Tuesday, November 15, 2005

On loving Spain, Madrid but not Oates

Just got back from a very relaxing four days in Madrid, my first visit there. I love Spain, there's just a certain warmth and openness I find in the people that is unrivalled in other parts of Europe. I suppose it's what the French would call joie de vivre. Plus, I never seem to get the hassles at Spanish immigration that seem de rigueur almost everywhere else. And the food is probably as close to Naija food as it gets- this time I had a lovely callos madrilenos, a stew of tripe and cow foot which with a little bit of red hot pepper, would have rivalled any of the steaming products of the bukaterias in Obalende.....stickiness and all, pity they didn't have the bowls of water with bars of Lux soap floating in them and a ragged towel for cleaning up after washing your hands.....

I was finally able to finish Michela Wrong's I Didn't do it for You which taught me so much about the history of Eritrea and Ethiopia and made me want to visit Asmara, the Italianate capital of Eritrea. The story of the Eritrean people's struggle for independence and their subsequent history is at once both heartwarming and heartbreaking......

I'm also well into Esi Edugyan's The Second Life of Samuel Tyne and find it a remarkable achievement, although the style and theme , almost Gothic is not exactly my favourite style.....she's been compared to Joyce Carol Oates and I have never yet got round to reading a single Oates

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