To the doctor! (¡Al medico!)

A Catalan tarjeta sanitaria (health service card)

The other day I went to the doctor in Spain for the first time.

It started off similar to what one would expect in Australia: up to the reception desk to announce oneself, give over the tarjeta sanitaria (health service card), get ushered into the sala de espera (waiting room). From here though, things started to deviate from my normal experience.

As in Australia, Catalan GP surgeries are run by private doctors or campanies who charge the public health system for their services. But you wouldn’t guess that from the look of my local surgery.

It was very clean, tidy and pretty modern, but exuded that typically continental-European public building ambience: austere, heavily utilitarian, devoid of creature comforts like magazines or pictures on the walls and everything- walls, seats, floor - a cool pale blue.

On entering the waiting area, an etiquette quickly became evident. In Spain, when you go into a shop or even get into an elevator, people tend to greet each other, with a “hola” or a “buenas dias”.

It turns out it’s pretty much the same at the doctor’s. And as in a shop or a lift, it’s the new entry who must start this off, which I was quickly prompted to do by the other patients looking me right in the eye as I walked in.

Back in Australia or London, I seem to remember always wanting to avoid eye contact with other patients at the doctor’s – and the feeling seemed mutual. Maybe us anglosajones feel that illness is a very private thing and we are a little embarrassed to be out in public (?) It seems that's not the case with Spaniards.

Not long after giving my greeting and taking a seat, the doctor came out and called my name. Brilliant, I thought, it’s my turn already. But as soon as I said “sí”, she called out another name, and then another. Turns out she was telling us our place in the order of things. I was after the person she named after me, who was after the person she named after them.

This roll call, along with all that eye contact, made me realise that the etiquette of the doctor’s surgery in Spain (or at least Cataluña) is pretty much the same as that of the market, which I wrote about some time back: it’s all about everyone being secure that everyone else knows their place in the queue!

After a while, my first and second queue-mates came and went. I stopped reading the newspaper (on my phone) and anxiously waited for the doctor to emerge once again and call my name. But she didn’t. I was confused. What do I do? Do I get up and walk into the consulting room or do I wait?

As I contemplated this dilemma, my name boomed out of the consulting room, in a tone that could only be described as slightly annoyed. Obviously, it was the former.

This was the first taste of what was to be my last lesson in visiting a Spanish GP: “bedside manner”- it’s all very much straight-down-to-business. I don’t remember a smile or even a “what seems to be the problem?”.  I was just shot a look that seemed to say, “start talking”.  

What followed was lot of banging on the computer keyboard as I rattled off my reason for the visit and, without the raising of even one eye from the computer screen, the barking of questions back at me.  I was a little taken aback.

It was all strikingly akin to scenes depicting visits to the doctor I’d seen in Spanish films, which I never quite believed.  I remember asking a Spanish friend about those depictions once and he told me “it’s always been like that here”. I didn’t quite believe him either. I owe him an apology.

Don’t get me wrong, she was very thorough and she gave me quite a lot of time and barked lots of questions about lots of things at me. I certainly felt that I was getting good care.  

It’s just I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in the principal's office back at school!

Cacerolada

Click on the audio link above. If you think it sounds like a whole lot of pots and pans being banged together, you’d be right. I took it from my balcony on Tuesday night but you would have heard something pretty similar if you stepped out onto just about any balcony in Barcelona between 10 and 10:15 every night this week after that (this page is in Spanish but the video has some good scenes of the pot-banging).

It’s called a Cacerolada or Cacerolazo (cacerola is the Spanish word for a cooking pan). It’s a form of public protest very popular in much of the Spanish-speaking world – and has even reached a few other places, like Canada.

The residents of Barcelona were banging their pots and pans together in protest to the latest set-back in their fight for a referendum on independence from Spain. Here’s a post I wrote about the Catalan push for independence the other week.

A makeshift bilboard for the Sí Sí (Yes, Yes) camp

Since I wrote that post, the central government took the referendum to the Constitutional Court, which duly froze it.  In an attempt to keep his word but not break the law, the Catalan Premier, Artur Mas, called a “proceso participatorio” (participatory process) - a sort of unofficial referendum – in which the very same questions would be asked, on the very same day (today, November 9) but with a non-binding result and without the same Catalan government involvement that an official referendum would entail.

That didn’t satisfy anyone. The independistas felt betrayed as they were not getting the true referendum they were promised. The “unionists” thought it was even worse than the referendum as it would lack the democratic guarantees of an official vote.  The Catalans who want the derecho de decidir (right to vote) but who were planning to vote to stay with Spain saw the compromise as a farce in which the only people who would bother voting would be the independistas. And the central government argued that any vote would be illegal and took this one to the Constitutional Court too, which froze it on Tuesday.

And hence all the pot-banging this week.

I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t a tactical error on the part of the central government to go back to the Constitutional Court as it has, at least temporarily, shifted the anger away from Artur Mas straight back onto them.

The independistas and others in favour of the derecho de decidir might not have been happy with the Premier’s compromise, but they are even more unhappy, or better said angry, firstly with the Spanish government for going back to the Constitutional Court and secondly with the Constitutional Court itself for, in their minds, trying to rob them of their democratic right to have their say.

The referendum countdown clock, as it looked today, the day of the vote

And in the end, the vote has gone ahead anyway (the first vote actually being cast in a Catalan polling place in Australia!). It’s looking like the turnout has been big too - more than two million of the six million people who could have voted. Not bad for an unofficial referendum in a county where voting is not compulsory. 

The result is pretty much not in doubt: a win for the first part of the question at least: “Do you want Cataluña to be it’s own State?” And probably for the second part of the question too: “Do you want that State to be independent?”

The ballot paper

As the result is not binding, even if that prediction proves true, I won’t be needing a visa to live here any time soon. But now that the question has been asked, what comes next is going to be very interesting. All eyes are on both the central and Catalan governments to see their next moves.

A final word on caceroladas.  I took part in one once. We were demonstrating in Madrid’s Plaza Chueca, the traditional heart of gay Madrid, against moves by the Town Hall to limit the city’s famous Gay Pride celebrations.

I’ve got to say it was a lot of fun and it is quite an effective manner to protest in the sense that it does get you noticed - a relentless banging on hundreds of pots and pans simply can't be ignored.  It wasn’t so successful in stopping the limitations though and these days Madrid’s Pride is sadly a shadow of its former self. But that's another story for another post.

Trick or treating with all the saints (Truco or trato con todos los santos)…

Last night was Halloween, or like they tend to say here Halowin. The H in Spanish is silent, it’s the G that gives a similar sound, although it comes from deeper in the throat.  So an English word that starts with an H can be quite difficult for Spaniards to say, leading them to often over-pronounce the H. It’s reminiscent, although not quite as extreme, as Manuel from Faulty Towers:

Now before you get up in arms at me for poking a little fun at Spaniards speaking English, I promise I’m doing it in the best humour. Besides, I’m acutely aware of my own accent when I speak Spanish – which is a bit of a shocker - so I know I’m in no position to throw stones.

But back to Halowin. It’s become quite a thing here in Spain, as judging by the photos my friends with kids have been putting up on Facebook, it has in Australia too. I don’t remember it being that way when I was a child.

Here though, the truco o trato of October 31^st is just a prelude to a much older tradition and holiday: the Día de Todos los Santos (All Saints' Day), which is today.

It’s probably the busiest day of the year for floristas (florists) and most certainly for cementarios (cemeteries). It is the day to take flowers to the graves of your loved ones, make sure all is nice and tidy and to stop for a little chat with the dearly departed.

It’s quite a sight: typically chaotic throngs coming and going and buying flowers at the myriad of flower stalls just outside the cemetery, most of which have sprung up just for the day. The stalls closest to the cemetery entrance seem the most official, becoming less so the further away you go until finally you find the dodgiest-looking venders flogging flowers of dubious origin, but much cheaper.

All ready for the big day - in Poblenou Cemetery

Just outside the cemetery gates, a less-fancy set-up (but a nice big smile)

I like Spanish cemeteries. They’re generally very well kept, filled with pencil pines and scattered with impressive, if sometimes somewhat chilling, sculptures and statues.  

The "Kiss of Death" sculpture in the Cementiri de Poblenou. 
Beautiful and someone chilling at the same time.

They’re also home to a style of internment I hadn’t seen in Anglo cemeteries: niches.
In Spain,in the cities at least, most of us live on top of each other in pisos (flats). And if you end up in a niche (which chances are you will), it's the same in death too.

As an aside, I wonder if any Almodóvar fans reading this think a couple of the photos above look a little familiar. If they do, it’s because I took them in Barcelona’s Cementiri de Montjuíc, scene of Rosa´s (Penelope Cruz) funeral in the wonderful film Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother).

Montjuíc Cemetery is spectacular. It seems to have been carved into the steep slopes of Montjuíc, the mountain that pops up right next to the city and port, forming terrace after terrace of tombs and niches, linked by winding, pencil-pine lined roads and perilous sets of steps.

It is on one of these sets of steps that Manuela finally meets up with her long-lost, dying, transsexual ex-husband Lola in one of the climaxes of All About My Mother.  So Almódovar.

Manuela (Cecilia Roth) and Lola (Toni Cantó) in the Cementiri de Montjuíc during Rosa's funeral 
- from Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother

But the Día de Todos los Santos is not just about cemeteries; it is also, in typically Spanish style, about food. Just about every Spanish holiday is typified by some type of food - especially something dulce (sweet).

Depending on where you are in the country, the tradition can be different, but there is one that is somewhat common and rather perfect for the day: Huesos de Santos – literally Saints' Bones. They’re little marzipan treats that are meant to resemble the tibia bone. It's a little shocking but actually very fitting for Spain’s Catholic traditions, in which relicarios (relics - basically saints' bones and body bits) are extremely important.

The traditional marzipan treats for the day: "Saints' Bones"

Here in Cataluña there is another traditional treat – Panellets. They’re little pastries that are packed full of sugar, apparently originally designed to keep people going through the long night from All Saints' Day to All Souls' Day (November 2) during which the church bells would ring all night.

Panellets on display in the escaperate (shop window) of my local cake shop

The bells no longer go all night, thank goodness, but the Panellets, happily, live on.