Some final reflections.

Now we're back in the UK, I have a chance to reflect on the experience of living for a short while in the province of Almeria.

One of the things that struck me most was just how much has changed on the Cabo de Gata, and particularly in Rodalquilar, within living memory. It's only 50 years since the gold mine closed in the village, and there are still people whose fathers and grandfathers worked in the mine.
Reading Juan Goytisolo, I am shocked by the conditions under which they lived and worked such a short time ago. Many of the miners died from emphysema, and many more had accidents since health and safety in the mine was minimal, and following those accidents they had to wait months or even years before they received any sort of compensation.

In the 1950s, when Goytisolo visited Rodalquilar, we already had a National Health Service in the UK, although it was recently established. Reading 'Campos de Nijar', brings it home to me what a difference it makes when you don't have to pay for basic health care. Not just from the story of the woman dying from gangrene in her leg, but because of a blind baby Goytisolo tells us about when he reaches the small town of Nijar after leaving Rodalquilar. One of the miners he has travelled with, invites him into his home where he meets the man's wife, Modesta, and their children.
The miner takes his 18-month-old baby on his knee and "kisses him all over his face.
     'Lovely, ain't he?'
    The baby does seem to be sturdier than his brothers, but I look at his squinting, apparently lifeless eyes, and Modesta anticipates my question:
     'It's a pity he's blind.'
     'He don't see a thing,' the man adds. 'Bin like that ever since he was born.'
     I ask them if a doctor's ever looked at him.
     'They took him to Almeria once. They said they'd have to operate on him.'
     'There?'
     'No. In Barcelona.'
     'They say there's a very good doctor in Barcelona.'
     'It's all the same to us, whether he's good or bad.'
     'I don' know why you say that,' his wife complains.
     'Because it's true. We won't find a soul to pay the fare…'
     The father cradles the baby in a strange, loving way."
It's shocking to think that this little boy will grown up blind when he could be cured if his parents could afford the fare to Barcelona and the fee for the operation.

Goytisolo points out that Almeria province has been neglected ever since the Moors were expelled from Spain. Under the Moorish Empire, the city of Almeria was of great importance but no government since has cared about it or invested the much-needed money into it.
Even today, when the "plasti-culture" produces vegetables that are exported all over Europe, there is a great deal of poverty in this area. Tourism is on the increase in the Cabo de Gata, particularly ecotourism owing to the National Park and the Marine reserve around the coast. This, perhaps more than anything, offers a real future and a way forward for the area.

There are other things that have struck both S and I about Spain; striking differences between that country and the UK.  I think at least some of these differences are owing to the legacy of Franco. The Spanish people, as we have experienced them, are noticeably less materialistic than British people. Society in Spain is far less consumer-driven. The priorities there are first and foremost the family, then the immediate community, then society as a whole.
The Spanish seem to have a far better attitude towards life, maybe because they still seem rooted in the land. Spain doesn't seem to have experienced the kind of industrial revolution and consequent uprooting of the workforce that Britain went through in the 19th century. People still have a strong identity with particular area, even a particular village.

Sadly, I have to say that they seem far kinder and more compassionate on the whole. The UK seems to have lost much of its humanity by comparison. Just two examples of this: first, we were surprised by the reporting in the news on national television of the disappearance of a young woman from a northern village six months earlier. In the UK, unless the woman was a "celebrity", after months had gone by, her disappearance would not be considered newsworthy. Second, when the body of a refugee child was washed up on a beach in southern Spain the whole country was appalled and horrified, and it wasn't just a nine-day wonder, people all over the country demanded that the government take more refugees into Spain. In Barcelona there was even a huge demonstration.
I feel very sad and ashamed to acknowledge it, but I can't imagine British people turning out in their thousands to demand that the government take more refugees into the UK.

On a personal level, we were deeply moved by the kindness and helpfulness shown to us by the Spanish we met everywhere; in Almeria, on the Cabo, and on our journey home through Spain to Santander on the north coast.