Pandemic poem

Cut down

Cut down to bone

Cut off to spite it and

Cut off from

Cut away to put away

Stay away

Cut out

Cut out your needy

Cut me down I'm

Not cut out for it

"Death cafes" -- An interview with Catalonia convenor Jordi Abad Lalanza

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today, Nov. 2021]

Q. What do you think is the most important thing people should know about Death Cafes?

They are informal gatherings where we talk about death related topics. It is a space of complete trust. It’s non-therapeutic and we let our thoughts and emotions flow.

Q. This year is the tenth anniversary of Death Cafes at an international level, with the first one in London. How many have been held in Catalonia and when did they start?

It is my personal initiative. I started in February 2019 and we had 12 meetings up to March 2020, when we stopped due to the pandemic. Subsequently, I have held 7 more virtual meetings.

Q. Why did you decide to organise these meetings?

My personal story is that I’ve had several losses that have marked my vision of life and death. From 2007 to 2015, I’ve been attending oncology patients at the end of life in their homes. Then in 2015 I finished my Social Worker studies and later I did a Masters in palliative care. I am currently working in end of life care. My major concern is that this society does not talk about death. It’s a taboo and I want to break this taboo, inviting people to do that.

Q. What kind of people come to death cafes and for what reasons?

Usually the average age is 40 and up, but we have also had young people. There are many reasons, mainly just curiosity, but also there’s interest in talking about death and not being judged for it. It’s not a grief management group, but people find that they’re respected with the freedom to talk about death and everything related to it.

Q. How do you run your cafes?

As an organiser, you should have questions or topics prepared to be presented. That makes the session more dynamic. The role of the moderator is to ensure that the conversation is safe and that everyone can participate, and the most important thing is to never be judged for your thoughts or emotions.

Q. At last count there have been 13,099 Death Cafes in 80 countries, why do you think they have been so popular? 

There is always an interest in everything to do with death, as the last taboo. It is true that in British and American culture, these encounters are easier. In Mediterranean culture I think there is much more reticence.

Q. One attendee at a meeting in the US said that "most of the sessions are full of people laughing and having fun.... You meet strangers and talk about an intimate topic that most people can't even talk about with their family." Do the meetings in Catalonia actually include fun?

There are moments of everything, of attentive listening, of seriousness, but there can also be moments of humour and positive expression. People also enjoy themselves and share joy as well as funny situations about death.

Q. In a broader context, what do you think have been the impacts of the pandemic on bereavement, grief and funerals, and the effect of these changes on mental health and well-being?

I think that not being able to say the usual goodbyes to our loved ones will make grieving more complicated to manage. Death has been visualised, but in the end if it hasn't happened to you, it will be statistics. I think it affects our mental health and wellbeing, but I think society penalises people who have suffered a loss and bereavement will be poorly managed.

Q. Do you think there’s really such a thing as the much-talked-about “closure” after death? Is a good death possible?

A good death is how you want it to happen, so it is important to think, talk and write down how you want it to be if the time comes (advance directives). It’s a very personal thing and can be confusing but for me it’s being able to be with my loved ones, to have them respect my decisions, to have control of the situation and to be able to leave with everything spoken about and with a lot of love. There is never closure if we truly have love for that person. At the beginning it is an intense pain but as time goes by, this person remains in our memory, not with pain but with gratitude for having known and enjoyed him or her.

"More than teaching" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

[Photo of a 1-to-1 lesson by ANDREU PUIG]

 
 

Dear reader,

 

It seems I have misled you and that I was wrong about something I suggested in this column last year. 

In an article titled “House closed” that was published in November, I wrote about how across Catalonia the International House chain of language schools folded and this meant that the owners made a decision to sack all 300 employees. 

That left them still only technically employed because they were all being unpaid but also unable to claim unemployment benefits.

 

This was in addition to the shutting of Merit School in Barcelona and several others I used to work for. (I won’t name them here.) 

With these separate closures creating what I saw as a collective tragedy, I inferred – without actually saying it – that from the Covid pandemic, the entire English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) industry was highly likely to get flushed down capitalism’s stinking toilet. Not quite.

 

What is the case though is that teachers who still have jobs are being forced to do more for less.

 

Most people’s idea of a teacher is someone who stands in front of a blackboard or whiteboard and talks at a class. That’s what they see; just as what I see of a nurse is someone who walks into a hospital room and checks on me when I’m a patient. 

Of course, there’s a great deal more to it for anyone in both those jobs.

 

“Whenever two or more are gathered in education’s name” EFL teachers will usually talk about how we are practically social workers/counselors or even a kind of friend to our students. 

This is one aspect of my work that I really enjoy and it’s especially popular in 1to1 classes where some students divulge the most personal things without any colleagues around. Last week, I faced a student in an online class in tears about her recent divorce. I’d known her for two weeks.

 

In the recent past, I’ve also listened to male students confess their infidelities and tell me how they’re hiding ongoing affairs. I’ve had a female student come to class and spend repeated hours filling me in on how her husband manipulates her and tracks her movements. 

These are a few of the more dramatic examples but a normal part of the job is hearing and absorbing complaints about coworkers, bosses, or the government. We are seen by plenty of students as educators but also as people who can be trusted because we’re not a fixed part of their workplace. 

At other times, it seems we’re like travelling salespeople who visit your office to spruik the health-giving properties of the English language. All this and much more.

 

But we are doing more, for less, as I said before. Pay rates have been pushed down even further by ‘client’ companies who dictate to smaller ‘academy’ language schools from what their budgets supposedly allow them to afford in these hard times. 

This financial burden has often been passed on to teachers who, already trapped in a low-paid industry, are being paid an industry standard contract rate of around 15 euros an hour. Before taxes. 

When my family and I moved here in 2006 ago I was being paid 21 euros an hour at an international secondary school. (A house cleaner in Catalonia is generally paid around 10 euros an hour this year. In cash. No taxes but also no social security.)

 

Precious few EFL academies pay higher than the norm and plenty of employers pay even lower, now incorrectly claiming it’s cheaper for teachers to work at home via online classrooms. 

And travel costs for petrol, trains, metro and buses going from the inner city out to Sant Just or Martorell or Terrassa? That’s been quietly forgotten about or scoffed at when requested.

 

I’m also doing more admin for the 5 different companies I currently work for. I have a couple of better paid private classes and I’m happy to have work again after a barren summer. 

But I’m not happy to do at least an hour every day of putting class data into each academy’s separate system. That’s on top of planning teaching sessions or writing student reports: all unpaid tasks totaling up to another hour every day.

 

And here’s a cost comparison for historical context. The price of petrol has gone up by 50% since we moved here in 2006. I don’t think I need to tell you about the jump in costs of rents in Barcelona or the price of electricity going up by 36% in the previous 12 months.

 

More work for less? Oh, yes.

 

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, October 2021.]

Severe Poverty Rises From 4 Million To 6 Million in Spain

 

"In Spain, four million people were living in severe poverty in 2018. Now there are more than six million. According to the Caritas and Foessa Foundation report, the impact of the pandemic is “devastating” and more than 11 million people now live in a situation of “social exclusion”…’"

Of course we can't ignore the global capitalist system which is now in a state of new techno-feudalism as a major reason.

Read more from source here.

[News story first found at the superb aggregator Business over Tapas. ]

Aymerich’s “The tourist factory” [New release, 2021]

"Ramon Aymerich, La fábrica de turistes. El país que va canviar la indústria pel turisme [The tourist factory: the country that traded industry for tourism], 2021, 149 p.

publisher’s summary:

Catalonia is no longer a country of industry, but one of tourists.

The day that Barcelona was left without tourists [2020, Covid-19] felt strange to the locals, they were so used to them. 

During the last 60 years, tourism has changed the country’s appearance. 

It has urbanized half of the country, has damaged natural ressources, has transformed the economy and has created a lot of jobs… temporary jobs. Part of Catalonia’s identity was made up of industry, and now it is a country that fabricates tourists. During the pandemic we have discovered the cost of this bet, now full of uncertainties.

La fàbrica de turistes covers the creation of the myth of the Costa Brava, the birth of Port Aventura [amusement park], and the appearance of Barcelona as a big international tourist destination… and it stresses the urgency of finding a plan B for its economy."

Above text from Literary Rambles here.