spring has arrived. Mixed with the blossoms, I smell the familiar damp earth, but notice a new smell as well. Wisteria!! There is a colossal vine growing in this park, and while it is far enough away I can only see the shape, its scent graciously makes the trek over to my nose. At my house in California, we used to have two massive intertwining bushes before they were moved to mitigate the mess they constantly drop, and this smell is something I didn’t know I missed as much as I do.

The park I am in used to be an old orchard. Every space in Córdoba has been through many iterations due to the back and forth change of power between the Muslims and the Christians, and the natural spaces unfortunately have not entirely escaped either. This area’s continuing fight with immigration and power have left its marks. Luckily, though the orchard was cut down, the space was preserved by SOMeone and brought back to being a natural space open to anyone to enjoy. There are murals on the broken walls around it, a small playground and workout area, and a long forgotten fountain in the corner, but mostly, there’s grass and trees and flowers and dogs and babies and families and solo people, who, like me, come here to connect to the natural spaces we can, to enjoy the new sun, and of course, to people watch. This is generally the case with natural spaces in Córdoba, which are plentiful, though there are some that feel more for show than for enjoyment. For example, there is one big stretch of park that cuts through the city, but small restaurants have popped up within it, and as I, admittedly, walk through it to get somewhere else, I never see people, let alone creatures enjoying it. I think the focus in maybe most of Spain is on the architecture rather than the nature, though this area is known for a few important agricultural exports. I see many signs saying to save water, save energy, turn off the lights and faucets, et cetera, but not as much actual interaction with nature or action to care for it outside of limiting resource usage. Even this is more for the financial savings than for the environment! Perhaps that will be the angle to take for my final project… I don’t love it, but financial gain is a powerful motivator. Perhaps that, combined with an effort to educate on WHY we should care for the nature around us! As in most places, the younger generations are the only ones I have seen fighting for change here. This weekend, I ran into three different protests, almost entirely youth, one for fair housing costs for locals in an over-touristy area, one for safe housing for at risk teens, which was being bulldozed also for tourists, and one for Palestine. Though of course environmentalism intersects all global issues, I am observing that it seems like less of an immediate priority to young people without homes, freedom, or safety. It has been hard enough to even find that there IS an environmental club at my university, and they don’t seem to check their email or update meeting locations all that often. This show of priorities reinforces that to promote equitable environmentalism here, it might be best to take an indirect approach, working with the citizens on what is important to them and finding a way to connect it to the cause. In the meantime, I will continue picking up trash when I find it, minimizing my energy and plastic use, supporting youth protests, and ensuring that I am enjoying the preserved natural spaces that we do have, therefore supporting further preservation.