Southern Spain, in a little village called Chipiona, I’m spending an evening at my rented condo, watching the sun go down.
Travel is difficult these days, and mine was no different, with 3 hour delay for departure from the US, missing my connecting flight from Madrid to Seville. But with a little bit of money, much can be solved, and so it was for me. I went to the train station, caught the train, and took a long nap until we arrived. I rented a car and started my drive down to a coastal village called Chipiona.
Along the road there were farms full of sun flowers, each about 3 feet tall, row after row, their yellow halo surrounding a red center, standing in the sun, bending to the breeze. They looked like teenagers, shoulder to shoulder, standing on a beach with the wind blowing through their curly blond hair.
I arrived at my condo and called the number I was given. Marina, the cleaning lady I believe, spoke not a word of English, but she found me and gave me the keys. It’s a beautiful condo complex, with a gorgeous pool in the middle, and my 8th floor balcony overlooks the ocean. Wonderful. But there is no internet, and unbelievably, no towels of any kind. I messaged the owner and he said that because of COVID, he hadn’t placed towels in the place. I walked around thinking that, well, this being a beach town, it shouldn’t be too hard buying a towel from somewhere nearby. Fortunately, by the pool I find a young man that looks like he might work here and ask him. Yes, he finds me a towel. Nice.
That evening I found a fruit stand and bought some apricots, cherries, and grapes. The grapes were local, and quite good. Then I met with some colleagues and we walked to a seafood place by the water. One of the colleagues is from this region, and orders for us. Plate after plate is nothing short of amazing. Flavors that are new to me, like a dish made with rice and squid, all black, served in a large cast iron black pan. The final piece, a fish baked entirely enveloped in a mountain of salt, with the waiter chiseling the fish out of the salt, slowly skinning it, de-boning it, and then serving small pieces for each person. There was so much skill in making this food, and more skill in serving it. And then came the bill: $30 per person, that’s for all the wine and a 7-course meal. A similar scene repeats every dinner.
Thursday arrived and I took a nice long shower and headed down to the conference hotel and gave my talk. In the afternoon they took us on a bus and then a ferry to a nearby national park, where my binoculars were useful, spotting a wild pig, and a rather beautiful small bird which I think was a swallow, but blue and black. Then the bus took us to a winery, where we learned about making sherry in American Oak barrels. During this whole time, the best part was not so much the scenery, but rather the people. Sitting with someone on the bus, walking with another person in the park, standing next to a third person in the winery, each a book of stories, willing to share a chapter. I loved listening. In some ways, this is the best part of small conferences; the people you meet for the first time, and get to spend time an hour or two learning from.
During one of the conversations, I listened to a person who was trained in the US, then decided to go to China because they promised her directorship of a neuroscience institute. Last year, China instituted a policy where every single person has an app on their phone which is either green or red, determining their status based on a nationwide tracking of COVID exposure. She was traveling in some city in China when she found that her app had turned red. No taxi would take her, she couldn’t get back on a plane and go home, and she could not ride the metro. She even was unable to check in at her hotel. She started walking and found a shopkeeper who agreed to let her sleep in the store, on the floor. While at the store she started calling people and found someone high up in the university who knew someone in the government who was able to turn her app back to green. She lives in terror of this app turning red. China’s economic power attracted many scientists, but they are now showing their people the real face of dictatorships.
This part of Spain is special. The mansions have hints of Islamic style architecture, with many of them featuring a shallow pool, a fountain at the center, blue-green colored tile. On the beach, young people wear the usual swimsuits, but there are also others who are in hijab. On the concrete strand that borders the beach, women balancing a tray of jewelry on their head, selling their wares. The diversity is beautiful, a convergence of civilizations, peacefully coexisting.
I was swimming in the ocean when I heard a bell, and then on the loudspeaker, something in Spanish. Not knowing what it was I kept on swimming, but then noticed that people were leaving the water. I thought, hmm, maybe it’s a shark, so I got out. At the conference I was telling the story to my Spanish speaking friend, and he said, it was probably the lunch special that they were advertising.
