Where do babies come from again?

Last Saturday night Madrid hosted its third annual Noche en Blanco (White Night). Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Madrid to enjoy the many free outdoor concerts, museum open houses and other cultural activities which took place under the watchful eye of the full moon. Qué bonito…

I wasn’t able to attend any of these activities because my husband and I were helping some good (guiri) friends put together an Ikea sofa after a move (ok fine, I was hanging out with my friend Martha while our significant others put the sofa together, but still). Apparently we missed out on all sorts of cultural funfare, including a touching tribute to the Oscar winning Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar. But that was nothing compared with the most important Noche en Blanco moment lived by so many madrileños: that crazy beautiful, ever so magical moment when they had sex with some other culturally minded soul they just met. Apparently culture wasn’t the only thing being given away for free that night. How do I know this if I wasn’t even there? Because a few days after the Noche en Blanco, a report was released stating that requests for the morning after pill from Madrid hospitals literally DOUBLED the day after the Noche en Blanco!

This news struck me at the time, but when you couple it with the tidbit I heard on the radio this morning while I was getting ready for work, you’ve got a pretty serious situation on your hands. Studies show that 40% of Spanish couples use absolutely no birth control whatsoever and an additional 21% practice what the journalist called “coitus interruptus”, which is really just a fancy term for what my middle school sex ed teacher referred to as “pulling out”. The aforementioned method is apparently the third most used “birth control” method in Spain and is the method of choice for 33% of sexually active Spanish teens. Of course, there were no statistics about how many of these couples were in loving, monogamous relationships, but we all know that many of them are not. I can only imagine that the majority of those post Noche en Blanco pill goers were not necessarily planning on having sex that night; otherwise they probably would have taken measures to protect themselves from disease and unwanted pregnancy.

All jokes aside, I find this extremely concerning. Are Spanish men and women (and American men and women, for that matter, just look at our sky high abortion rates) really that uninformed or are they just irresponsible? In one article, an expert chocks the problem up to “lack of information and difficult access to contraceptives”. But everywhere I look there are ads for condoms, which are sold in all pharmacies and the bathrooms of many bars. With the number of 24 hour pharmacies in the center of Madrid, one can only come to the conclusion that people just don’t care.

Welcome to my brand spanking new Guiri blog!!! Finally a platform from which I can sound off about the ups and downs of my life as a foreigner in Spain to just about anyone who will listen. For more info about me, what this is all about etc., please see the explanations below:

What is a guiri?

This is basically a Spanish* slang term to describe any, western looking foreigner living or vacationing in Spain. It sounds (and is) a little xenophobic, but in my experience it is generally used as a term of endearance. The word began to gain popularity towards the end of the Franco regime with the dawn of the Spanish tourism industry. Since I am one, I like to believe there is an exotic element to the word (makes me feel a bit like a superstar).

*Note: This term is used only in Spain. I understand that “gringo” is the South American equivalent, though I’ve never been to South America so this is only hearsay.

Who am I?

My name is Deanna and I am a seven year veteran guiri. My adventures began in 2001 when I left the US to get my Masters in Madrid. The city got its addictive little claws under my skin pretty much right away, sending me spiralling into a soul searching year or two, which could only end in my accepting the fact that I was here to stay. Over the years I have worked my way through a pretty crazy job history to make ends meet. Like most guiris with or without working papers, I started my journey in the Spanish workforce as an English teacher for several different companies (oh, the stories I could tell…). When I finally convinced a company to sponsor my paperwork, I became a legal translator for an American multinational. I was then recruited to be the underpaid personal slave of a Spanish ex pretty high up there polititian, who will remain nameless for discretionary purposes, though he does not necessarily deserve such discretion. When I’d had enough of that kind of abuse, I decided to break away from the corporate madness and into the quirky world of Spanish publishing, where I now do my best to earn my daily bread. This past summer I married the best Spanish man in the entire country, and we even bought a small flat in the barrio madrileño of Malasaña so you know we’re not going anywhere soon. I guess you could say I’m a lifer.

Why this blog?

After so many years of trying to (I must say, fairly successfully) adapt myself to this wonderful culture, I’ve realized that my desire to fully integrate has often led me to repress another part of myself, my inner guiri if you will. This other side of me encompasses all of the values, friendships and pop culture I had the privilege of experiencing during the extremely important 22 years I lived in my own country before coming here. I still get snatches of these things in visits home, phone calls, books, on-line chat groups, foreign friends in Spain and even from the blessed original version tv shows and movies my good friends illegally download for my viewing pleasure. Don’t get me wrong, I truly love my Spanish life and friends and wouldn’t exchange them for anything in the world, but I also think that we guiris would be missing out if we cut ourselves off from our past. I want the best of both worlds and I won’t settle for less. If you can relate to all of this, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy this blog. But even if no one reads it I’m going to do it anyway, so there.

Who is this blog for?

If you are, ever have been or would ever like to live the guiri life in Spain, this blog is for you. If you are Spanish and you want a look at your country and culture from a uniquely insider yet outsider point of view, welcome aboard. Even if you’re just someone who likes to read other people’s blogs for the hell of it, you’re welcome too. The more the merrier.

Will I enjoy this blog if I don’t understand Spanish or have never been to Spain?

Sure. That said, even as I begin this project, I can already imagine that many Spanish words will find their way into my entries but I will primarily blog in English. There are some concepts that are better expressed in Spanish and others which can only truly be described in English. Of course, I will be including links to many Spanish news articles in Spanish, but my comments on them will be in English.