Splendid Salamanca

I left Barcelona on Thursday and took a nearly seven hour train trip down to Lorca, a town named for the famous poet Federico García Lorca. My objective? To see my Spanish family, the pastor and his wife and son I worked with in 2008 at the children's camp in Águilas.
During the train ride I was confronted with the dichotomies of Spain: Muslim immigrants from North Africa with fussing small children, the stereotypical sunburned retired Brits on holiday criticizing our four-minute lateness in loud English, and the rest of humanity plopped in seats, alternately fanning themselves, watching the subtitled movie, snoozing, or reading. As we raced through Valencia and into Murcia province, I thought about how different each region is in Spain. Every part has a different dance, food, and/or cultural slant, not to mention regional dialects.
And then I opened my mouth.

A gentleman to my right was listing to his companion all of the Spanish words with Arabic roots. Most words that begin with "al" are of this origin. Alcazar, Alhambra, etc. You can often tell the Moorish extraction of a town by its name. So I piped up "Alcalá," since the name of one of my favorite towns means "the fortress". The man, Sergio, smiled and through the course of the conversation (and the rest of the train ride) found out I was American and started quizzing me in Spanish. He explained that he was trying to teach English to his daughter and that one of the linguistic struggles of English-speakers was the "genderization" of nouns in Castilian. That meant it was time for a pop quiz. While we were waiting to get off the train, bags in hand, Sergio continued noun drills to the bemusement of some of the other passengers. Hey, free language lessons for the guiri!

When I arrived in Lorca, Esther and Paco scooped me up for the drive to Águilas and explained that because the George Borrow evangelical awards were in Salamanca this year, we would be driving north the next day to attend them.
I spent the following morning with Abraham talking about faith, life, and having a relationship with God even when you don't feel his presence. Please pray for the youth of Spain, especially the critically small second generation of evangelicals.
I felt a bit guilty because I have many Christian friends, a believing roommate, a church that holds me accountable and access to a nearly endless supply of books, music, and fellowship. Americans are spoiled to near apathy with spiritual resources. How would I soldier on if the only Christians I knew were my parents and a few precious church members? This is the reality for young Spanish believers.
So we left to go be with the multitude, as it were. The cloud of witnesses in Salamanca. Our group attending the Borrow awards was received in the government building by the mayor of the town. From across the room I spotted two familiar faces. Ken and Alison had traveled from Alcalá to attend! How wonderful it was to get to see them.
But the best part of all was listening to Pablo Wickham, one of the award recipients with more than 50 years serving in Spain, speaking about becoming a "hybrid" Englishman/Spaniard in Christ's service. I started to choke up when I heard him describing the long-time calling that eventually resulted in an incident where he realized he couldn't adequately express himself in his first language, but needed to switch to Castilian. I want to get to that point, to be so integrated into Spanish language and culture that I have trouble stepping outside of it. What a testament to the Lord's continual refining of Mr. Wickham.
We stayed near Salamanca, which is a gorgeous, historic university town. It's one of the few places in Spain where the Castilian is spoken with a flat accent, making it tremendously easier to understand. Paco, Esther, Abraham and I took a lovely walking tour of the city at dusk. In addition to the university, Salamanca also has a ton of Catholic churches, but it seemed that few have consistent services. It's also a stop on the pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostela, where legend holds the apostle James is buried. Abraham has a lovely post on Salamanca on his photography blog, and he mentions a certain American Hipster-Sister. Cough.
All too soon our time together drew to a close, and after the service at Pastor Timoteo's church  in Marín, we hurried over to the train station for a "quick lunch" (we had an hour - good thing they don't know about American working lunches!). Then they popped me on the train with my bags and too quickly I was again speeding through the Spanish countryside, trying to subtly wipe the tears on my Egyptian scarf and not sniffle too loudly while we passed through Ávila. It gets harder to leave every time.
On a positive note, I saw a huge stone building and thought, "hey, that looks a lot like El Escorial," and it was! I also saw a scrawny brown fox and a deer-type animal on this journey back to Madrid.
With a jolt I was back in Madrid, taking the Metro to my host's apartment, then quickly out again to walk around for my last evening in Spain. I rose early the next morning to navigate the Metro's infamous line 8 to the airport, and as the sun rose higher over the meseta I was herded onto the plane with the rest. I watched out the window until I saw the jagged line of Portugal meet the dark Atlantic.