Local people tend not to pronounce the letters 's' and 'd'. This does not make the words sound as they did when we learnt them at the local college in England, e.g. 'Buenos Dias' is pronounced 'Buenodia', 'Pescado' (fish) is pronounced 'Pecao', and Estamos (we are) is 'etamo', and so on. Aguilas itself also has words peculiar to only Aguilas. With this in mind when I saw an advert about the local WI, I decided to join in the hope of improving my listening skills.
When I went into Aguilas to join, I took my husband with me for support. On finding the front door of their building, I hesitated. My husband rang the bell, the door opened electronically and he firmly pushed me up a flight of stairs. I entered a tiny office and was faced with about five middle-aged ladies squashed behind a small desk. They all looked up at me in surprise. I asked if I could join - they looked astounded - "It would be 12 Euros." "OK" We then had a difficult conversation about how we came to be in Aguilas, which my husband helped me with as my nerves had rendered me almost dumb, (a most unusual occurrence according to him). A card was issued. I was now an official member of :-
The Association of Housewives, Worshippers and Users of the Virgin of Dolores, of Aguilas. It didn't seem to matter that I was not a worshipper, a user or indeed, even a Catholic. They told me that some of them met every Tuesday to embroider or sew - my heart sank - sewing! (When at school my mother completed every item that I ever started). However I went along several times clutching a tiny embroidery which I've been doing for about ten years now. The embroidery progressed quite well but sadly the ladies remained almost incomprehensible to me. I still couldn't crack the accent.
A few months later they had a trip to Benidorm. (It was advertised on hoardings and lampposts around the town, the normal method to convey information). I'd never been to Benidorm and thought that listening to a whole day of Spanish would be good for me. Stomach churning I met about fifty mostly elderly ladies waiting at the port at eight a.m. on a chilly February day.
We all got on the coach and I was surrounded by excited Spanish women all chattering, gesticulating and shouting at once. We set off and the president (an always immaculately dressed woman aged about seventy) started the announcements over the microphone immediately saying how pleased she was to be out with, The Housewives of Aguilas, Worshippers and Users of the Virgin of Dolores, of Aguilas. (A previous Spanish teacher used to say of Spanish, "Why use one word when you can use twenty").
Everyone continued laughing and talking throughout the announcements. It suddenly quietened. There was just a low murmuring, the ladies were crossing themselves and I realised that prayers were being offered up for a good day and an improvement in the weather. This was followed by a stream of what appeared to be filthy jokes with all the women laughing uproariously and various ones taking over the mike. Then they all started to sing. So far it wasn't how I imagined a day out would be with the English WI. ( I could be wrong - let me know if you're a member).
I sat next to a woman who like most had come with several female members of her family. They all worked with their husbands who ran the local children's fun-fair. One sold sausages and fried foods, one candy floss and I never did manage to translate what the other one did.
We travelled up the coast and stopped at a bar for a mid-morning break around ten a.m. Two of my new friends had large glasses of red wine to calentarse - warm themselves.They had saved me a seat and bought me (what else?) a cup of tea. They were kind to me and I was delighted to be able to converse with them.
They had an interesting life. The fair opens in Aguilas for week-ends and holidays in the winter and they travel all over Spain with it in the summer. However with the deepening economic climate the takings were well down.
We finally reached Calpe which has a pretty port. A restaurant displayed massive trays of sea food for people to choose from for lunch later on. (Unfortunately we didn't lunch here).We all wandered vaguely around the port, en masse of course. Everyone was complaining about the weather which was chilly and grey. On the rare occasions when it rains in Aguilas the streets are deserted, because people simply don't venture out in the rain unless it's essential - yes, I know - they wouldn't have gone out much in England this spring would they?
Then we all got back onto the coach to Altea, which was a photographer's paradise,but as is always the way with coach trips far too short a stay, just forty-five minutes.
Many thanks for reading.All comments are very welcome either at the link or directly to me at
writerinaguilas@gmail.com
Gracias para leyendo, espero que te guste. Si tienes algunos comentarios escribirme a
writerinaguilas@gmail.com
