Photo: Maarten Zeehandelaar
Years ago, I lived in Spain for a while, doing volunteer work escorting the mentally challenged on leisure activities. Every day I’d trudge through Tarrèga, a small town about eighty miles from Barcelona, with a troupe of endearing misfits behind me.
We’d go to the tobacconist to buy Ducados, which is a brand of particularly foul and cheap cigarettes. Most of my clients smoked them, more vehemently so when we’d continue to their fitness class. There they’d amble about while the earnest instructor tried to whip them in to shape through positive remarks with only the slightest tinge of despair.
My clients and their town seemed connected in a profound way. Just like my clients were somehow left unfinished, awaiting their complete mental faculties, so the buildings in town were always under construction. Scaffolding and piles of building material were scattered throughout the narrow streets and would rest there for months. Someone explained to me that this was normal; the builders were waiting for their vacation, for time and money to continue their work. It became a joke between us volunteers. “What’s wrong with that guy?” “Nothing, God’s just on vacation.”
Text by: Wibo Kosters
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