Oli reporting from Valladolid and her faux pas, 40 years of mobile phones, friends from abroad, a night at Hotel Fontecruz in Avila, Goodbye Margaret Thatcher and other things.

Monday 8th April 2013

Outside the Fontecruz Hotel near Avila where we were invited on Saturday

Hello everyone,

I’m one day late.  Some of you will know that this was because I was cross yesterday.  Well I was but it’s over now, so here I am again ready to tell you the tale of last week.

I left off last Sunday, Easter Day. That was the day of Suzy’s moving home before leaving for her London adventure in May.  I was so looking forward to having her home for some quality family time but it seems that is not happening.  In a way I am cross with myself for being so naïve and try to remind myself that the girls are now young women and have their own lives.  That though is no excuse for them not taking part in family life.  

On Sunday, the day I ate too much chocolate, the new Pope Francis gave his first Urbi et Orbii blessing in St. Peter’s square.  This increasingly popular Pope delivered a passionate plea for peace where he singled out Syria saying “how much blood has been shed and how much suffering there must still be before a political solution is found”.

Pope Francis at his first Easter blessing last Sunday

At home in England, followers of the celebrated University Boat race which first took place in 1856,  would be watching Oxford beat Cambridge in the 6.8km stretch of the Thames in West London, from Putney to Mortake.  For the record I looked up who had won more times and was happy to read it was Cambridge, my birth town, who, as of 2013 have won the race 81 times.

Oxford beat Cambridge last Sunday at the annual boat race

England was to celebrate another sport victory that day, one I had two minds about.  David Ferrer of Spain was to meet Scottish Andy Murray in the Masters 1000 Miami tournament final.  Murray won despite Ferrer having a match point in the tie break.  Murray is now number two in the world, no mean feat for a player from Britain, not exactly famous for producing great tennis champions, although enamoured with the sport, albeit only once  year at Wimbledon.

On Sunday by the way it rained all day.  It has been very rainy recently so I wasn’t’ surprised to read later that in Spain where we usually complain about droughts, March has turned out be the rainiest month since weather was recorded. On Monday morning Olivia was sent to Valladolid to report on the flooding of the rivers there and in the surrounding towns. And that was the beginning of a media adventure, where news of her reporting went viral on other tv channels and on internet.

At 10.15 on Monday she reported from the river in a place called Viana de Ciega in Valladolid.  I was not to see it as I was attending the weekly management team meeting at Yoigo.  So I never heard her faux pas on TV.  The talk back internal channel did not work, so she had no idea she was live.  She found herself dressed in a wet suit and standing in the middle of the river with water up to her waist waiting to interview the mayor of the town and said, not knowing that she was live, “oh shit the mayor is not here”.  This tv piece then was aired on other tv channels and I think she got some fame out of the incident.  You can see the clip with the faux pas here.  I think she got out of the situation quite well and thankfully her colleagues from the programme didn’t give her any stick for it.

Olivia was caught unawares on tv on Monday - this is her at the famous faux pas moment when she said live  "shit, the mayor is not there".

Later in the morning she reported from the Pesquera River in Valladolid and once again she did so from the river wearing a wet suit.  Her idea of reporting on the flooded rivers got her into trouble as she was photographed doing so by local media and apparently the Civil Protection unit from the town criticized what they said was dangerous reporting on their twitter.  This news spread on internet and was a bit of a scoop.  The silly thing though, was that she had done nothing dangerous.  In the photo it looks like she is in the middle of the river but if you see the video of the live report (go to 11.30h) you will realize she is right by a wall and in no danger.  Olivia always likes to be as original as she can and I agree that it is much more visual to report on the flooding from the river rather than by the river bank.  I alerted my family to the first article and many of them made lots of comments in her favour.  You can read it here.  All in all, both activities were probably good for her personal branding; I mean it’s good to stand out from the crowd and have people talking about you rather than going unnoticed.  I wonder if you agree?  You probably do I’m sure.

The image that caused the controversy: that Olivia was doing dangerous reporting in the middle of the flooded river when actually she was right next to a wall in the river. 

Monday 1^st April was of course All Fools’ Dy.  It is not celebrated here, the Spanish version being on 28^th December, so I had to enjoy it via internet.  Here there were plenty of pranks.  I think my favourite was one about an airbag for the whole of a Volvo car or possibly the one about a new product from Google called “Google Nose”.  You can read about some of them here if you missed them.

Monday 1st April was of course April Fools' Day

But I wasn’t thinking about April Fools’ Day when I heard on Monday morning the good news that Yoigo’s major shareholder, the telecoms operator of Nordic origin, TeliaSonera, who were to announce officially the next day that they had abandoned plans to sell Yoigo.  I had to keep the news to myself until it was official the next day.  I am happy to continue belonging to TeliaSonera, as there is no better corporate culture than the Nordic one and I have some experience with others too (Spanish, British, American, French).  Also I think it is great for the competition in the Spanish market to continue to have an agile and low cost challenger such as Yoigo.  On the personal side, it also means that my working model will continue to be the same and I can tell you I wouldn’t want it any other way.  Yoigo with its 109 employees and nearly 4 million customers is by far the best company I have ever worked for and I would not have liked to see it being absorbed by a global operator which would also have meant a huge change to my status quo.  

On Tuesday I was relieved when the news went out about TeliaSonera’s decision.  Olivia on that day reported again on the flooding of the rivers at towns like Tordesillas or Toro – you can see the latter on this link if you go to 12.17h and 13.06h.  Once again she did so dressed in a wet suit from the rivers themselves and the story of her doing so continued to grow on internet. I should mention, she had expected to come home on Monday and so had taken no luggage.  That proved not to be a problem as all she had to do was visit Zara and get yet more new clothes!

Olivia reporting on the floods

She came home, accompanied by her boyfriend Miguel, on time to watch the football match with my Father, between Barcelona and Paris S.G. where both teams were hoping for a place in the finals. In the end David Beckham’s new team drew with Barcelona 2-2 at the Camp Nou, not a good result for the Spaniards.  They will play again this week, so good luck to them in the second leg in Paris this time.

Wednesday 3^rd April marked the 40th anniversary of the first call with a mobile phone – well that is if you can call the “dyanatac”, made by my old company Motorola, exactly that.  Ironically today Motorola is owned by Google and there are something between 6 and 7 billion users.  The phone call was made by a Motorola employee, Martin Cooper, who I am sure could never have envisaged how much mobile phones would change our lives or what the smartphones of today would do or look like.  I remember using a dynatac in the early 90’s before the smaller phones came along.  The battery used to last some 20 minutes or less and the talk time was about half that.  I should also mention that it cost a bomb, so we should not complain about the price of smartphones today.

The first mobile phone call took place 40 years ago and it was made on the Motorola Dynatac by a company employee, Martin Cooper.

For the record the said Martin Cooper uttered these words in the first ever mobile phone call which took place in New York on 3^rd April 1973: “I’m ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end”.  Motorola went on to do amazing things and it is sad to see it disappear from most of the countries in Europe, including Spain.

Wednesday was also the day Real Madrid played the Turkish team Galatasary in the first leg of the quarter finals of this year’s Champions League.  I am happy to report they won 3-0.  Today, Monday 8^th April, they will play the return match in Turkey.  I am confident they will get through to the semi final and only hope they will not meet Barcelona then.

If on Wednesday the world celebrated the 40^th anniversary of the first mobile phone, on Thursday, Facebook, the social media giant, who I am sure Martin Cooper could never have imagined existing, chose that day to announce what we all thought would be a “facebook phone”.  But we were to be disappointed as in the end all they announced was what they call “Facebook Home”, a sort of set of FB applications to be placed on the home screen of the mobile phone – but only on some Android terminals to start with.  This news, at least for me, was a bit of a flop as I think it will only serve to accentuate what is becoming known as “Facebook fatigue”.  I mean I do not need easier access to the social network as I am quite happy with what already exists and do not want my phone dominated by Facebook.  I prefer to access it when I want and not have it shoved down my throat so as to speak.

Mark Zuckerberg introducing Facebook Home on Thursday, a bit of a flop I think

Thursday was also the day my nephew Juan chose to announce a new blog called “El Calecho” (a term which in Montrondo which sort of means a cozy gathering) written by him and his brother Miguel who was living in London till recently and his sister Sara who lives in China.  I have already linked it to my only blog and am extremely proud of my nephews and niece for having started this great personal blog where they will be telling us about their lives and opinions.

On Friday, the bad weather continued in Spain and Olivia, back in Madrid, was sent off early in the morning to report on the snowfall in the mountains of the capital, to Navacerrada.  We were happy to watch her doing so and loved her again for her creative reporting.  This time she nestled into an igloo she found there as you can see in the picture below.  You can also see the report here if you go to 12.15h.

Olivia reported on the snow on Friday - in this image she nestled inside an igloo!

On Friday I did the food shopping with Oufa as we usually do.  I have to tell you what we had for lunch, as it was very special and not bought at the local shops.  It was “pastela”, a Moroccan chicken pie made by Oufa’s sister Fatima.  This is what it looked like.

Oufa's sister's delicious "pastela"

That afternoon we were awaiting visitors from abroad.  Andy was coming with his teenage football fan son, Daniel and his daughter Charlotte who is learning Spanish in Madrid.  You will remember, if you follow this blog, that Andy and Charlotte came to stay when he brought her out to Madrid at the end of January.  We served afternoon tea and my Father, who had taught Russian to Andy who now lives with his family in France, near Geneva where he works for the UN, joined us of course.  It’s always nice to host someone important from our past like Andy.  Later we took him on our walk with the dogs and he commented just how cold it was; something rather unusual for this time of year here.  At dinner, which to my chagrin the girls did not attend, Andy and his children tasted the pastela and other more Spanish culinary delights.

On Saturday morning, Eladio I were leaving quite early as I had been invited to an “open doors” event for communications people at the Hotel Fontecruz just outside Avila.  I don’t often go to events like this but when I saw the invitation I couldn’t resist.

The invitation I couldn't resist

Feeling slightly guilty about not hosting Andy and his family for more time, I decided to put on a fabulous breakfast.  Thus I got up early to go and buy fresh mini croissants and the quintessential and favourite Spanish breakfast fare: “chocolate con churros” (thick hot chocolate drink and donut sort of fritters).  Knowing I would be fasting the following Monday and Thursday I’m afraid I slightly over indulged.  Below is a photo of Andy, Charlotte and Daniel enjoying the breakfast.

Andy, Daniel and Charlotte at breakfast on Saturday morning

We left shortly afterwards and arrived at the Hotel which is sort of in the middle of nowhere by midday, just on time for the presentation and tour of the hotel.  Eladio preferred to skip on the professional part of the stay but joined us all for lunch at 14h.  The group of communicators and marketers invited, included their partners, so at lunch I counted about 40 people around the tables.

Lunch was great but far too heavy. It included one of favourite dishes, one I have mentioned often before on this blog: “patatas revolconas”.  This is the dish we enjoyed at the Hotel Fontecruz on Saturday near Avila.

The delicious "patatas revolconas" at the Hotel Fontecruz Avila

Afterwards, feeling far too full and with a little too much wine to be digested, we fell asleep until it was time for the next item on our agenda, a session in the hotel spa.  The spa was ok as far as hotel spas go but the water in the Jacuzzi type pools was a little too cold as was the sauna a little below my preferred temperature.  But it served to wake me up properly from my stupor.  We were then in desperate need of a very long walk, if only to be able to face food for dinner.  Luckily it didn’t rain but it was awfully cold outside.  We found a charming farming path that actually led to the town which in the end we never visited as we have been to Avila quite a few times and our objective was more about relaxing at the hotel than touring the town. Below is a photo of my very attractive husband on the walk which was just under two hours and brought us back to the hotel feeling a lot better.

My good looking husband on the walk near Avila on Saturday evening

We decided against a heavy meal out at some fancy restaurant in Avila, preferring a simple meal via room service.  And this is just what we did, falling asleep earlier than planned whilst trying to watch The Day After on the tiny old fashioned TV in the room which had dreadful reception.

We were up early feeling relaxed and refreshed.  We were also the first into the dining room for breakfast.  And very soon we were on our way home.  We took the scenic route via El Escorial.  We stopped at a vantage point on the way to capture the view of the amazing monastery built by Philip II of Spain.  You can’t see it very well on the picture, but the backdrop of snow clad mountains only served to enhance the view.

The view of the El Escorial Monastery on our way home from Avila on Sunday morning

Here you can see the rest of the photos of our stay at the Hotel Fontecruz, which of course was one of the highlights of our week. The rest of the day at home was a bit of a damper after the excitement of the week.  Thankfully, today, I am feeling more positive.

And today is Monday and I can only end this blogpost by reflecting on a huge piece of news that happened this morning.  Incredibly the Iron Lady, Baroness Margaret Thatcher, born Margaret Roberts, the daughter of a grocer from Grantham and the first and only British Prime Minister, died this morning, aged 87 after suffering from a stroke.  She was PM of Great Britain from 1979 to 1990 and very much a part of my life there as a teenager.  She is and will go down in history for being one of England’s most charismatic political leaders, in league I would dare to say with the likes of Sir Winston Churchill.  Not long ago I read her daughter Carol’s story, “A swim on part in the gold fish bowl” and wrote about it on my blog here.  She was an important part of my formative years and governed in exciting times and I will never forget her.   RIP, goodbye Margaret Thatcher.

RIP Margaret Thatcher

And that my friends, is that for this week.  I wish you all the best and thank you, as always, for reading my blog and being interested in what is really, quite a mundane life.

Masha

To Stockholm again, a stressful journey home, the Margaret Thatcher days and remembering Nepal.

Me dressed up very warmly in Stockholm this week

Hello everyone,

This has been an exciting and very tiring week.  I love travelling but the getting up at the crack of dawn and the hassle in air travel these days, especially if the latter doesn’t go as smoothly as planned, really make me tired.  This is probably because of my age.  Well I will, after all, be reaching the grand old figure of 55 this coming week.  

The week started off with a very quiet Monday.  Of note that day I had lunch with my friends Julio and Fátima to celebrate her birthday.  As tradition dictates, we did so at one of our favourite restaurants, El Buey in nearby Boadilla del Monte, a great little place that serves the best steak in the area.

Tuesday was a busier day.  I was up early to have my hair done at Marco Aldany, the hairdresser I go to these days.  Unfortunately Cristina, who does a great job with my hair, wasn’t there so I got a slightly different style this time.  I realised it was not quite what I wanted when Susana, my eldest daughter, observed I looked a little like Margaret Thatcher!  Then I was off to the office for the weekly management team meeting where I am always painfully aware that I am the only woman member but certainly not an “Iron lady” although I sometimes have to appear so in this very male dominated sector that I work in, full of telecommunications engineers.  It’s not a career I would ever have chosen, but it’s the sector I am in for good and for bad.  

On Wednesday I was up again at 6 in the morning to leave for the airport to catch the only direct flight to Stockholm which leaves just after 10.  I coincided with Olivia, my youngest daughter, who gets up at that time everyday to go to the TVE morning programme she works for called La Mañana de la 1.  I thought that if it made me tired just to get up so early only occasionally, how tough it must be for her to do it five days a week and felt sorry for her.

I boarded the plane with the rest of the management team, destination Stockholm, the headquarters of TeliaSonera, the Scandinavian telephone operator who own Yoigo with a 76% share.  We were to take part in the annual management team meeting together with our counterparts from the Nordic and Baltic countries beginning the next morning.  But first we were to have a tight schedule of meetings after our arrival, including a presentation from my former boss in Nokia, Thomas J.  who now works as the head of external relations in TeliaSonera.  Talk about a small world!  We also had a meeting at the world HQ of a Swedish company I admire enormously, Spotify which I was much looking forward to.  

Europe this week has being going through a cold spell so I had packed accordingly and was glad I had taken a thick coat and warm winter head gear as it was well below 10ºc throughout our stay and snowing most of the time.  It also gets dark very early; something I would find very difficult to have to face if I lived here.  Thankfully I live in a country with probably the best climate in Europe.

We arrived in the early afternoon and lunch was a sausage in the street, something I don’t think I have done since my Inter rail days as a teenager when that was all I could afford.  My empty stomach though, was very happy to digest a hot and spicy, Swedish sausage appropriately called “Stockholm”.  Dinner was a much finer affair at one of the city’s best restaurants, Wedholm Fisk where the fish was out of this world.  It is certainly a place to go back to if I could ever afford it.

FISK RESTAURANT

I nearly froze in the ten minute walk back in wind and snow and was happy to return to my warm room at the Scandic Sergel Plaza hotel in the centre of town.  Warm, was actually the only saving grace, apart from the location of the hotel which is soulless, drab and quite downturn for sophisticated Stockholm.  I remarked to my colleagues, who totally agreed, that the rooms reminded me of prison cells. 

The next day, I was up before seven as I had to attend an 8 o’clock conference call from my room about the financial results which TeliaSonera had published that morning.  The news was good for Yoigo.  We had reached the 3 million customer mark and had not only remained EBITDA positive, but reached the cash flow positive objective for the last quarter of 2011.  Results days are always stressful for me, because we have to get the information ready in Spanish to send out to the press as early as possible, be prepared for all sorts of questions throughout the day, as well as inform the staff in more informal terms.  That meant that breakfast, usually my most important meal of the day, had to be sacrificed.  In any case the breakfast room at the Scandic resembled feeding time at the zoo, with not much on offer and a huge flow of people fighting for the coffee machine and bread table, so I didn’t miss much.  The next day I was rewarded for my work with all the main newspapers reporting positively on Yoigo’s results.  I was especially pleased with the coverage in one of our top newspapers, El Mundo where we were included in one of the main “ups” of the day in the “vox populi” section of page 2 as you can see here, if you can read Spanish, a most prestigious position to be in and something no advertising money could ever buy.

We got some excellent coverage in the Spanish press about Yoigo's 2011 financial results.

The conference started at 10 o’clock and was held in the cultural heart of Stockholm, bang in the middle of the city.  The building is called Kulturhuset (literally "culture house") and is full of people enjoying the library, eating Swedish cakes or going to the theatre.  

The square where the Culture House in Stockholm is located was covered in snow.

We on the other hand were to go through a day of presentations.  The first, to my surprise, was absolutely fantastic.  We had the privilege of seeing and hearing Sweden’s next export after Abba and Stieg Larsson, talk to us about the future.  The man’s name is Magnus Lindqvist and he is truly inspiring.  He calls himself a trendspotter and futurologist.  He is also a fantastic speaker.  I have just ordered his book from Amazon.co.uk called “Everything we know is wrong”.  I look forward to be being just as entertained as listening to him.  Not for him the trends of today, such as gadgets and fashion items that come and go, but to quote him “the more important deeper slower moving stuff” that you never really see coming.  He makes you stop and think and he certainly made an impression on me.  He is apparently a celebrity speaker, so if you ever get the chance to listen to him, grab it.  Magnus Lindqvist was definitely the best item on the whole agenda of our two day conference in Stockholm.

Magnus Lindqvist is one inspirational speaker and we were privileged to have him as a guest speaker

The rest of the day was like any typical corporate management or sales convention, nothing out of the ordinary.  The best part for me is always mingling with colleagues from other countries and getting to know new people and thankfully there was plenty of that.

The evening ended with a dinner party and awards and I was happy to see my colleague Urban get a prize for the best growth in mobile date.  I went to bed as soon as it had finished though as I had another early wake up the next day as the second day conference was to start just after 8.  I had a terrible night as the television kept switching on automatically.  In the end it seemed that the TV wake-up call had been programmed various times during the night and the only way of stopping it was pulling out all the cables.  

This week’s visit to Stockholm was so busy I hardly had time for shopping.  My only trip to the shops was during lunch on Friday when I crossed the snowy square to Lindex, the Swedish low cost women’s fashion store.  Oli had asked me to bring back a Swedish woolen cardigan.  So I braved the weather and with an eye on my watch, made a dash into this lovely store.  Unfortunately there were no winter clothes left on sale, so I had to make do with a quick choice from the new Spring collection.

Normally when flying out of Stockholm, we, or I, take the only direct flight to Madrid which leaves just before 3 and gets you to Madrid airport just after 7.  However, as we wanted to stay to the end of the conference which was finishing around 3, we had been booked on a flight via Amsterdam, leaving the Swedish capital at 17.15 and arriving in Madrid just before midnight, a long haul.  We were not lucky as the flight to Amsterdam was cancelled because of snow at Schipol airport and that is where our adventure began.  KLM booked us into the SAS flight to Frankfurt leaving at 16.40 from where we would have a two hour wait before taking the last flight to Madrid.  Check in and going through security was nerve wrecking as we were very pressed for time.  At the last minute my colleagues were already on board and I joined the queue after a quick loo stop only to be told the plane was full and overbooked.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, “you mean I cannot get on the plane?”  There was a lot of discussion and mysterious punching into the computer by the SAS hostesses.  I was desperate as I didn’t want to spend another night in Stockholm and most of the following day getting home.  And then came, my salvation.  A Russian gentleman offered me his seat and told me he would get on the next and last flight to Frankfurt as that was his final destination, unlike mine.  I accepted very gratefully and later remarked to my neighbour from the horrible middle seat I was sitting on with my cabin suitcase under my legs because the plane was so full, how generous the man had been.  My German fellow passenger then told me that the kind Russian man would have been compensated with 150 euros for taking the next plane.  So, maybe he wasn’t so generous after all but I can tell you I wouldn’t have stayed for 500, so am still grateful for his gesture. 

The nightmare didn’t quite finish there, as we had another flight to catch in Frankfurt which at one stage we also thought might not be leaving.  But finally it did and again I was squashed into a middle seat, a position in an airplane that I always try to avoid.  We arrived at Barajas after an awful journey home well after midnight and I did not get home till half past one in the morning.  I swear I will only ever get the direct flight back from Stockholm whether that means I have to leave in the middle of a conference or not.  I also swear that I will never ever go to the end of a queue to get on a plane as I have learned the hard way that it might be overbooked and if you are at the end you are more than likely liable to be left behind as I nearly was if it hadn’t been for the help of one Russian gentleman.  Thank you whoever you are.

The only thing that kept me going through both flights was the fascinating book I was reading, “A swim on part in the goldfish bowl”, Carol Thatcher’s biography of her very famous Mother, Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first and only woman prime minister.  I had ordered it eagerly after watching Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, a role she may well win an Oscar for.  

I devoured Carol Thatcher's biography of her Mother whilst flying this week

It’s a great read; written in a very candid manner and makes you laugh on many an occasion.  It also brought closer to me the lady who dominated politics when I was a teenager and student and didn’t particularly identify with at the time.  However, she will most definitely go down in history for her role in British politics, whether you like her or not.  In fact, after reading the book I learned that beneath the iron lady veneer, there is a person with a far bigger heart than I could ever have imagined.  I was also very interested to read about her consort, Dennis Thatcher, a bit of a joke figure in my time.  But as I read more about him, it is quite clear, that without DT as she called him, Margaret Thatcher could never have done the job she did.  I have now ordered Carol Thatcher’s biography of her Father called “Below the Parapet” as the subject is interesting me so much, I have even gone one step further and ordered her mother’s  autobiography, “TheDowning Street Years”.  After all, she governed in amazing times and they were the times I was often too young or too uninterested to appreciate when she was in Government..  So, Margaret Thatcher will continue in my life for the next few weeks and of course, in my memory for ever.  It is very sad that she herself, such a dominating and clever woman, no longer remembers very much, not even that her dearest Dennis is no longer alive.  Carol has to remind her time and again and each time she is told, the Iron Lady, no longer made of iron, has to go through the sorrow of hearing the news.  One of the times, she poignantly asks her daughter, “were we all there (at the funeral) for him?”.  This is indeed not a very nice ending for such a brilliant life.   My Father is reading it now and no doubt he will enjoy it more than me.  He and my Mother were great fans of Margaret Thatcher, but I think even they had had enough when towards the end of her 11 years at Downing Street she said the famous “we shall go on and on and on”. 

Margaret and Dennis Thatcher.  He was 10 years older than her.

Yesterday was Saturday and it was real tonic to spend it at home with the family after such a tiring week.  For the first time in ages, we had lunch together.  We were joined by Juli and Gaby and it was a joyful meal.  There was time to relax, to be with the dogs, go for our walk and there was even time to go out to the cinema.  Eladio and I were waiting for the latest Iciar Bollain (Spanish woman film director) film to come out entitled “Kat(h)mandu, a mirror to the sky” and luck had it that the premiere was this week, so we jumped at the chance of seeing it.

This film will haunt me for a long time.

I didn’t know really what it was about but had seen the trailer and was keen to see a film about a country that is close to our heart. Even though we only spent three days there on our trip to India for our 25^th wedding anniversary in December 2008 and January 2009, we fell in love with Nepal and its people.  I wrote three posts on our unforgettable journey there and actually they are among the top read posts in my blog.  I am honoured to say that thousands of people have read them.  If you want to read them here they are (first, second, third).  In the second post I tell of the story of three boys for whom we bought an English Nepalese dictionary in Bhaktapur so I was delighted to see that some parts of the film had been filmed there.  Other famous spots we had seen also come out in the film and watching it yesterday certainly took us all the way back there, reminding us of our wonderful trip of a lifetime.

Our dictionary episode on our visit to Nepal. This is in Bakhtapur in the Kathmandu Valley in Jan 2009.  You can read about it here.

The film is about a young Spanish teacher, Laia who goes out to work as a teacher in Kathmandu.

She is helped by a Nepalese young woman, Sharmila, also a teacher, and together they set up a school in the slum district.  They are faced with insurmountable problems and the cultural obstacles are many.  Some of the characters, in this part real, part fictional film, can only be people off the streets in the Kathmandu Valley and I take my hat off to Iciar Bollain for this masterpiece.  I fell in love with the people in the film and find it hard to forget Sharmila, the teacher bent on having a son to make her family happy, Tsering, the young man from a remote village who agrees to marry Laia in a marriage of convenience, but asks her what will happen if they fall in love, Bimala, the girl so untouchable she has no name and finally clever little Kushila who is sold by her parents and sent to work in a brothel in India and her journey back.  They all tore at my heart strings as did the film.  It is not a film with a happy ending.  The story it tells is taken from real life, some of it happy, a lot of it sad but a real eye opener to the clash of cultures.  How can we, or Laia, understand how a young girl, for instance, is put into a dark room on her own for 10 days when she reaches puberty, so that the light she sees when she leaves it at the end of the 10 days will guide her for the rest of her life?  In short, the film had me crying from the middle to the end and I shall probably never forget it.  It brought back memories of our visit there and has triggered in me the wish to return.  I hope one day we will.  Meanwhile, if you get the chance, I cannot recommend this film more highly.

Laia and Sharmila in the film Kat(h)mandu

Today Sunday has been quiet.  I spent the morning on my computer and cooking lunch, alas not for all of us today, just the “three oldies”.  The rest of the day will be like most Sundays. We shall go for our walk, have a cup of tea, spend time reading and then have a small dinner and go to bed to watch the television.  It may sound boring but after a stressful week, it is a complete tonic for the mind and body.

Next week will be my birthday which will be nice but sadly the girls won’t be here for it.  They will be going on holiday to Africa, imagine!  Yes they are going with Rocío to Tanzania for two weeks and will be joined by another friend Elena for the second week.  It sounds very exciting and hopefully they will be in no danger.  They have strict orders to come back, as my Mother always used to say: “in one piece”.  

I hope you all have a great week,

Cheers until next Sunday, Masha.