After posting my thoughts in "The Joys of Littering," I got a few negative responses from natives of Oviedo. They claimed I was being unfair and that I made Spaniards sound like a bunch of pigs living in a rotten pigsty... when I asked them simply, "Did I lie? Did I make something up?" They couldn't tell me otherwise... So I thought that I needed a bit of proof about the real problem of littering in this country.
A couple of weeks ago my mom was here for a week-long visit. I am pretty sure she didn't read my littering entry before her arrival... One day when I was at work and she was left wandering around Oviedo during the day, she ended up taking pictures of the garbage people left behind in a park.
She in fact felt so sickened by it all she had to leave the park and opt to spend her time shopping- the sight of ruined green public spaces was too much...A group of people were sitting around eating McDonald's in the park and just got up and left everything in it's place... then we all wonder why it's prohibited to sit on the grass in this park!
Ah, there's nothing like Pre-Roman architecture surrounded by garbage... Please take note that all of the pictures posted in today's post were taken within a span of a week.
And the last shot of the week, the what could have been more beautiful beach in the Gros neighborhood of San Sebastian, Spain. This sight actually spanned the entire beach line, and I have never seen anything quite like it...
Whilst chauvinism is in everyone's mind to send invectives to others (aaaalways others...) like 'The French' or whatsoever, ability to perform self-criticism is more than a rara avis in THIS (our) country. Neither taught at home with parental example nor put in the path by teachers each time less respected and deprived of their role in transmitting what self-control is and how it should be used to live in community, do not doubt that an important part of these new generations are expecting that their parents and (metaphorically as well as literally speaking) the State will do it (whatever: from picking up a mess in their rooms to provide a new car or finance holidays) for them.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised then, that you received some claims from ovetenses; and it is congruent with what I aforementioned that they did not have any answer to your straight and clear question: 'did I lie?'.