Trying to get by

For the third day in a row I’m sitting in the sun having breakfast at a pavement café.  This doesn’t really fit with the spending plan, but right now I’m seeing the whole thing as an extended holiday – on a very elastic rope.  There’s no return ticket, except for something marked “necessity”, which sits in a drawer next to something marked “happiness”.

I’m looking straight across the plaza to the room I rent.  I should be having breakfast in the kitchen with the others, but the sun brought me out in the same way it brought out the roadside flowers a couple of weeks back, just before the rain and cold cowed them.  I’ve accepted an errand to buy a baguette from the panaderia to assuage my guilt.  Always the guilt. 

A lone trumpeter goes through his endless repertoire of two songs.  The church congregation files past him, heading for breakfast.

I met a man yesterday.  I’d bought a burger from the independent hamburgueseria I use and was eating it on a corner at the back of Plaza Mayor.  Returning tourists have given the traders and beggars a new impetus.  The man was sitting opposite with his cup extended into the flow, occasionally wobbling it to remain visible.

I felt awkward pulling chips one at a time from the bag and eating them.  When the chips were gone, I pulled out the burger and opened the bun to discard the tomato slice.  I glanced across and saw the man watching.  I nodded.  He returned the gesture.

What a heart-warming moment it would be if I was to write that I’d walked over and given him the burger.  But I didn’t.  I took a bite out of it.  I was hungry, too, and my mind was fixed on lining my stomach before drinking a gintonic in Pza de la Cruz Verde.

When I finished the burger, I wiped my hands and mouth on the wrapper and walked over.  We greeted each other with “Buenas dias”.  Most Africans in Madrid seem to come from Senegal – Spanish speakers.

This sun is good on my back.

I asked where he was from: “De donde eres?”

He eyes and voice were soft and friendly as he spoke.  He said he was from The Gambia.  “Y tu?”

I told him I was English. 

“So you speak English?” he asked.

I nodded: “Madrid’s a long way from The Gambia.”

“Si, a long way.” he answered.

I asked how long he’d been here: six months in Spain; one month in Madrid.

I took out a euro and dropped it in his cup. 

It’s around eight months since I arrived.  Things are only very slowly coming together.  It’s hard work.

“Buena suerte.” I said.  Good luck.  And I meant it.

He smiled back: “Buena suerte.”

We’re all just trying to get by.