Robyn.Bowles.es

Last night while Samuel and I were out walking the dog, we ran into the security guard who patrols the neighborhood all night on foot. Samuel has met him a few times, he helped us one very early morning when we were trying to tell the taxi service from which we had ordered a taxi that the street we were on was NOT in the city but in Las Rozas, and yes, we were sure.

I don’t know his name, but we did know he was from Columbia. We learned last night that he has lived in 5 European countries. Including in Berlin during the communist rule in 1980; and Holland. He has been in Spain for 15 years. He also told us that he’s had this night patrol job for two months. Every night for eight hours he walks around the neighborhood. It takes him two hours to travel each way to and from home via public transportation. In the two months on the job he has had just 3 days off. For 1000 €/month he works about 230 hours and earns roughly just over 4€/hour.

This low wage is not abnormal, and because workers here are paid a salary and not hourly, he may have to work more than that some months, but earns the same amount.

Life here in Euros costs a bit more than life in Grand Rapids in dollars. It’s amazing how they do it. This is probably why it is completely normal for 30 – 40 year olds to still live at home with their parents. And anyone who gets married younger than 30 – 32 is considered very young. They just can’t afford it!

We were talking with our Spanish teacher last week about the low birth rate (currently about 1.5 births/woman). If it weren’t for the millions of immigrants in Spain having babies, the population of this country would rapidly decline. She was telling us how sad it is that many of the couples would like to have children, but financially they just can’t.

And yet, for the most part, the people seem happy. Sure, they complain, but they don’t see any other options. Striking here has become very popular, though I’m not sure how successful it is. Since we’ve been here University professors, school teachers, parking meter attendants, bus drivers, train conductors, and hospital cleaners have all taken their turns going on strike.

What we have seen though, is that their situation requires strong family ties and learning to value what is really important. The students in one of my classes were shocked when another of them said he hadn’t talked to his mother for little over a week. As negatively as Americans might consider a 35 year-old still living with his or her parents, here it is a necessity.

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