Spanish prostitutes ordered to wear reflective vests for their own safety

Prostitutes working on the street outside a town northern Spain have been ordered to wear reflective vests to make them visible to passing traffic and reduce the risk of accidents.

Women touting for customers on a rural highway outside Els Alamus near Lleida in Catalonia have been told to don the yellow fluorescent bibs or pay fines of 40 euros (£36) under road traffic laws.  hmm, my roommate is from Lleida.

Police claim the sex workers on the LL-11 road are not being specifically targeted because of what they do but because they posed a danger to drivers.

The prostitutes are in breach of 2004 law which states pedestrians on major highways and hard shoulders must wear the high visibility garments.  I think white plastic go-go boots are the more common solution.

A spokesman for the regional police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra said: "In the past couple of months the prostitutes have been fined for two reasons: for not wearing the reflective jacket and for creating danger on the public highway."

The move follows recent legislation introduced by Els Alamus town hall to ban prostitutes from offering sex for sale in public urban areas. The mayor Josep Maria Bea has been accused of mounting a campaign to drive the sex workers out of the area.  Mounting?

An estimated 300,000 women work as prostitutes in Spain where prostitution is not illegal but profiting from the sale of sex by another is.

Women wearing very little clothing and standing on roadsides outside towns and cities are a common sight across Spain. A recent survey found one in four Spanish men admitted to having paid for sex. And here I am willing to earn some extra money.  Que pena.

  

Who Will Pay for My Iron Lung?

As an American with a healthy locus of control when it comes to my health and my finances, I find it difficult to assume that anyone in my ripe old age will take care of me when I get thoroughly sick.  Sure, there are health care plans.  Psha.  Those won’t pay for me to go jogging or ensure that I get a steady diet of nutritious organic food.  They will likely skim my money to pay for someone else’s bi-pass surgery or diabetes medication.  But, that’s all in the numbers. 

What I worry about, though, is that I have become accustomed to the American Clean Air Act.   I don’t know all of the particulars, but I do remember the definite change when I could go out to dinner with my friends, or go to a bar and have a beer and I wouldn’t have to come home and wash the cigarette stink out of my hair.  No more smoking in public places, no more problems with finding smoke-free apartments.  It was wonderful!  Then, I moved to Spain.  France, the most notorious smokers on the planet passed their Clean Air Act in 2008.  Ireland, too.  Thank goodness the European Union saw the validity.  But, Spain?  Not Spain.  They have been pushing the ban on smoking back every six months for years.  It was supposed to pass in June and now supposedly in January.  I cannot even find a decent place for a café con leche without inhaling smoke.  It’s pervasive.  When I move seats, they give me a dirty look.  Urgh.  So my question is, when I get black lung, it won’t be due to American smokers, it won’t be the fault of the EU and Spain will be bankrupt.  Who will pay for my iron lung?

English Anyone?

When Sarah and I first returned back to Barcelona for our second take, we were taken by a song that we were hearing in every bar, restaurant and café and blasting from all the passing cars.  It has a really nice beat box sound and trumpets that resound of a French circus.  It was a bit tricky to figure out the lyrics as there aren’t many, and frankly, who can hear anything over Spaniards in a tapas bar.  Eventually, I heard something saying Americano while it was playing in the bus on the way to school.  Hmm.  As every other song is American, I was curious.  Fortunately, another ex-pat also heard, however incorrectly, Pa Pa Americano, and it gave me the root to the question.  The song is called We no Speak Americano.  It is an old Italian song from 1956.  Cannot say what Americano versus English could mean, but this was definitely before Bush.

Timely that it comes back as I am in Europe and am finding little resistance to America, let alone English.  Maybe it is a hark back to the Franco days when he resisted anyone’s use of Catalan or Basque or anything other than Castellano.  But now, he is gone and there are still blatant mistranslations.  Maybe it is part of the larger plot to confuse the world issues and keep the peeps from learning proper English.  Because I am pretty sure that Spanish companies, like Desigual, have had ample opportunity to hire well-educated Anglos, but are steadfastly determined to continue littering their clothing with poor grammar and misnomers in order to keep it real.  Sad part is my skirt with: Whay?  There is not one answer.  Working all together is more easy was sewn by a poor little Indian kid that likely speaks proper English, but was ignored.

Estoy aqui

So I have heard somewhere that when you are walking on the Ramblas and you are trying to power down the lane to get away from the mob and someone steps into your way, that you are at fault.  It seems like there is some kind of basketball analogy here, but I skipped that part of the rule book.  What I understand is the issue is that they were in that space and therefore, you shouldn’t have gone for it.  To be fair, most of the people in the street really do walk like caracoles so it shouldn’t be too darn hard to estimate their space and how to avoid them.  But sometimes, it isn’t a perfect science.  At first, I admit, when I bumped into someone, even if it was my fault or not, I would immediately be American and apologize.  Perdoname.  However, after living here for a few months, I noticed that not a single Spaniard ever apologized.  In fact, they never even glanced up from my apology.  Then, I heard this theory and how the Spaniards think that Americans are so silly for constantly apologizing for things.  So, I learned to carry on without apology.  I just hope I remember to be polite when I return home.

Dos Besos

A lovely European greeting, dos besos are given as a salutation when you encounter your friends on the street, or in their house, or generally at first face.  It’s surprisingly various across the continent, and I would like to question what the differences imply.  For instance, the Spaniards kiss twice.  Once on the right cheek-to-cheek, then on the left.  The Italians have the same number, but start with the left check.  Recklessly confusing when you are on the Camino by the way.  The French and the Swedish seem to relish the bisous so much that they go for three.  The English upper-crust have adopted it as an airkiss, and this has been closely followed up by any and every fashionable gay man in the world. 

What do we Americans do?  Why, we give a hearty handshake, of course.  This is the first will of power and it is most important to us how we shake hands.  But, to be fair, that is not the end of the story.  Cousins, friends, males on the street in Mediterranean countries are very quick to give loud cheerful kisses on each other’s cheeks, but try giving them an American bearhug and you will be surprised at their shock.  Though we don’t have a polite bon apetite or buen provecho at mealtimes, and though we don’t kiss kiss upon meeting a stranger, we are definitely more comfortable with showing our affection through full body contact.  I would trade that for all the kisses in Europe.

What is fauna?

Fauna are the uni-dimensional, sometimes bi-dimensional bi-pods that I have run across in my everyday life here in Spain.  Coined by my friend David to explain the collection of oddities that lived in my Barcelona apartment, this term is apropos to dealing with the various creatures on the streets as well.  Not all get monikers like Joder, the bedroom-eyed seductress, or Sabes, the near-illiterate, or Tio, who was constantly giving advice, but one must take time to cultivate the true prominent feature before the name can be justly exposed.  So far, in my new Girona environs, I suspect that I have a Como quieres, Myopia and Shedder.  We shall see.