It's raining, do I still have to save the world?

I was planning an amusing blog entry, but couldn't find the event that was supposed to happen.

First off, I should say for all those readers out there in the blogosphere that it's not snowing.  Somewhat north of here (in much of Castilla-León) it is snowing, and El País is reporting three deaths and multiple cut highways due to a winter storm.  The Guardian is also reporting that trains and roads are closed in Britain, which is getting a heavy dumping of snow (probably a lot heavier than northern Spain, to be honest), and I assume the same conditions prevail across much of the EU.  So, I'm lucky it's not snowing.

It's raining.  A lot.

After the super-dry autumn this is hopefully good for the reservoirs (though El País now is saying there are flood warnings for the Duero, so I don't know how much they'll be able to hold onto the water).  However, it also seems to have rained out an event I was planning to go to in order to spice up this relatively dull blog, as the last week or so since my return from Malaga has been quietly curled up reading articles, and doing a bit of outlining, and writing, which is not very interesting.  (That is, I think the content is interesting, but the process is not interesting to write about.)  I am giving a couple of guest lectures at the Complutense in a few weeks time, which I will report back on, but in the meantime yesterday on the way to the metro I passed a flyer pasted on a bus shelter calling for a "manifestación" to give Carabanchel its own Centro de Salud.  It was one of those wordy posters that explains the many years that the residents of Carabanchel have been forced to go out of their neighborhood to a different Centro de Salud for healthcare, with lots of statistics, some of which are repeated here.


Anyway, the relevant thing was that the demonstration was supposed to be today, and was supposed to end up at the metro Marques de Vadillo, which is on my way home anyway.  I haven't been to any political demonstrations since coming to Madrid (though I've been invited to any number online, most of them sadly on a different continent), so I thought it would be interesting to go along and take some pictures, and get a sense of the crowd, even though this is really not my issue, since aside from being only temporarily a resident here, unless I somehow wangle EU citizenship I'm not allowed to use the Centros de Salud anyway, and have to go to the special tourist hospital at the other end of the city if necessary.  (Hence my determination to not make it necessary.)  In fact, I wonder if the shameful lack of a health center for Carabanchel (which isn't that much of a lack, since there are two just outside the borders of the neighborhood as strictly drawn, and within easy walking distance) has to do with the fact that this is a neighborhood with a lot of non-EU immigrants, who aren't that concerned with health centers, since while they're in legal limbo as non-citizens (and presumably before obtaining whatever the equivalent is of permanent resident status, which requires several years wait) they can't use the Centros de Salud anyway, so why make a fuss about it?  (In related news, El País recently ran an exposé about several of the private companies in Catalunya which have been charging way above the approved rates for standard procedures for foreign tourists, including EU nationals.  The German health insurers and the NHS complained when they figured out that they were being illegally hit with costs about 150% above normal, leading to the lawsuit and the exposé.  What the article was too polite to say was that the company got away with it for a long time because a significant number of the tourists they charged were Americans, who have no sense of healthcare pricing in Europe, and pay without complaint.)  Spain has denied public healthcare to undocumented immigrants since 2012, and people who worry about such things regularly complain that hospitals also deny service to immigrants who are legally entitled to it, so having a demonstration in favor of opening a new health center in an immigrant neighborhood is a bit like trying to get fish to show up to agitate for an undersea bicycle lane.  I thought I should go along to show support and solidarity as a healthy non-clinic using immigrant for critical mass.

Sadly, when I emerged from the metro at Marques de Vadillo after some time at the Biblioteca Nacional this evening it was totally dark and pouring rain, and I saw no collection of umbrellas.  Nor did I hear speeches or see lights.  It was after 7:30, and the demonstration was supposed to start at 6:30, but even given Spanish approach to hours, it seemed not in evidence.  So I went and waited for a bus up the Calle General Ricardos, because I didn't feel like sloshing up the hill with wet feet.

While I waited for the bus I looked at the nice electronic display at the bus stop which says how many minutes away each of the four lines that stop there are (it's really miraculous technology), and alternates with a weather report (which said that there was a low of 8 and a high of 12 and that it was -- surprise -- cloudy and raining).  To my surprise, the amazing electronic display also alternated with a sign that clearly said "MANIFESTACIÓN CARABANCHEL 18:30-20:30: Puede que nuestras líneas tendrá cambios de servicio o de frecuencia."  So the bus company knew that there was supposed to be a demonstration, and that traffic was supposed to be closed in at least one lane in at least one direction.  And yet, there was nothing but the splish of cars heading up and down the avenue.

I checked my phone while waiting for the bus to see if I had mistaken the location of the demonstration, and found that indeed it was supposed to end at the Plaza Marques de Vadillo (which is by the river, and thus as close as you can get to the city center and remain in the neighborhood, since the river divides us from the "gente de bien" on the other side.  It was supposed to start at the "Plaza de Oporto" which I naively assume to be by the Oporto metro.  So I took the bus up the hill, keeping a wary eye out (through the windshield, since all the side windows were fogged) for flashing lights, large groups of people and/or umbrellas, loud whistles or chanting, or other tell tale signs of a demonstration.  Nothing.  I got off a bit before the Oporto metro because I saw flashing lights, but it turned out to be just a motorcyclist who had been knocked off his bike (and didn't look in too good shape, and had a lot of concerned cops around him, which is a shame and I hope he's ok, but it was not a demonstration, except insofar as it was a practical demonstration of why having an ambulance nearby would have been helpful).  I didn't get quite to the Oporto Metro because it was really raining hard, and my feet were wet, and it was by then nearly 8:00, and it seemed impossible to me that if there had been a march as well as a demonstration the march would not have started marching toward me by that point.  So I turned off the Calle General Ricardos and went home and put on dry slippers.

Gatos that they are, madrileños apparently spend weeks organizing manifestaciones, getting the appropriate permits and informing the authorities so that public transit knows to divert buses if necessary, and posting flyers all around the neighborhood....and then don't show up if it rains really hard.  (It wasn't even that cold.)  When I think of the times I've stood listening to speakers in drizzle at demonstrations in New York and DC, or the way I almost got frostbite in my toes from not wearing proper shoes during that freezing February on Second Avenue in 2003 when a million of us tried (and failed) to stop the invasion of Iraq....  It's not that people here aren't politically aware (in general they are), but they really really don't like getting wet.  (More seriously, as I speculated above, I wonder how many people in the community would be ineligible to use the health center and are thus not too committed to the cause.)  So on the one hand a fifteen year struggle to open a health center in Carabanchel to fulfill a real and vital need of the community, and on the other hand, wet feet.

I will have to find another demonstration to go to and take pictures of for the blog.  In the meantime, I have filetes de merluza in the refrigerator, and will now happily make dinner, listening to the rain outside.  Stay warm and dry, everybody.