Hope and Chorizo

This week I heard a Gallego poem by Rosalia De Castro that struck a chord and I wanted to share it:

Adiós rios, adios fontes.                           Good-bye Rivers, Good-bye                                                                                  Fountains.

Adiós, ríos; adios, fontes;                     Good-bye rivers, good-bye fountains;
adios, regatos pequenos;                      Good-bye, little rills;
adios, vista dos meus ollos:                  Good-bye, sight of my eyes:
non sei cando nos veremos...                Don’t know when we’ll see each other

¡Adios groria! ¡Adios contento!               again...
¡Deixo a casa onde nacín,                     Good-bye, heaven! Good-bye,
deixo a aldea que conozo                      happiness!
por un mundo que non vin!                    I leave the house of my birth,
Deixo amigos por estraños,                   I leave the hamlet that I know
deixo a veiga polo mar,                        For a world I haven’t seen!
deixo, en fin, canto ben quero…             I leave friends for strangers,
voume soio, sin arrimo…                       I leave the lowland for the sea,
¡Miña terra, ¡adios!, ¡adios!                   I leave, in short, what I well love…
¡Adios tamén, queridiña!…                    I part alone without a friend…
¡Adios por sempre quizais!…                 Good-bye land of mine, good-bye!
Dígoche este adios chorando                 Farewell to you too, little darling…!
desde a beiriña do mar.                        Farewell forever perhaps…!
Non me olvides, queridiña...                 I send you this farewell crying

¡Miña casiña!,¡meu lar!                         From the precious coastline.                                                                       Don’t forget me, little darling...

                                                          My dear house! My home!

My point is that this leaving home business is tricky. It has more unexpected twists and turns than a good season of Grey's Anatomy. As I experienced some of this turbulence recently, I turned to self pity (and whisky, but not like an alcoholic, I just had a dram cos I missed home...just to be clear). Then, yet again, God intervened. I saw this video and got thinking about those less fortunate than myself, specifically the millions of people who are forced to leave their homes, everything and everyone they know, because of something that they did not choose. war, famine, epidemic, poverty, abuse, abandonment...sadly, the list goes on. 

This is why it is so important to me to live in hope. Because, even when I am lucky enough to be living a comfortable and happy life, I have brothers and sisters who are not, and it is my duty to live in hope for them. Hope is not an easy thing to see. It can be blurred, even to those of us with 20/20 vision. This blurring generally occurs when and where hope is needed most, and that's no coincidence. This is why it is so important that we see it clearly for each other. I'm sure you have all had a friend come to you worrying about a situation and seeing no way out, and I'm sure at times you were able to see a way out where they couldn't. We live in hope, not only for ourselves, but for one another. Life is not a 1-Player game.

This may seem super deep for an Erasmus Student's blog, but one of the biggest benefits of my time here in Spain has been having the time to actually think about these things. I am growing as a person because I have nothing and no one to hide behind, and I am at a stage where I have to choose a life of hope. It's not a one time thing, but rather a daily choice.

Here is another list of things that happened this week:

1. The father of the family I'm staying with calls everyone in government a "chorizo" and as we watched the news the other night, he hit out with one of the best lines I've heard so far. "There is not enough bread in this country for the amount of chorizos."

2. I have a flat! I will be moving in next friday and I'm reeeeeally looking forward to living on my own and having more adventures! side note: it's right next to an amazing beach and I know we're entering winter, but visitors are always welcome!

3. I met a girl who lives in East Kilbride, which is 10/15 minutes from where I live at home! She's doing the same thing as me in the same region and we're hoping to meet up soon. It's a small world after all.

4. It's 9th October and it was 27 degrees today. life is tough...

Thank you all again for reading and praying for me and everything else you've done.

Dios te bendiga,

Eilidh