The Saharauis and Their Dance for Freedom
The Saharauis are a people who live in the South of Morocco. Actually, they live in Western Sahara but their country does not yet exist on the map as it is recognised by only 84 countries, most of them from the developing world. Neither the US, France or Russia wish to involve themselves in the subject and decided to stay neutral. Spain is one of the few countries advocating for their independence, but does it because of its guilty conscience. And here goes the story…
Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony that was given independence by the Spanish Administration in 1975. Through the Madrid Accords they signed that very year, Western Sahara would pass temporarily under Moroccan Administration until reaching full independence. However, the tricky bit was that as soon as Morocco put its hands on this unexpected gift it decided to annex it to its state: it imposed its administration, its legal and educational systems and has made hundreds of Saharauis flee their homes and go to refugee camps in Algeria. The Saharauis were oppressed and their demand for a referendum for self-determination postponed indefinitely under the indecision concerning the area that will vote – only the region of Western Sahara or all of Morocco?. If all of Morocco were to vote, it would be illegal and, because of the small percentage this minority represented overall, the referendum would favor the Moroccans. If only Western Sahara were to vote, the referendum would favor the Saharauis. Thus, a tough choice.
However, here’s where it gets really tricky: just like the Israelis, the Moroccans started colonising the region in order to drop the overall percentage of the Saharauis in Western Sahara and be able to win the referendum on their side. And the most tricky part: they just found petroleum and phosphorus in that region, oh, the luck!
Now that you have this simplified full picture of the situation and understand that no big power will ever get into this (the US has no interest, Russia is already fighting against its own minorities right for self-determination, see Chechnya, France sees Morocco as a stabilising force in the region and will politically back it), you will probably ask yourself why you never heard of it. At least, this what I do everytime I see one of their frequent protests or whenever I meet my Saharaui classmate that is so blissfully involved in organising them.
This people has passed into a cone of shade and silence, forgotten by the international actors, as a topic of conversation that is better to avoid because of its political and geopolitical complexity. It might be that they will re-open the subject once the African gas pipeline connecting Nigeria to Morocco and with Spain will be built, but that would be, again, in nobody’s interest. Why would Spain, the only international actor whose own population demands justice for the wrong they made in the past, put in peril its good relationship with Morocco when energetically it will depend mostly on it? Why fall in the trap the Ukrainians did?
The question remains unsolved whereas the young Saharauis will continue organising events for raising conscious awareness in Madrid. I participated (accidentally) at one of those and I can confirm only one fact: that their rage is equal to the one of the Palestinians. And it should be.
PS: definitely one of my worse pictures, but I post it for a noble goal.
PPS: I take no credits for the photos. stole them from FB :-)
I Am a Rocket Scientist
Dunno how it happened, fact is I woke up and saw the sky reflected on the wooden window panel of my room. My cosmetic mirror was to blame, but my laziness approved: from now on, I don’t even have to get out of bed to see the sky.
Found Love in the Best Chocolate with Churros in Town
They are oily, look like hot-dog shaped donuts, but you eat them with chocolate. If the Spanish call them „churros”, then I call them „disgusting”. They represent this slightly unusual combination that my liver does not necessarily enjoy. However, I recently found out that they can be better than that and that if the chocolate is orange flavored and that if they are cooked properly, they can actually enter the category of what I would call „delicacy”. I still can’t eat a full-sized plate, but I can say that the chocolate hot-dog shaped donut can be good. Mum had some for the very first time and she liked them, while I am becoming a connoisseur. They have to be crunchy, just a bit oily, golden in color and they should be preferably be eaten in the company of high-quality chocolate. And voilà, you got yourself a meal!
Later that same gourmand experience, Mum and I went to see a corrida for the first time. Or, better said, it was the first time we went there only because the corrida itself never took place (bad weather). The organisation of the event was so poor that the young „torreros” who were supposed to perform that evening announced the public of the canceling only 5 minutes after the corrida was supposed to start. And yes, that meant that we had already bought our green rain overcoats for 5€ in front of the site and that we had already rented cushions for 2,4€ at the entrance. All this just to sit down and be told that „nope, there was going to be no party”. As an obvious result, the Spanish went crazy and threw their cushions into the arena, some ending up destroyed during their „landing” on the sand. Our vengeance was pretty the same, I have to admit. But we did manage to improvise a photo-shooting session on one of the balconies, just to get out the best of that disappointing evening. And only then did we leave the arena to get our money back.
The Orthodox Easter and the Religious Frenzy as seen from Romania
The Easter ritual in the Christian Orthodox world starts on Saturday at night. It is a mix of religious ceremonies, customs, acts and processions around the church in which the believers are actively engaged. This was the first time I took part at almost the entire ceremony and I have to admit that it was more complex than I thought it would be and that some previous study is required to reach a decent degree of understanding of what is going on.
What I am sure about, however, is that the mass celebrates the resurrection of Jesus and that this announces the end of the fast (that is no meat, eggs or milk for seven weeks). In realistic terms, it also announces the beginning of a period of binging, ambulance calls and massive gatherings around the churches at midnight. Bref, it is one of the few times after the Revolution that people go out in large groups. Interesting, hein?
The Entrance in the Church
Religious Chant in the Church
The most typical Orthodox song about Jesus’s resurrection
The Romanian Market during Easter
View over the market
“Zacuscă” seller
Honey vendor
Rabbit for sale. Future? Either on the table as food, either under the table as pet (until the kids get bored and then it will end up on the table)
Lambs waiting to be sold. Unfortunately, they are too expensive for most of the Romanians, even if this is considered to be, traditionally, the typical Easter meat/dish
Mum negotiating the price of bright yellow daffodils
More pictures on Easter church traditions coming soon! ;-)
One Sunny Day in Budapest with Mum
It was the first time we actually stayed out of any shopping center and went for a walk/ride a double-bike.
The boiled egg that did not come alone.
Eating in public before having coffee.
Mum wanted a mini-golf cart to visit the island, but I thought taking this bike would be more fun. The bike’s structure was heavier than expected and in half an hour we barely saw half of Margit Sziget. In the end, we were exhausted and happy to sit on a bench and watch the joggers sweat.
Going to Catholic Andalusia to See the Easter Processions
Spices display from a tourist shop in Granada
Last week, four friends and I spontaneously decided to go to Andalusia for Easter. It was a smart decision not only because I got two days off from work for this, but also because the South of Spain is the most catholic part of the country. How should I put it? Imagine a religious scene from a Latin American soap-opera, get all the black clothes, laments and virgins together in one image and you will have a pretty accurate image of Sevilla or Granada in front of your eyes. Unfortunately, what I experienced directly was not that fundamentalist, but it did offer the frame for some tears of passion to roll down one’s cheeks.
Arabic decorations inside the Alhambra, Granada
Granada was our first stop (actually, second, we first had a flat tire on our way there). The city is gorgeous especially because it has little to do with Spain: it has moorish architecture, very narrow streets, hills and green vegetation, a view towards a snowy mountain, cheap beer and free consistent tapas that come along. The Alhambra is a beautiful sight and it looks as if it teleported from Morocco. It offers a great feeling of confusion and of not knowing exactly where you are and it also explains a lot why this region is sometimes called Al-Andalus. I’m not sure it is worth going there twice in a lifetime, but it is a must-see that stands for everything Madrid is not – Arab culture, sublime beauty and peace.
Inside garden in the Alhambra, Granada
Arabic pattern as typical inside decoration of the Alhambra, Granada
View from the Alhambra towards a snowy mountain hidden between a forest of autumn leaves and a sunset-like colored mosque
We also found in this small city a religious bar. Yes, a bar with pictures of suffering Virgin Mary-s, hundreds of crucified Jesus-es, depressive religious music, videos with religious ceremonies and church incense. It also sold cheap beer and gave away excellent tapas, while making any atheist feel like burnt with sulfuric acid. It was a deep experience.
Seeing and not believing all the religious items that were around us; not even the most Christian Orthodox believers have this many per square cm
“In Spain, coming back before 3am is not going out. It is having dinner” (McDonalds in Granada – referring to those nine free tapas we just had?)
Sevilla, our second stop, was more like Spain than Morocco, but more like Korea than Spain. The city was not as cosmopolitan as Madrid is and one could feel the quiet provincial peace on the streets. It actually reminded me of Lyon (in France), as it also had a river along which people would just lay on the grass, go for a run, ride a bike or row a boat. I think I could be entitled to say that Sevilla is the Lyon of Spain. The prices were high as well. No more free tapas, unlimited access to international beer brands and bouf! the magic was over. The creepiest things in Sevilla were, however, the processions. Basically, they gather around all the healthy and strong man from the region, train them well in weight-lifting, put them under a statue and off they go around the city carrying it. The statues represent tragic religious scenes such as the crucifixion, the pieta, the Virgin Mary in prayer or Jesus receiving guests. These statues (not chariots, but man-lifted one-ton religious scenes) were preceded and succeeded by less strong man (including youth) dressed up in black or white KKK-like costumes. Apparently, it was the KKK that used this costumes after them, but it makes little difference today, the harm has already been made, the chills have already settled.
The inside anatomy of a saint, the Cathedral in Sevilla
Procession chariot representing a scene with Jesus, being photographed by the people
Peppe portraying Caesar, wearing a Berlin t-shirt, saluting Sevilla
Gourmand picnic in front of the wooden sun umbrella in Sevilla, surrounded by random kids (photo taken by their mum)
Korea, however, was a nice, cosy hostel we stayed at thanks to my Korean friend, Woo Rin. Somehow, she found this cheap hostel in fully booked and now overpriced Sevilla, owned by a Korean family. We were the first non-Asians to stay there and got a warm welcome. I can now say I fully enjoyed the privileges of being Korean: I had a bed heater under the sheet, Korean words indicating what each room was, Korean green tea in the morning (and not Brazilian café cerrado…), spicy food in the morning (Eros Pista like hot), as well as soup and fried meat, all for the same first hour of the day. I took everything quite well in the first morning, but had to go back to sleep for one hour to digest, in the second morning. Needless to say I usually have Weetabix with yoghurt and jam in the morning. However, I did appreciate talking in Hungarian with the Korean woman that owned the place: you never have to go too far to talk about gulyas leves and have your Hungarian pronunciation corrected by a Korean.
Woman wearing a traditional black Spanish costume in Granada
Peppe looking towards the future in Plaza España, Sevilla
