You may or may not know that I come from Wales, in the United Kingdom. It’s a nation with its own identity and proud history despite being part of the UK and it’s also known as the Land of Song. I was once asked “Is it true that Wales is the land of song and, if so, why?” I realised that I couldn’t answer very well. I mumbled something about yes, Welsh people do like singing and music (but don’t all peoples) and ‘well, it must have something to do with chapels and singing hymns’. This led me to think that I really should investigate why Wales is so well known as the land of song.

For a country of 3 million people, we have a few well-known performers, you may have heard of Tom Jones[i], Shirley Bassey (who sang Goldfinger and Big Spender), Mary Hopkin (who sang Those Were the Days) or the opera singers Bryn Terfel and Catherine Jenkins.  We have very many choirs and probably the highest concentration of male voice choirs in the world.

Poetry, of course, is also very important to Welsh people. It’s believed that early poets used to sing their own poems.  Giraldus Cambrensis– Gerald of Wales– writing during the twelfth century, said of Welsh people: “In their musical concerts they do not sing in unison like the inhabitants of other countries, but in many different parts (…) and what is still more wonderful, the children, even from their infancy, sing in the same manner.”. So here we have the first indication that Welsh people were good singers even in the 12^th Century. However, the expression  ‘land of song’ comes from the 19^th Century.

What were the elements that led to Welsh people becoming so passionate about singing during the 19^th Century? I believe there are three main reasons for the fostering of interest in singing during this time. The first is the non-conformist chapels. Non-conformists were committed to  temperance and it was believed that chapel singing and regular choir practice would keep people busy and out of the way of the demon drink.

(click on watch on You Tube)

It’s quite ironic now to note that Welsh people’s love affair with hymns/religious songs means that old temperance songs are regularly sung in pubs sometimes without the singers even being aware of the original purpose of the hymn. [ii] In fact, the ‘hwyl’ or fervour which was said to be found in chapels is now more likely to be found in the singing of spectators at rugby games – rugby being the other activity for which Wales is famous. It is alleged that the singing of Welsh spectators is worth six points against the opposing team. Some rugby supporters might conclude from this that today’s singing is not as good as it was in the 1970s.

In addition to normal chapel services and choir practice, singing festivals called ‘cymanfa ganu’ and choir competitions were extremely popular.  The teaching of tonic solf-fa (the ‘movable do’ system using do, re, mi etc. instead of staff notation) at schools and Sunday schools (attended also by adults), greatly helped chapel congregations and choirs to sing by sight, without each member having to learn to read musical notation.

The second element to be considered is industry and its role in fostering male voice choirs. Many of the men’s choirs grew around coal mines, steelworks or slate mines, of which there were very many in 19^th Century Wales.[iii] Almost all of these works have closed now and unfortunately members of male voice choirs tend to be older. However, a choir composed entirely of younger men recently won a  UK-wide choir competition (the choir that came second was also from Wales, incidentally). Their aim is to show that being in a choir is cool. They even have a name that makes them sound more like a boy band than a choir – Only Men Aloud. They sing old traditional songs such as the hymn ‘Bread of Heaven/Cwm Rhondda,’ which is hugely popular in chapels and in rugby grounds alike, but with a modern twist. Perhaps there is hope for the future after all.

The third element, particularly for the 20% of the population who speak Welsh, the native Celtic language, is the eisteddfod tradition. Eisteddfods are competitions and festivals of music and literature. Many Welsh singers including baritone Bryn Terfel and tenor Rhydian Roberts, the latter having come to fame during a television singing contest, learnt to sing in public by participating and being judged at eisteddfods.

The tradition of the eisteddfod goes back centuries but it was again during the 19^th century that they were revived and became hugely popular. Singing competitions at the eisteddfod include classical music, arias and hymns of course but also Welsh folk music and a particular form of music unique to Wales called ‘cerdd dant’. ‘Cerdd dant goes back many centuries and consists of singing to the accompaniment of the harp in a way that gives the most emphasis to the words and the poetry, particularly poetry in strict metre characterised by the use of alliteration[iv]. The interesting thing is that the harpist plays a melody and the singer sings a counter melody. Originally the counter-melody had to be improvised but is now usually pre-arranged. The result is beautiful and distinctive music.

Chapel attendance has dwindled to a small proportion of the population, heavy industry has all but disappeared and, despite a growing number of second-language users, the Welsh language is under threat as a living community language. The future of Wales as the land of song seems to hang in the balance. I will try to find solace in the old saying: “To be born Welsh is to be born privileged, not with a silver spoon in your mouth but with music in your blood and poetry in your soul”.

Mr Toastmaster.

[ii] One of the most famous and popular with drinkers being ‘I bob un sy’n ffyddlon’

[iii] see Rhos Male Voice Choir and for a romanticised depiction of  singing coal miners see the film ‘How Green was my Valley?’

[iv] See explanation from www.cerdd-dant.org “The harp always plays a set melody – a traditional melody or a melody composed in the traditional style.  The singer waits for a few bars and then sings his or her words on a counter melody, ensuring that the main accents of the metre fall on the main accents of the harp melody.  The singer and harpist both have to end each verse together: the last word of each verse always falls on the main beat of the last bar in the harp melody.”

For samples of Welsh folk music see >Ar Lan y Môr, Suo Gân, Tra Bo Dau or Y ‘Deryn Pur

La noche de Brujas

Jack O Lantern from Wikimedia Commons

El 31 de octubre es una noche especial. Tal vez a vosotros, no os guste La Noche de Brujas /Halloween. Tal vez no os guste ver niños visitándoos sin invitación disfrazados de fantasmas, esqueletos, brujas, murciélagos, vampiros, zombis, duendes y otras criaturas aterradoras. Tal vez, vosotros, como un amigo mío pensáis que la noche de brujas o “Halloween” es sencillamente una fiesta Americana que hemos imitado en Europa y que no tiene nada de atractivo salvo para vender tonterías y decoraciones inútiles.

Yo intenté decirle a mi amigo que Halloween era celta y europeo, pero tuve que admitir que el “truco o trato” era una costumbre americana que llegó a Gran Bretaña (o que regresó) solamente en los años 80. Pero, a pesar de eso no se puede decir que es una fiesta totalmente extraña a nuestras culturas aquí en Europa. El nombre galés para Halloween es ‘Calan Gaeaf’. La palabra ‘calan’ se puede comparar con ‘calendae’ en latín, y quiere decir primer día del ano, ‘gaeaf’ es la palabra por el invierno. Entonces Calan Gaeaf es el primer día del año nuevo celta, o el primer día del invierno. En el otro ‘calan’ el 1ero de enero, niños galeses piden dinero o dulces de sus vecinos y familiares a cambio de poemas y deseos de buen año nuevo. Esta tradición todavía se practica en el suroeste de gales el primero de enero. El “truco o trato” a veces tiene mala reputación como una forma de mendicidad, de intimidación o incluso de vandalismo, pero tenemos que recordar que en la mayoría de los casos es una costumbre muy sociable y amistosa, que se puede comparar con la costumbre de ir de casa a casa cantando villancicos por navidad.

Cuando vine a Bruselas, aprendí que la gente aquí visitaba a los tumbas de familiares difuntos en el periodo de “Toussaint”.  Eso era nuevo para mí, no conocía la fiesta católica de todos los santos y todas las almas – mi abuela solía visitar las tumbas de la familia el domingo de Ramos.

Es verdad que esta fiesta se celebra muchísimo en Estados Unidos. Además del truco o trato la gente decora las casas, se disfraza adultos también, y participa en desfiles impresionantes. Es la segunda fiesta después de Navidad. En el siglo 17 los puritanos que llegaron de Inglaterra, conocían la tradición de Halloween pero no lo celebraban, siendo puritanos por supuesto. La tradición del Halloween fue llevada a Estados Unidos principalmente por los irlandeses que celebraban la fiesta de Samhain en su país. PERO  el lugar donde se encontró por primera vez una mención escrita de esta fiesta el este de Francia y se cree que viene del primer siglo y está escrito en el idioma celta de la Galia.* Para los celtas, el día de Samhain señalaba el fin de la cosecha, y las preparaciones para el invierno. Como vivían cerca de la naturaleza, es normal que este periodo perteneciese a la muerte y entonces a los muertos. Temiendo que familiares difuntos viniesen a visitarla, la gente dejaba comida para ellos, para aplacarlos. Más tarde, los pobres iban de puerta en puerta pidiendo comida, como hacen ahora los niños que hacen truco o trato. Unos dicen que la costumbre de ponerse mascaras era para confundirse con los muertos, para no ser reconocido por los fantasmas que andaban por la calle. Se supone que la importancia de la manzana para Halloween viene, no solo del hecho que las manzanas están disponibles en este tiempo sino también de la fiesta romana de La Pomona y quizás es de este que viene las tradiciones asociadas con las manzanas como el “bobbing for apples” donde hay que coger una manzana en un bol de agua con la boca y con los manos atadas a la espalda, muy difícil pero muy divertido. Se hacían fogatas para quemar los restos de la cosecha. Algunos creen también que los antiguos druidas (sacerdotes celtas) hacían sacrificios humanos en las fogatas de Halloween.

Cuando misioneros intentaron convertir a esos países donde se celebraba Samhain, vieron que las tradiciones estaban demasiado arraigadas para  eliminarlas y la iglesia Católica adoptó la fiesta de Samhain en la forma de los días de todos los santos y todas las almas. La palabra Halloween quiere decir ‘all hallowe’s eve’ o ‘víspera de todos los santos’. Los protestantes británicos, sí que quisieron eliminar la fiesta, suplantándola en Gran Bretaña con el día del 5 de noviembre, la noche de Guy Fawkes, que se llama también ‘Bonfire Night’ – Noche de las hogueras’ en memoria de un católico radical que intentó hacer explotar el parlamento y matar al rey en el siglo 17. La tradición de visitar a casas por Hallowen fue reemplazada por la tradición de buscar dinero para hacer un efigie de ese Guy Fawkes que se ponía  en el fuego. De todas formas, soe puede suponer que, aunque Guy Fawkes se celebra mucho hoy y que el “truco o trato” en su versión americano solo llegó a Inglaterra y a Gales en los años 80, Halloween nunca despareció de Gran Bretaña.

Para la gran desgracia de los mejicanos el Halloween está llegando también en su país, mezclándose con la fiesta mejicana del Día de los Muertos. Tradicionalmente, los mejicanos celebran una fiesta que es una mezcla de antiguas tradiciones indígenas de la muerte y las fiestas católicas de todos los santos y todas las almas donde la muerte está verdaderamente celebrada en una manera que no tiene nada de macabra, con gusto y sin miedo. La gente visita y se queda mucho tiempo en los cementerios dando ofrendas a sus familiares. Se vende una gran variedad de dulces y caramelos incluso calaveras de azúcar que se come con mucho placer. Sin embargo, los mejicanos de hoy tienen mucho miedo que Halloween corrompa la manera particularmente mejicana de celebrar la muerte. Si pensáis que en Europa el dominio americano nos molesta, en Méjico es peor. Pienso en la expresión conocida: ‘pobre Méjico, tan lejos de Dios, tan cerca de Estados Unidos’.

Dia de los Muertos from Wikimedia Commons

A pesar del deseo de algunos mejicanos de conservar la pureza de su Día de los Muertos, hay que notar que es una fiesta, como tantas otras que es una mezcla, una sincretización,  de muchas tradiciones. Por eso creo que lo tendríamos que conservar, como conservamos todas esas tradiciones que nos vinculan a nuestra historia, como el carnaval de Binche o la fiesta de Navidad, que era antes la fiesta de la mitad del invierno. También, es una oportunidad de sentirnos, nosotros urbanos, asociados a la comunidad, es decir a nuestros vecinos y también a todos los humanos porque la muerte, la consideremos como algo muy serio como en la tradición de Halloween, o de manera más jovial como los mejicanos, no se puede evitar.

Señor Toastmaster.

*http://www.imbas.org/articles/samhain.html

A celebration of the first 'landing'. Photo from Wikipedia Commons

Madam Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, most welcome guests

The theme of the evening is discovery. Tonight I will tell you a story about a group of people who discovered a new land and a new life. A group of people who, like Christopher Columbus, travelled from Europe to the Americas. Like Columbus, they didn’t understand exactly where they were going or what they were getting into. Columbus thought he was going to India, but in fact arrived in America. Similarly this group of Welsh people thought they were going to a green valley, a kind of promised land or a utopia, but reality was not quite the same. Their aim was to set up a new ‘Wales’ in the Americas. They found land in Patagonia in Argentina and negotiated with the Argentine government, which was keen for this land to be populated. Some Welsh people in the 19^th century were troubled by the decline in the Welsh language,  a preoccupation by the way that is still prevalent in Wales now, and wanted to start a colony where their linguistic and cultural rights would be respected.  The organizers of this expedition had noticed that Welsh migrants to north America usually assimilated very quickly and lost their Welsh identity. The solution, or so thought the leader Michael D. Jones, was to find an isolated, uninhabited area. The organizers explained to their compatriots that they would be able to start again and have a prosperous, happy life in Patagonia.

So, in 1865, 153 people set sail on a ship called the Mimosa from Wales to Patagonia. They arrived on the coast, a town they later named Porth or Puerto Madryn after the house name of one of the settlers. Here is a quote from one of the settlers when she arrived on the beach in Patagonia:

“There we were landing at Madryn, and nothing, no nothing, but desert, desert, desert. Well, I sat down and tears rolled down my cheeks.” (Source: John Davies) The settlers had been somewhat misled: the land they would occupy in the lower Chubut valley was an arid desert and incredibly difficult to farm, at least not using the kind of farming techniques you can use in the lowlands of Wales which are green and relatively fertile. The first years in the new colony, were challenging to say the least.

Of course, when you go to set up a colony in a new country, one complication is that there may be people already living there. The area was occasionally visited by nomadic native Americans who lived nearby and the new settlers were raided a few times when they first arrived. However, with time relations with the Tehuelche people became the great success of this colony. They became friends, called each other ‘hermanos’ and traded with each other. When the Welsh people’s harvest failed, their indigenous friends taught them how to hunt so that they could survive. They learned to communicate with each other, the natives becoming particularly keen on the Welsh word ‘bara’ , the bread they were given when they visited. Some of the descendants of the Teheulche are able to speak Welsh to this day, and they participate in the eisteddfodau, which are Welsh poetry and music festivals, held in the Welsh area of Patagonia as they are in Wales itself.

Within a few years one of the women settlers suggested that if irrigation channels were dug around the Chubut river, the settlers would be able to cultivate the land. The settlers worked hard on this task and eventually created Argentina’s most fertile wheatlands. They also built a railway for transporting provisions. There were also other positive things: all men and women over 18 were given the vote, making the area the first example of partial democracy in South America. The Welsh built schools and chapels and continued to be very devout, refusing for example to hunt on Sundays with the Tehuelche or later, when the Argentinian government brought in national service, to go to military drills on Sunday. It seems, however, that some of them softened their stance on alcohol and, while remaining teetotal themselves, sold it to the Tehuelche.  They also created a second settlement, closer to the Andes where the land was less dry. Some of the settlers moved to the areas around Trevelin (means mill town in Welsh). This was an area claimed by both Chile and Argentina but the presence of Welsh settlers with ties in the Chubut valley helped secure the area for Argentina. It is recorded that the Welsh voted for the territory to stay in Argentina, thus demonstrating their loyalty to their adopted country.

However, relations with the Argentinian government did not remain harmonious. After a few years, the government reneged on its promise to allow the Welsh autonomy in the provinces they inhabited and Spanish was enforced in schools, so the settlers were now ironically facing a similar situation to the one they had faced at home in Wales where they had to fight for the rights of the Welsh language faced with English domination. What is more, the Argentinian government, under pressure from European governments keen to colonise further areas of Argentina, engaged in a ‘conquest for the desert’ against the native population, using the Welsh as pawns in the government’s fight  with their friends the Tehuelche. After some time, the Argentinian government also allowed many other nationalities to settle in the area, making a mockery of the idea of a ‘new Wales beyond Wales’ as the Welsh now became the minority.

There were no further migrations from Wales after 1912. In most ways, then, the Welsh discovered that it is not easy to find a new paradise. The attempt to create a Welsh colony in Patagonia failed. However, Welsh influence can still be seen in the area. The Welsh-Argentine community now consists of around 20,000 people, including people of mixed origin,  with possibly 2 000 of them being able to speak Welsh. Relations between Wales and Patagonia have been strengthened and people in the area, of various origins are proud of the Welsh connection. If you ever go to Gaiman, Trelew, Dolafon, Trevelin or Puerto Madryn, make sure you sample some Welsh cakes in one of the traditional tea houses there.

There was no television in 1865 so the Welsh could not know what the terrain of Patagonia was like. The fact that the Argentinian government would eventually not tolerate an autonomous territory could possibly have been predicted along with the inevitability of conflict between the authorities and the native populations. The Welsh discovery might not have been such a disappointment if they had realised that ‘the grass is not always greener’ on the other side.

Madam Toastmaster.

Although the story recounted above is true, I cannot be sure that the facts are accurately reported in my speech or that the order of events is correct.

My sources and links to further information:

Wikipedia

‘Glaniad’ (Welsh for ‘landing’) is a website which tells the story of the Welsh emigrants who settled in Patagonia

John Davies

LA Times article

Documentary on YouTube

Chapter in A Brief History of Wales

YouTube video on Welsh culture in Patagonia (in Spanish and Welsh) and here

YouTube videos in Spanish on the Chubut Eisteddfod, relations between the Welsh and the Tehuelche and the role of a horse named Malacara in the Welsh settlers’ move to the Andes area

Mr Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, most welcome guests

Tonight, I am going to talk about people who live in a country that is not theirs.

First of all, what is an expatriate? According to a recent study people in Brussels believe that an expatriate is someone who comes here for professional reasons or because they want to experience living abroad, an experience that is more often than not temporary. Immigrants, on the other hand, are considered people who move countries for reasons of economic need, for example from a poor country to a rich country and often permanently. The study showed that Belgians tend to think that expatriates earn a lot of money. I can tell you that this is not true for all expats, for example those working for NGOs and anyone working on a normal Belgian contract rather than a special expat deal. Another conclusion was, and I suppose this won’t come as a surprise to you, that expats form a separate community apart from Belgians and do not mix much. In my talk this evening, I would like to give you some examples from my own life and that of others, which I believe support the conclusions of this study.

I have a confession to make. I don’t have any Belgian friends. I work with Belgians, I speak fluent French and a little bit of Dutch but I haven’t managed to do what I set out to do when I arrived in Belgium back in the year 2000, which  is to integrate. At the beginning I made some efforts. I read the Vif magazine as much as I did the Bulletin (English-language magazine for expats)  and I tried to learn as much as possible about my new country. But, as you can see, the plan didn’t work and I’ve found myself leading an expat life. All my friends are foreigners, I talk to them in English. I buy my English-language books through Amazon and buy women’s magazines that cost much more in English than in French. I belong to a social group for expats. One of our members decided to organise a Belgian evening where each person was supposed to bring a Belgian friend. The organiser wore a scarf with the colours of the Belgian flag for this event. Of course, nobody had Belgian friends so the beginning of the evening was expat only. When, finally a Belgian person arrived he asked the organiser, “why are you wearing a scarf with the German flag?”

Who is to blame for this situation? The foreigners or the Belgians? In theory we are the ones who should make the effort but it’s not always easy to adapt oneself to a new country where the people already have their own friends and families and it’s much easier to spend time with other foreigners who are experiencing the same situation. Most of the expats I know haven’t succeeded in integrating, some have not even attempted it, and Belgians are still something of a mystery to us. We read newspapers from our own countries and are better informed of far-away places than where we live.

However, someone like me who has been in Belgium for 9 years feels like a foreigner in their own country as well and this is the real problem of many Brussels expats – we find ourselves in a type of limbo or no-man’s land between two worlds. I read in an article by a fellow Welsh person in the Bulletin that, ‘there is a deeper reason for the itchiness felt by so many long-term expats. They have abandoned their home countries but feel little attachment to their adopted land – unless they have married a local or live outside of the EU-bubble. So they become foreigners at home and abroad, condemned to a life of rootlessness, overpriced newspapers, tacky Irish pubs, leaving parties and [for some] political disenfranchisement.’ Well, if some of you are expats, I hope you won’t feel unhappy after my speech. Further on in the article, the journalist shows that expats condemned to a rootless life can still have a sense of humour. In reply to the question ‘So, are you Belgian yet’, he replies ‘how can I be something that doesn’t exist?’.

So, how can someone escape from this limbo?

I have already established that I will not integrate completely in Belgian society. I also feel strange in my own country. Now I can keep in touch with what’s happening at home more than ever before with the Internet, Facebook, news on the web etc. But, it’s not the same thing. Things change. When I think of Wales, I think of the Wales of 10 years ago as seen through the eyes of a 23 year old girl. It’s important not to look back through rose-tinted glasses and to think that if I went back I would automatically feel at home. What is the solution in my case? Should I leave Brussels where I’m relatively happy, where being a foreigner is ‘normal’ or should I go back to the country I love so much, but that is no longer really ‘home’.

Fellow toastmasters, I didn’t want to depress you tonight, but rather to explain my vision of the expatriate life and particularly that feeling of not being at home anywhere. I hope I have shown that the conclusions of the study I mentioned earlier reflect the reality for me and those I know. We expatriates are forced to form our own community because we don’t belong to any other.

Mr Toastmaster.

Señor Toastmaster, compañeros toastmasters, bienvenidos invitados,

Por favor levante la mano si es expatriado o extranjero.

Bueno, de esto voy a hablar esta tarde, de la experiencia que tenemos todos al vivir en un país que no es el nuestro.

Primero voy a intentar definir qué es un expatriado, luego debatiré si los expatriados forman parte de su país adoptivo o no y finalmente, hablaré un poco de las desventajas de esta manera de vivir.

¿Que es un expatriado? Según un estudio reciente, la gente de Bruselas piensa que un expatriado/expatriada es alguien que viene aquí por razones profesionales o porque quiere experimentar la vida en el extranjero, una experiencia que puede ser temporal. Los emigrantes, al contrario, están considerados como gente que cambia de país por razones de necesidad económica, por ejemplo que van de un país pobre a un país rico y a menudo de por vida. El estudio mostró también que los Belgas piensan que los expatriados ganan mucho dinero. Yo les puedo decir que eso no se aplica a todo el mundo y el estudio da ejemplos de gente que trabaja en ONGs que no tienen tanto dinero. Otra conclusión era que, y supongo que no será una sorpresa para ustedes, la comunidad expatriada forma una comunidad aparte de los belgas y que los dos grupos no se mezclan mucho. En mi charla de esta tarde, quiero darles unos ejemplos de mi propia vida y de las de otros, que yo creo que apoyan lo que dice este estudio.

Tengo que hacer una confesión. Salvo un par de excepciones, no tengo amigos belgas. Trabajo con belgas, hablo francés y un poco de neerlandés pero no he logrado  hacer lo que quería cuando vine en Belgica en el año 2000 (sí, hace mucho tiempo), es decir, integrarme. Al principio, hacía esfuerzos. Veía la televisión belga, leía le Vif tanto como el Bulletin e intenté aprender todo lo posible sobre mi nuevo país. Pero, como veis, el plan no funcionó y en lugar de eso me encontré en una vida de expatriada. Todos mis amigos son otros extranjeros, hablo inglés, leo periódicos en inglés y tengo que pagar más dinero por mis libros que compro en Amazon y por revistas femeninas que cuestan tres veces más en ingles que en francés. Me parece que muchas de las personas que conozco tienen experiencias parecidas. Un ejemplo: yo pertenezco a un grupo social para expatriados, uno de nuestros miembros decidió organizar una ‘noche Belga’. La idea era de conocer a más belgas, hacer amistades, etc. El organizador llevó una bufanda con los colores de la bandera nacional. Cada uno de los participantes tenía que llevar a un amigo belga. Bueno, llegamos, éramos quizás 20 extranjeros, y al final llegó un Belga, que preguntó  “¿por que llevas una bufanda con la bandera alemana? ” Esa fue la única vez que intentamos la idea de la noche belga.

¿Quien tiene la culpa de esta situación? ¿Los extranjeros o los belgas?. En teoría somos nosotros los que debemos hacer el esfuerzo pero no es fácil adaptarse a un nuevo país donde la gente ya tiene amigos y familias y es mucho más fácil hablar con otros extranjeros que viven en situaciones parecidas. La mayoría de nosotros no hemos logrado integrarnos o no lo hemos intentado y los belgas siguen siendo un misterio para nosotros. Leemos periódicos de nuestros países de origen y estamos mejor informados sobre países lejanos que sobre el lugar donde vivimos. Sin embargo, alguien como yo que lleva 9 años en Bélgica se siente extranjera también en su propio país y este es el verdadero problema de algunos de los expatriados que viven en Bruselas, nos encontramos en una especie de ‘limbo’ o una ‘tierra de nadie’ entre dos mundos.  Leí  en el Bulletin que, y traduzco del ingles, ‘hay razones profundas para el ‘malestar’ de los expatriados de largo duración. Han abandonado sus países pero no se sienten muy vinculados a su país adoptivo – salvo si están casados con belgas o si viven fuera de la “burbuja” de la UE. Por eso se sienten extranjeros en casa y fuera, condenados a una vida desprovista de raíces, a periódicos carísimos, a fiestas de despedida, a pubs irlandeses y, a veces, sin derecho a votar’. Bueno, espero que nadie se suicide después de mi presentación. Más adelante, en el artículo el periodista muestra también que hay expatriados condenados a vidas desarraigadas que tienen un sentido del humor. En respuesta a la pregunta,   “Entonces ¿eres belga ya?”, contestó: “Cómo puedo ser algo que no existe?”

Tendría que explicarles que el autor de este articulo también es galés, como yo, lo que  me lleva a mi última pregunta. ¿Cómo salir del limbo?

Ya hemos establecido que no voy a integrarme por completo en la sociedad belga. También me siento extraña en mi país. Ahora más que nunca, uno puede seguir lo que pasa en su país a través de Internet etc. Pero no es lo mismo. Las cosas cambian, pero yo no lo vivo. Yo, cuando pienso en Gales, pienso en el Gales de una chica de 23 años. Es importante también no idealizar el pasado y pensar que si volviese a mi país, me sentiría en casa. Por desgracia, no tengo  la solución. ¿Debería quedarme en Bruselas donde estoy bastante feliz, donde el hecho de ser extranjera es ‘normal’ y no llama la atención o debería volver al país de donde soy?

Compañeros toastmasters, no he querido deprimirles, sino que he intentado explicar un poco mi visión de la vida expatriada y en particular este sentimiento de no ser de  ningún sitio. No debe sorprender a nadie entonces que lo que se dijo en el reportaje de este estudio que mencioné al principio sea verdad. Los expatriados estamos obligados a formar nuestra propia comunidad porque no pertenecemos a ninguna otra.

Señor toastmaster

Welsh flag, thanks to Wikipedia Commons

Mr toastmaster,

Fellow toastmasters, most welcome guests

Today I walked past a woman in the supermarket who had a magazine on her head. I’ve seen her many times, always with the magazine covering the top of her head. I walk past barely noticing her. When I see people collecting for charity or conducting market research, holding clipboards in the street I walk away trying to not even catch their eye. What does this mean about me?

It means, ladies and gentlemen, that I have become a city girl, an urbanite. A person who barely recognises her neighbours let alone is friends with them, a person who has almost become accustomed to the mass of people in the metro and the shopping centre and who walks past beggars and tramps without a second glance.

The other day somebody posted a photo of me on Facebook. In the photo I am seven years old and it’s the official photo of my school at the time. This was a small village school. The photo of around 20 children and two teachers, is the whole school. When I looked at this photo, a printed version of which hangs on my parents’ wall in their house in Wales, memories came flooding back of my formative years between 1 and 8 years old in the tiny village in North Wales.

The small size of the school meant that everyone knew each other, the older children looked after the younger ones. The school was also the heart of the community. About 90% of the children came from homes where the Welsh language is spoken (Welsh is a Celtic language, not related to English) and in my time half the children in the school had Jones as a surname so that we could organise games and quizzes on the basis of ‘the Joneses’ versus the rest, even though in the Welsh countryside most people are known by their first name and the name of their house or farm, and not as the stereotype goes, by their occupation. On one of the many occasions when the school was threatened with closure, one of the village stalwarts declared that moving the children of this village from the local school to a neighbouring school would be like moving children from heaven to hell. How blessed am I then to have spent the first few years of my life in this heaven (and possibly also to have avoided spending the difficult years of adolescence there and losing my innocent  rose-tinted view of that village).

The poet R.S. Thomas famously wrote that Welsh people are a people ‘sick with inbreeding’. I will not refute the inbreeding part. One of my preoccupations as a little girl in my village school, whose parents were not native to the area was finding a family connection with my school friends who all seemed related to each other. I finally discovered that the late wife of my grandmother’s uncle was related to a woman who married into one of the local farming families. As all the other local families seemed connected to this one, I persuaded myself that I was also related to my fellow villagers.

Now, this is a small village. You might think there’s not much to do there, no pub, no restaurant, no cinema, no swimming pool, and even no toastmasters club. But you would be mistaken, this part of North Wales is culturally very rich. Oh, I don’t mean culture like opera and classical music, but amateur culture. Poetry competitions, singing competitions and general competitions called in Welsh ‘eisteddfod’. The  eisteddfod was famous. The highlight is the competition for the chair, given to the best poet for an ode (a long poem) written according to very strict poetic rules. Singing is also important, not only the male-voice choirs for which Wales is famous but also choirs of women, mixed choirs and children’s choirs. The songs include religious songs or hymns, folk singing and a form of singing special to Wales and popular in this area called ‘cerdd dant’ or ‘penillion’ singing, sung to the accompaniment of the harp.

Various events would be held in the village hall and everybody was expected to attend. If you couldn’t make it, you sent your apologies. There were three non-conformist chapels (small churches), two Independent chapels and one from the Methodist denomination. Even those children who did not attend Sunday school regularly joined for the trip/excursion, the chapel eisteddfod and the ‘session’, a special lunch with games for the children. At Sunday School as well, we learned sol-fa, that is we learnt to sing on sight in four-part harmony. The local section of the Urdd, which is the Welsh youth league, was very active, competing all over Wales and often successful.

Being a small, rural village there were also agricultural shows with competitions for cookery, gardening and, of course this being Wales, a country with three times more sheep than people – sheep dog trials. Some of the local young people even visited New Zealand to study sheep rearing there. Events at the village hall led to terrible rivalry between the Women’s Institute, a women’s club which also exists in England and the Welsh version ‘Merched y Wawr’ (women of the dawn). The two groups would take turns to provide the food and refreshments for special events and each time one group had to do better  (i.e. provide a better provision of food) than the other. When a local woman got married, a struggle would ensue among the two groups, each anxious to ensure she joined their particular movement.

Rural people, peasants might be inbred, we might lack sophistication and knowledge of the outside world, we might not eat foreign food or be cosmopolitan but my experience in this particular small village shows how much cohesion you can have in this kind of community. The village Eisteddfod is no longer held. The Welsh language still thrives there but is under threat in general in Wales along with the culture that goes with it. To my shame, I am doing nothing to prevent the disappearance of my language, my culture and my people. In Welsh we have a word ‘hiraeth’ meaning a combination of longing, nostalgia and homesickness, somewhat similar to the Portuguese word ‘saudade’. I can only hope that my early years in that ‘heaven’ were not wasted on me and that I will one day return to Wales and be able to do something to help the people among whom I grew up keep our language and culture for generations to come.

Mr Toastmaster.