Man not in Álora says 'A Pox on Both Your Houses'. How Spain Infected the World.
Mrs. Sánchez and I left Álora three weeks ago and I´m homesick for my pueblo already. ('pueblo' means both village/small town and people, which is rather nice, I think.) It's very hot there at the moment which is normal - 38 degrees this weekend/ 46 if you put the thermometer in full sun, so I hope that Juan is watering our plants for us, as agreed. No sign of rain there for the foreseeable (4 'e's in that word!) future either.
The night before we left Álora there was a break-in at a house on our street. We drove off as the 'municipales' were sealing off the bashed-in front door with 'duck' tape (you either climb over it or duck under). Perhaps La Plaza Baja deserves its dodgy reputation after all.
It´s been warm and sunny here in Brum too ('You've brought the good weather with you!') so we've been out in the garden most days trying to cut back and dig up all the nasty, vicious vegetation that is trying to recreate the Forest of Arden right here. It's been like rediscovering The Lost Gardens of Heligan or a Mayan city (OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration). I've found paved pathways previously lost to living memory. Hard work for Mrs. S. and me, but the results are well worth the effort.
Before
We were able to sit out on our patio the other day with an old pal and a bottle of wine.
O.P.: 'How do you say 'Cheers' in Spanish?'
Me: '¡Salud!'
'Salud ' (health) comes from the Latin word ´salutare' which also means 'greet' and we in Britain often say 'Good health' too, along with :
'Down the hatch!'
'Here's to you'
'Gentlemen, The Queen!'
'Lang may your lum reek!' (Scotland)
'Bottoms up! (Try explaining that to Spaniards).
etc.
Cheers!
Nearly every European country has at least one 'toasting' expression which means 'Good health'.
Why? I expect it's for the same reason that people tend to ask about your health after they've said ´Hello', as in:
'Holá, como estás?' ('Hello, how are you?')
or 'Holá. Qué tal?'
Here in Birmingham people just say 'All right?' or ignore you completely.
Nobody really knows where the word 'Holá ' comes from. Some say it's from the Arabic 'Allah' (Peace be upon God), but some say its origins are Greek or Iberian).
To 'say hello' is 'saludar' in Spanish, from the Latin/Italian salve/salvere which means both 'Hello' and 'Be well'- from which we get the word 'salute' and so on.
You, my faithful readers, are probably both wondering what this has all got to do with Álora. Well here's the link.
Álora. (Our casa is at the foot of the church tower, hanging off the cliff)
I few weeks ago I went to our local Centro de Salud (Health Centre) in Álora. As far as I know there is only one. It serves 12,951 people. Mrs. Sánchez and I do not have travel insurance (we're a risky proposition, apparently) so we depend on our EHIC (European Health Card) for any emergency treatment.
I'd been advised, back in Bimingham, to have some wax cleared from my ear so, as it was an emergency, I walked down there to see if a kindly nurse could sort me out.
Centro de Salud, Álora
I was told to go home and pour some olive oil down my ear for a week and given an appointment with Pedro the nurse.
Pedro is a very conscientious health professional. He looked in both ears and declared. 'No hay nada' (There's nothing there). I stood up to leave but he told me to sit down, wrapped the blood pressure thing round my arm and started pumping. I didn't have chance to ask why because, without a by your leave or how's your father, he stuck a spike in my thumb and squeezed some blood out.
'Have you had breakfast?'
'Yes'
'That's OK then.'
'Thanks. Is that all?
´'When did you last have a blood test?'
'A couple of years ago in England'
'You should have one every year. Go to reception and book an appointment'.
I was starting to get worried now.
The lady on the desk booked me in and gave me a contraption for harvesting a urine sample.
'What? now?´
'No'. (look that says 'stupid') 'When you have the blood test'.
To cut a long story short, I now have a vitamin B12 deficiency and had to buy some tablets costing €8.45 from the local Farmacia (Pharmacy)
'Come back in November'.
Lessons to be learnt;
1. Healthcare in Álora is very good and accessible.
2. They don't care where you come from.
3. Pedro´s family own the Farmacia.
I suppose we ask about everybody's health because in the olden days deadly illnesses were common and if someone replied 'Not so good' or 'A bit under the weather', you'd avoid them like the plague - partly because you don't really want to hear about all their problems and partly because in those days there was a fair chance they actually had the plague or worse still, 'Spanish Flu' or Smallpox.
Influenza, Bubonic Plague, Typhoid, Cholera, Smallpox and Dysentery are just a few of the grim diseases that, for centuries, stalked the continent of Europe and claimed millions of lives. 'Spanish Flu' (1918-1920) alone killed 100 million people worldwide and Spain got the blame for it.
It really started in the USA.
In order to maintain morale during the 'Great War', (1914-1919) newspapers in Britain, France, Germany and the USA were ordered by the censors to play down reports of the illness. But Spain was a neutral country and so when King Alfonso Xlll of Spain caught it and 'was gravely ill', the media, which just meant newspapers in those days, had a field day, blamed Spain and called it 'Spanish Flu'.
Not Spain's fault at all. Alfonso recovered and went to Santander to convalesce. (See previous 'Man in Álora' 13/12/2015)
Incidentally, the French called 'syphillis' 'The Spanish Disease' too...as good an example as you can imagine of the 'kettle calling the pot black', in my opinion.
In retaliation the Spanish called it 'The French Disease' so that showed them!
Smallpox.....was Spain to blame?
Smallpox , which is highly contagious, killed 500,000,000 people in the 100 years up to the disease being eradicated worldwide in 1980.
The last two cases (one fatal) in the world occurred at Birmingham Medical School, on September 11th. 1978, 6km. (3.6miles) from where I am sitting right now.
Janet Parker was working as a photographer at the medical school and became ill. Both she and her mother were diagnosed as having Smallpox. Janet's mother survived the illness but Janet died. Her father who was quarantined at the same hospital as his wife and daughter had a heart attack while visiting Janet and died, too.
The circumstances have never been fully explained but the microbiologist, Professor Henry Bedson who was working on the eradication of Smallpox at the time and whose laboratory stored the smallpox virus, blamed himself, was hounded by the press and took his own life.
A tragic story.
The story of the development of a vaccine to prevent and eventually eradicate smallpox is colourful and long, involving milkmaids, cows, gardeners, prisoners and an aristocratic Lady Montagu, but the credit usually goes to an Englishman, Edward Jenner.
There are still stocks of the smallpox virus stored around the world, including at Porton Down in the United Kingdom, so we may not have seen the last of it.
Only 30% of Smallpox sufferers died as a result of the disease but the survivors were often horribly disfigured, giving rise to the adjective 'pockmarked', as in:
'the old church wall was pockmarked with bullet holes'.
Spain was not blamed directly for Smallpox but when the Spaniard 'conquistador' Hernándo Cortés invaded what is now Mexico in 1519 he took with him the smallpox virus.
30 million Aztec people lived in the area at the time of the Spanish 'entrada'. After a series of smallpox epidemics and warfare the indigenous population of 'New Spain' fell to less than 3 million.
Spain gained an empire and unimaginable wealth from its colonisation of Central and South America, undoubtedly assisted by smallpox, so I suppose they were to blame for spreading it to the 'New World'.
Some may say that Charles lV of Spain partly made amends for this sad but highly profitable period of his country's history by sending 'The Royal Philanthropic Expedition'to 'New Granada' (now Columbia) 300 years later. Too little,too late.
On a lighter note, The Birmingham International Jazz Festival has just kicked off here and the weather looks promising so I'm off into town to hear a few bands. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing ´The Potato Head Jazz Band' from Granada, not very far from Álora.
As luck would have it all the venues are bars or pubs so it should be fun.
Tat-ta for now.
Cheers!
Juanito Sánchez July 21st. 2019
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