Hello again!
Though I haven’t sat in my usual sit spot this week, I have spent quite a bit of time enjoying other natural spots around me. I didn’t quite *sit* in them, though, because of how wet it’s been! This week was an uncharacteristically rainy one here in Andalusia, which although wonderful for the plants, worries me in its unusualness, as I am all too familiar with the effects of dramatic change in weather patterns due to climate change. At least for now, I imagine the plants around me are relishing in the wet soil, but I wonder what else they experience. When I think of their roots, my mind first goes to their historic and cultural roots, and I wonder how much they have lived through. Which plants were here when the Christians first developed the land, or when the Muslims took it over and repurposed each development, or when the Christians retook the area and changed its landscape once again? What stories might the soil and the roots have to tell of the music of the area, of the countless feet that have stepped there, of both the successful and unsuccessful attempts at cultivating different crops? What about this land, these plants, their flow of energy, makes it so perfect for vineyards? Or orange trees? Additionally, if the water from the river is now so unsafe for humans, what is it like for the plants who feed from it?
Besides the river, of course, all of the water from any tap here is potable, which is amazing! The energy in Spain is very expensive, which means we turn off lights and heating when we leave the room even for a minute, we take short showers, we unplug everything completely from the sockets when it is not in use, and even the fridges seem to run on less power (food goes bad much quicker, it seems, though this could be due to freshness as well!). My host family doesn’t seem to think or talk much about energy sources, so I turned to the internet. I found sources online saying that Spain actually has cheap energy due to more than half of the country’s fuel coming from renewable sources. Something’s not adding up. Another source says that “primary energy consumption in Spain in 2020 was mainly composed of fossil sources. The largest sources are petroleum (42.3%), natural gas (19.8%) and coal (11.6%). The remaining 26.3% is accounted for by nuclear energy (12%) and different renewable energy sources (14.3%)”. It seems as if the first piece of information is more up to date, with prices going way down in 2024, but perhaps it hasn’t caught up to small town Andalusia? I’ll have to do more digging.
This past weekend a few friends and I traveled to Málaga, a coastal city in southern Andalusia. We took the train, which was both cheaper and faster than the buses! I’ve attached a grainy photo I took of a fun looking knob from the view of my train window, and a picture of the front of the train, which looked funny to me! Many people here don’t drive, or if they do, it’s infrequent. Instead, there are many motorcyclists, electric scooterers, and of course pedestrians. Not only is it expensive, but the streets were definitely not designed for individual vehicular transportation. They are skinny, one-way, winding, cobbled, nonsensical, and often filled with horse-drawn carriages and tourists. As a pedestrian, it is rare that I’ll hold off on crossing the street because a car’s coming, they go too slowly to concern me, though I sometimes have to flatten myself against a building so a van can squeeze through. It most often is quicker to walk than to try and drive! While we were in Málaga, the supposedly sunny city, the one that never rains, was drenched. My poor 7th grade sneakers aren’t looking too good by the end of it. I was again struck by the strangeness of it raining in such a historically dry place. And it landed on one of the weekends of Carnival! While enjoying the zany costumes, extreme patriotism, and street performances, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of trash left on the streets by confetti (pictured below), food wrappers, cigarettes, and the like. In Spain, I’ve noticed that most residents and business owners wash the street in front of their building in the mornings! I’ve never seen anything like it before. Though the streets in Córdoba usually look very clean as a result, I wonder if, here and in Málaga, they pick up the trash left there or if they just wash it down the drain. I have a sneaking suspicion they’re not picking it up, which, combined with the amount of water used to do it, concerns me! We live RIGHT on the river, so it’s not as though there’s any barrier! It’s strange to me that they designate so much water usage to this purpose, but encourage very short showers and otherwise very conscious energy usage. It is hard to identify how sustainable this place really is, as many of the practices contradict each other, but in general I have noticed a seemingly modern trend towards sustainability and a focus on preserving water and energy, regardless of if the motivation is financial or environmental (or both).
I attached a few more pictures than specifically mentioned, including my first time touching the Mediterranean and a few trees that yet again reminded me of all the similarities to California! For next time, I plan to pay attention to more trends here in Córdoba to see if I can deduce the ‘root’ of the energy conservation practices, and how this city’s might differ from its neighbors’!
*I am deeply sorry but cannot figure out how to make my images be straight up, they were straight up but now seem stuck. My condolences.*
