"Home"

I’ve grown comfortable calling Don Benito “home,” so I take that as a good sign that I’m adjusting well, both physically and emotionally. The fact that I have a good “home” here makes it easier to be away from my real home – the home that doesn’t require quotation marks.

For some auxiliares, Don Benito would be quite the adjustment. It’s small (about 35,000) people, and it’s rural, surrounded by a golden fortress of soon-to-be-harvested corn. It’s not a primary destination for arts, culture or tourism (some tourists do come to a select few Extremaduran cities), but I prefer it that way. You see, as a Nebraskan, I appreciate what the rest of the “sophisticated” world does not. Simple living. Proud people. Small-town dynamics. A lack of traffic. A lack of crime. There’s no world-class ballet or five-star hotels here, but I’ve never been one to give much weight to such things.

"The Good Life"?

For the most part, I was spot-on when I described Extremadura as the Nebraska or Iowa of Spain. It’s a great place to live but not necessarily an ideal place to visit (in my 500+ page guidebook, Extremadura was given a measly 20 pages). Like the American Midwest, agriculture reigns supreme here in Extremadura. Extremeños – the people of Extremadura – harvest corn, olives, tomatoes, sheep, goats, cattle and pigs. (Miajadas, the town where I teach, touts itself as the European tomato capital. I saw it on a sign as I rode into town on the bus this morning. I’ve yet to have a local tomato, however.)

This yellow stuff looks awfully familiar.

About those harvested pigs…Spaniards are obsessed with ham, I kid you not. I’ve been told it comes from the days of religious persecution, when everyone in Spain was forced to eat ham to weed out the people pretending to be Catholics (Muslims pretending to be Catholics so they could stay in Spain, for example, weren’t too keen on eating meat). I can’t confirm or deny if that’s really the driving force behind the national ham obsession, but I can confirm that ham is a big deal. Nebraskans are proud of our homegrown beef, sure, but it doesn’t rise to the level of obsession. Anyway, here’s a Wikipedia excerpt about the ham. I know Wikipedia isn’t always reliable, yadda, yadda, yadda, but for the purposes of this blog post, it shall suffice:

Wild Black Iberian pigs roam in the area and consume acorns from oak groves. These pigs are caught and used for the cured ham dish jamón ibérico. The higher the percentage of acorns eaten by the pigs, the more valuable (and expensive) the ham. Iberian Ham that can boast an acorn-fed average of 90%+ of the pigs diet can be sold for more than twice as much as ham whose pigs ate on average less than 70% of acorns, for example. In the US, Iberian Ham directly from Extremadura, bone-in, was illegal until around 2005. At that time, enough U.S. restaurants were in demand for the delicacy that Spain decided to ship it bone-out, which the U.S.D.A.'s health codes would (and continue to) approve.

Despite its obvious similarities to Nebraska (it’d be an unusual day if I didn’t see tractors roaring through Miajadas, and I saw a young guy wearing a Case International t-shirt at the gas station there yesterday), Extremadura is different in some respects. Although some areas of Extremadura are quite flat, mountains are usually within sight. The area’s geography is more diverse and interesting than Nebraska’s, I can say that with certainty. Here, valleys become mountains. Mountains merge with plains. Hills interrupt flatlands. That cadence is on repeat throughout the region. 

All of these are photos of Extremadura. Got diversity?

And, oh yeah, there are random castles on random hills. I mean, c’mon. 

Aforementioned random castle on hill

Additionally, the weather is better here. Sure, the mercury soars past 100 in the summer, but it’s unusual for it to dip below freezing in the winter. I’ve seen photos of my school covered in snow, but I’m told snow is super rare. I was teaching my students about American geography and climate the other day in class, and when I mentioned that -17 degrees Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) wouldn’t be that crazy, my students were shocked. So, while it’s been below 40 in Nebraska recently, it’s been between 75 and 90 here in Extremadura, so I have no complaints.

For lack of a better transition…Let me share a bit about Don Benito. The main part of town can’t be more than a few miles across, from east to west. I can walk from one end to the other and still have leg strength left, if that’s a better illustration for those of you who know me well (I’m not much of an exerciser). The town is meticulously maintained; the avenues intersect at roundabouts with fountains and palm trees. It’s quite cute, really. 

Avenida del Pilar

The locals believe there are “bad areas” in Don Benito; I disagree. I’ve never felt unsafe, and I’ve never felt that I’ve ended up on the “wrong side of the tracks,” as we say in the States. I wander a lot here, and because I have no sense of direction, I never know where I end up. Perhaps I have trotted through the so-called bad areas and didn’t realize it, but the worst thing I’ve seen so far is a house lacking a recent paint job. I’ve yet to see a police officer doing anything resembling work. I can’t imagine there’s much for them to do around this peaceful plot of Spain. 

Avenida de la Constitución, the main shopping drag

Parque Municipal "Tierno Galván"; city park

On the outskirts of town, there’s an olive oil factory and a chocolate factory. I’ve yet to try the products from either company, but the olives I had here so far are to die for. But I’ll leave that for another blog.

I’m content and settled here in my new land, but I worry my comfort will erode into complacence. Here’s to making a conscious effort to keep making discoveries. 

Buenas noches, 

Teresa